First Live Radio of "Words of Choice": Dedicated to Dr.Tiller on WBAI's Joy of Resistance

Live radio performances are rare today, and especially in the world of theater. But in a Special Evening edition of the feminist radio program Joy of Resistance, the cast from Words of Choice will step up to three microphones in the studio of WBAI 99.5fm in New York and present our second collection of works, as toured to Colorado and Kansas late last year.

The show will be on the air on Monday, June 29, from 9 pm-11 pm (eastern standard time) will also stream live and may be heard on any computer through www.wbai.org (see Listen Live link on the right).

The show is dedicated to Dr. George Tiller, murdered in Kansas less than a month ago. In October, Words of Choice cast members performed in Wichita to support Dr. Tiller and to honor pro-choice activitists in that state.

Performing in the live radio version will be Crista Marie Jackson, Carl H. Jaynes and Claudia Schneider, under the direction of Francesca Mantani Arkus. Following the performance, the cast members and Cindy Cooper, playwright and coordinator, will describe the responses of audiences on their travels. Also joining in the conversation will be Marilyn Torres, who was part of a cast that traveled to South Dakota in 2006 when voters were considering an abortion ban (ultimately defeated). She will perform a selection from the collection of works presented at that time.

WBAI is a listener sponsored progressive radio station in New York, described as a "peace and justice community radio" on its website is one of a small number of progressive stations in the nation. LaVarn Williams is the interim general manager.

The live performance of Words of Choice is a special edition of Joy of Resistance: Multicultural Feminist Radio, hosted by Fran Luck. It is, she says, WBAI's only dedicated feminist program. "WBAI at 99.5 fm has served the tri-state area since 1960 as part of the Pacifica Radio Network, a critically needed alternative to corporate media," said Luck. "Joy of Resistance brings listeners coverage of the ongoing worldwide struggle for women's full social equality." Joy of Resistance normally airs on the first Thursday of every month at 11 a.m. and can be reached at joyofresistance@wbai.org or 212-209-2987.

A "virtual theater program" is posted on the WBAI website to aid listeners in following the progression of the play. It can also be viewed at the Words of Choice page, below cast photos and bios.

Following the airing, the program will be archived on the WBAI website for 90 days.

Posted by Cindy Cooper

pictured above: clip art, microsoft

Poem: To My Protester

From Rev. Rebecca Turner, executive director of Faith Aloud in Missouri, a pro-faith, pro-choice organization, comes this poem, which she passed on with permission from the writer.

Women of the World Vs. Ernie

By Bridget

1.

This is what I know about being a woman:

My body is coursing with estrogen,

I have a uterus. My breasts fit nicely into bras

that shapes them into fashionable

things that men like to look at.

Once a month, my uterus lets go

of its contents

and I bleedfor a few days.

2.

I am not immune to the stigma of the whole

thing. I read Cosmo and think:

this is what I am supposed to look like.

this is who I am.

this is what I am supposed to buy.

this is what I am supposed to eat.

It goes on like this all the time.

I buy, I eat, I apply lipstick.

3.

The single man outside the abortion

clinic stands there with his sign.

He thinks he will change some minds today

because he has god and patriarchy

and a picture of a bloody fetus,

the force of his own stupid ego

on his side.

4.

Some of the women I know have abortions.

Real abortions, not the ones on the signs.

The kind that keep them up nights

going over it over and again.

We are all powerful

and sometimes subjugated.

5.

They are my sister.

my best friend.

my next door neighbor.

The lady in line behind me

me at the grocery store-

we are in the express lane,

she has 26 items.

the check-out girl, too--

she is pissed .

myself.

Me.

6.

He says it so clearly,

You need to be ashamed.

Of your body,

of it weakness,

of yourself,

of your woman-ness.

Keep this secret,

keep your mouth shut

And your legs closed.

7.

I no longer care what his real name is—

I will call him misogyny.

Does he speak to his mother

with that mouth?

In my dreams she is washing out

his mouth with soap.

8.

This is what I want misogyny

with his sign to know:

I want what I want.

I need what I need.

