Reading

So there’s this nifty blog I’ve discovered, Den of the Biting Beaver. I first found her when the Carnival of Feminists linked to her back in September.

That entry was about the problems she had getting emergency contraception after her bf’s condom broke. Now, EC is available over the counter now, but you still need a note from a doctor to get it — and none of the doctors in Beaver’s rural Ohio community would give her one. They all put her through a series of questions and when they heard she hadn’t been raped and wasn’t married, they wouldn’t give it to her. And it was a weekend, so Planned Parenthood was closed and she couldn’t get it there. She wound up getting some after the weekend, figuring better late than never.
Now, keep in mind that EC is not the same as “the abortion pill.” EC keeps you from ovulating if you haven’t already, and if you have and the egg gets fertilized, it keeps that from implanting in the lining of the uterus. If you’re already pregnant, it doesn’t do a damn thing.
Well. Beaver got a shitload of nasty comments about her EC post. I mean, a ton. It took two posts (here’s the second) for her to go over them for her readers. It’s not surprising that the forced-birth camp is full of so many nasty people. I feel awful that Beaver had all that vile stuff in her inbox. Some folks even sent her “helpful” emails with herbs she could try – all of which would have killed her! Gah.
She dealt with it really well, and even wrote a hilarious explanation of her theories about souls and the afterlife and how that relates to her abortion politics. (Read it, it’s awesome). She also did a really interesting and thoughtful post about man-hating.
Then came the scary part. The EC failed. She posted a powerful essay about how she was feeling. I insist anybody who gets mad about women refering to fetii as “parasites” read it. Seriously. It’s awesome.
After a short hiatus, she wrote about why she was blogging all this in such detail and mused about the whole situation.
I have linked to all this in the hopes that more people – especially any on the fence about abortion – will take a look at her posts. Yes, they’re long. But they’re essential reading for anyone who wants to be informed about the issue.