This body is a gift from that same god.

He gave it to me because he knew

I could be trusted.

He said to me in a prayer:

You know what to do, and when.

Posted by Cindy Cooper

pictured above: Ernie? -- anti-abortion protester in Atlanta, pic by CCooper

St. Louis Dance-Theater Follows Journey of Emily Lyons, Survivor of Anti-Abortion Bombing

The St. Louis feminist theater That Uppity Theatre Company is opening a new dance-theater work this week, Becoming Emily. The unique production describes in dance and text the journey of Emily Lyons, a reproductive health care nurse who was severely injured in January 1998 when a bomb exploded outside her place of employment, a women's health clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. An anti-abortion terrorist, Eric Rudolph, was eventually captured and convicted of the bombing.

Becoming Emily tells the story of how Emily's life was sharply changed by the bombing, which caused hundreds of injuries and required dozens of surgeries. Joan Lipkin, Producing Artistic Director of That Uppity Theatre Company, created the work in collaboration with Innovative Team and seven choreographers. According to Uppity, the performance employs dance and movement techniques that include hip hop, jazz, fusion, folk, modern, tap, Bharathantyam, ballet and Dunham technique. Text incorporated into the play comes from Life's Been A Blast by Emily and Jeff Lyons, along with reflections of clients from a family planning clinic in Cleveland.

This is not Lipkin's first artistic encounter with the story of Emily Lyons. In 2005, Words of Choice, which included Emily Lyons story in its selection of several short works, teamed up with Lipkin for a tour to Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas. Lipkin cast and directed the play in St. Louis in collabortion with our New York team. The performance was the basis of a DVD of Words of Choice, completed by filmmaker Linda Haskins in TakeTen Productions in Lawrence, Kansas, and released in 2007. (The script with the Emily Lyons selection is now published in Front Lines.)

Ironically, the 2005 tour was especially planned by Words of Choice to support Dr. George Tiller, a doctor in Wichita, Kansas, who was being subjected to legal harassment by the anti-abortion Attorney General of Kansas who then held office. The AG, Phill Kline, had demanded the medical records of dozens of patients who saw Dr. Tiller for abortions. Had the subpoenas been upheld, women's right to privacy across the country would have been endangered. Dr. Tiller stood up for women, and ultimately won. Sadly, Dr. Tiller was murdered less than three weeks ago, and another anti-abortion terrorist is now under arrest for that crime.

The timing of the opening of Becoming Emily, while entirely coincidental, underscores the dangers that reproductive health care providers face and suffer. In the Words of Choice selection, To Hell and Back, an actress delivers the words of Emily Lyons: "Prior to this, I did not feel like I was in a war. That has all changed. And, the war has not stopped."

The Uppity work, conceived and directed by Lipkin, could hardly come at a more important time. Materials for the show quote Lyons: "The blast only lasted a few microseconds, but it separated two lifetimes. I had to learn to walk, speak, use my vision, and many other basic functions. Everything I had known was, pardon the pun, blown away."

Becoming Emily will be presented at The Black Cat Theatre. 2810 Sutton Blvd. in Maplewood, Missouri. Performances are June 18, 19, 20 at 7:30 p.m. Emily and Jeff Lyons will be in attendance on the opening night, and June 20 is a special night hosted by Faith Aloud, the pro-choice, pro-faith organization headed by Rev. Rebecca Turner. More information about tickets are at www.becomingemily.com.

Posted by Cindy Cooper

pictured above, advertising literature for Becoming Emily by That Uppity Theatre Company in St. Louis

Where Are You? 1989 Poem by Provider Still Calls Out

A friend who traveled to DC for a Memorial to Dr. George Tiller sponsored by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice came back quoting a poem that was read -- an open letter written in 1989 when the right to choose was on the chopping block in the courts. Another online acquaintance found it online at the Feminist Law Professors Blog.

The blog, posted by Briget Crawford, introduces the poem this way:

On January 8, 1989, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran an ad taken out by B.J. Isaacson-Jones. The “ad” was in the form of a poem. At the time, Isaacson-Jones was the Executive Director of Reproductive Health Services (as in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services.)

So here it is:

An Open Letter to 21 Million Women-

Where are you?

For over 16 years we have provided

you with choices

Painful choices

I remember

I sometimes cried with you.

Choices, nevertheless, when you were desperate.

Remember how we protected your privacy

and treated you with dignity and respect

when you

were famous

had been brought to us in shackles

with an armed guard, or

were terrified

that you would run into

one of your students?

I remember each of you.

Our clinic was firebombed.

Do you recall?

Exhausted and terrified we had

been up all night.

We rerouted you to another clinic

because you wanted an abortion that day.

Where are you?

Priding ourselves on providing abortions for

those who cannot pay, we have spent millions

of dollars that we never really

had caring for you. We wanted

to give a choice.

I also gave you cab fare and

money for dinner from my own pocket.

Have you forgotten?

I remember you cried and asked me how

you could carry this pregnancy to term when

you

were abusing the children you had,

were having an affair,

tested positive for AIDS,

could not handle another,

were raped by your mother’s boyfriend,

pregnant by your father and

shocked and torn apart when

your very much wanted and loved

fetus was found to be

severely deformed.

Your mother picketed our clinic

regularly. We brought you in after dark.

Have you mustered the courage

to tell her that you are pro-choice?

You are.

Aren’t you?

I recall shielding your shaking body, guiding you

and your husband through the picket lines.

They screamed adoption, not abortion!

You wondered how you could explain your

choice to your young children.

You broke our hearts.

You had just celebrated your twelfth birthday

when you came to us. You clutched

your teddy bear, sucked your thumb

and cried out for your mom who asked

you why you had gotten yourself pregnant.

You replied that you just wanted to be grown.

You’re twenty today.

Where are you?

I pretend I don’t know you in the market,

at social gatherings and on the street.

I told you I would.

After your procedure you told me that you would

fight for reproductive choices (parenthood,

adoption, and abortion) for your mother, daughters,

and grandchildren. You will . . . won’t you?

I have no regrets. I care about

each and every one of you and

treasure all that you’ve taught me.

But I’m angry. I can’t do this alone.

I’m not asking you to speak about your abortion, but

You need to speak out and you need to speak

out now. Where are you?

~B.J. Isaacson-Jones

The poem, still so-so relevant, offers lots of opportunities for program inserts, reading to classes, congregations, groups, roommates and families, bulletin boards, Facebooking, conversation starting however you converse. Give it a try.

A video of the speakers at the RCRC event is posted online, too.

Posted by Cindy Cooper

pictured above: Scroll being filled in by people attending a memorial for Dr. George Tiller at Union Square, NYC, June 1, 2009

Words of Choice Remembers Dr. Tiller

Words of Choice traveled twice to Wichita to recognize and honor Dr. George Tiller. Here are some thoughts by Cindy Cooper, founder and producer of Words of Choice, published in Women's eNews following his murder in Wichita.

"ATTITUDE Is Everything."

Dr. George Tiller wore these words, in red, on a button pinned to his sports jacket when Words of Choice, the social-activist theater organization I formed in 2003, traveled to Wichita, Kan., eight months ago to perform at a local church.After the show, Tiller slipped the button off and gave it to one of the actors, quipping that if he were a better speaker he would deliver the words in the play, too. Tiller was wry and unaffected; he had a way of making the people around him feel good.

"Words of Choice" is more than a performance, it's also been a jumping off point for discussions about reproductive rights as it tours the country, often at hot button moments. The play traveled to South Dakota in 2006 and Colorado in 2008, for example, when abortion bans were under consideration on state ballots.

Twice we went to Wichita and both times Tiller attended and provided us with security detail.That's how bad things were in Wichita--a theater group performing in churches and dedicated to opening and expanding conversations about choice needed private security.

But this is what daily life was like for people in Wichita--Tiller among them.

And it is the daily life of many reproductive health providers across the country who are demonized and harassed.

--- Tiller Wasn't Alone--

Since Tiller's murder on May 31, many commentators have described his work and commitment to women's health care; how he provided abortions despite personal taunts, vandalism, arson, vilification and violence.Tiller was not alone. Clinic employees, and even volunteers, described waking up in the morning to find their car windows smashed or their tires slashed. No one was arrested. Anti-abortion vigilantes probed their lives and put personal details on the Internet.

Outside our performance in 2005, men arrived with two large vehicles--I call them intimidation trucks--decorated hideously with bloody images. The trucks were decked out with loud speakers and Troy Newman of Operation Rescue, which made Wichita its base, brought along young men. One of these men filmed everyone going into the performance; two other men shouted at audience members with handheld bullhorns. I tried to shake the hand of one man and he snatched it back as if I were a poison snake. These are not people interested in civilized conversation.

Only two weeks earlier, these same intimidation trucks had stalked the funeral of a woman who died of cancer. Why? She was a pro-choice supporter, and so these obsessively tasteless people descended on her family's solemn goodbyes.

Outside our show, they continued their rowdy incitements while the police stood by. Finally, neighbors came out and told them to hit the road. They departed.

--Thin Line of Security--

We specifically performed in Kansas in 2005 to start conversations about reproductive choice because of the implications of subpoenas for women's medical records issued by Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. Kline had made a mission of using his position to harass abortion providers and clients. He demanded the records of nearly 100 women who had received services from Tiller. The stark intrusion by Kline would have had a chilling effect everywhere.

For these actions Kline was given honors by anti-abortion organizations across the country. But Tiller stood up for women. He refused to turn the records over, using his own resources and time to wage a legal battle, which he eventually won. He acted as he did day after day, serving as the thin line of security between women's health, safety and privacy and those seeking to snatch it away.

The appearance of the ugly intimidation trucks in 2005 naturally startled the actors. The idea that a piece of theater could generate such hatred seemed inconsistent with everything they knew. Reproductive freedom had been a concept; that night, it became personal. But this was the daily life in Wichita.

It is also the daily life of doctors and workers in other communities. Emily Lyons, a nurse, suffered hundreds of wounds, including being blinded in one eye, at a clinic bombing in Alabama. Her experience is described in "Words of Choice." We also tell the story of Dr. Susan Wicklund, an abortion provider now working in Montana. One late night in an empty airport parking garage, Wicklund was confronted by anti-abortion protestors who started calling her a killer. "Words were my only weapon," Wicklund said. She screamed back: "How dare you! How DARE you. HOW DARE YOU!"

--Raising Voices--

The intimidation truck was sitting outside the Women's Health Care Center, Tiller's clinic, in 2008 when we performed there. Patients still came because they needed his help.

In Fort Hays, Kan., three hours from Wichita, a woman pulled me aside after the show to say she had taken a niece to Tiller's clinic and how nice everyone had been. "Attitude is everything," I thought. But why had she not said this before the audience?

In New York I once sat in on a small group of city people who had traveled to Kansas to see Tiller because they had serious pregnancy complications and Tiller was one of the few surgeons in the country who provided the needed services. They also spoke about his kindness and wondered how to repay it. Why not a press conference, I wondered?

The screamers who drive the intimidation trucks don't care about the women and don't care about the medical workers. They also don't care to hear the truth: Safe, legal and accessible abortion is a health care service that women seek and need; women have the right to make decisions about their health care without government or vigilante intrusion.

After I left Wichita, I thought every pro-choice organization in the country should open an office there to counter Operation Rescue, which whips up hatred on a daily basis. I thought that every leader of every pro-choice organization should fly to that flat, unassuming land and see what Tiller and his staff endured. Only two weeks ago, Tiller's clinic was vandalized; it wasn't even mentioned in the local newspaper, a contact in Wichita told me.

The media, police and community leaders stood by while Tiller was demonized. Now the good people who support choice need to begin raising their voices to stop the anti-abortion ranters who are infesting our communities with hate and propaganda, joined by echo chambers, conservative politicians and apathy. There is enough culpability for Tiller's death to spread from coast to coast. It's everyone who doesn't stand up for women's freedom.

The anti-abortion folks in Wichita are not going away. They may move to another town, pick another target. I've seen them in Rapid City, South Dakota, and in Denver, Colorado. They will show up at Wicklund's clinic.

When will these communities--and the rest of us--learn to say: "How dare you? Keep your hate out of our town and out of our lives. Hit the road." Leaders, media, organizations, communities and individuals have responsibilities--recognizing them requires a mental shift. When I reached for the button to memorialize Tiller, I began to deepen my understanding. Attitude is everything.

Button pictured above, from Dr. George Tiller

Remembering Slain Doctors with Poetry: Judith Arcana

Judith Arcana writes poems, stories, essays and books. She's described her writing and thinking about choice on this site in guest blogs, here and here, and Merle Hoffman reviewed her poetry book, "What if your mother" here. Most recently, Judith has published "4th Period English," a chapbook of poems about immigration in the voices of high school students and visitors to their class. Her prose books include “Grace Paley’s Life Stories, A Literary Biography.”

She is also included in Words of Choice -- both the original performance (now published in Front Lines) which includes "She Said" about women who had abortions by Jane before abortion was legal, and "Opposing Arguments," about the comments of contemporary anti-abortion activists at a crisis pregnancy center.

Below is a poem that Judith wrote when Dr. Barnett Slepian, a doctor who performed abortions, was murdered. After the assassination of Dr. George Tiller on May 31, 2009, she dedicated it to him, and it was published at On The Issues Magazine.com


More about Judith's writing is on her website, here.

------------------------------------

Written for Barnett Slepian / dedicated in memoriam, with gratitude, to George Tiller, MD

Obstetrician Murdered by Terrorist in Amherst, New York

The doctor went into the kitchen
where if you can’t stand the heat
you don’t stand by the window
and he stood there, he came in
to maybe drink a glass of water,
and there was a window in the kitchen
with no blinds, no shade, no curtains
closed in front of the doctor
while he drank his glass of water
while the man outside pulled the trigger.

In the newspaper, on television
the police chief said he thinks
that shooting was the doctor’s fault
the doctor was not careful
the chief had told him not to
stand there in the kitchen
by the window, not to put butter
on bread, no strawberry jam, no soup
in front of the window
with no shades or blinds or curtains.

All the doctors who want a glass of water
were told not to stand, they were told
to pull the shades
shut the curtains
close the blinds
but maybe the doctor wanted –
maybe he wanted to live
his own life, as long as he had it –
he wanted his life to stand:
he wanted to stand in his own life.

~~Judith Arcana

Posted by Cindy Cooper

pictured above Sir Jessie Mcnulty at Vigil for Dr. Tiller in Atlanta, Georgia, pic courtesy Sir Jessie

Dr.George Tiller: A Great Doctor and A Great Hero

One of the great inspirations about touring and performing Words of Choice is meeting and encountering so many heroic people across the country. There is no one who fit in this category better than Dr. George Tiller, an incredible doctor in Wichita, Kansas.

Dr. Tiller was murdered yesterday.

Words of Choice performed twice in Wichita, and each time, we were honored to have Dr. Tiller in the audience (see an earlier post). Dr. Tiller had a way of making other people feel special, and both times, he graced us with the buttons, "Attitude is Everything," which he and his staff wore.

He also had another motto: Trust Women.

Dr. Tiller provided abortions to women who needed them. He was a caring man. He was a man who performed exquisitely. For this, he became the target of a disgusting group of anti-abortion, anti-choice, Religious Right zealots and terrorists. He didn't stop working because of it. He was taunted. He was trailed. His property was vandalized. He was shot in both arms previously. See a short video clip of Dr. Tiller here or here.

Despite this, he acted with grace and skill. He built a beautiful clinic and facility in Wichita. He greeted patients with compassion. He helped women across the country who had the most difficult of cases.

All of us who came in contract with Dr. Tiller admired him. He is a hero, wrote Carl H. Jaynes, one of the Words of Choice actors, on Facebook. I thank Carl for giving us the best word: Hero.

posted by Cindy Cooper

pictured above: Dr. Tiller and the 2008 cast, and his button