Pre-Roe Patchwork in States

As promised, this blog isn't only about books and fiction writing, and so this is the Daily Women's Health Policy Report for September 28, 2012, and it's scary:

Abortion Access Reverting to Pre-Roe 'Patchwork' in States, Advocates Warn

September 28, 2012 — A "rash" of state-level abortion restrictions in recent years has made accessing abortion incredibly difficult for many women, even as the procedure remains legal, women's health experts say, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. The laws have created geographical, financial and other obstacles that form a "patchwork of access" to abortion that mirrors barriers that existed before Roe v. Wade, they note.

"We are seeing the number of providers decrease and the number of restrictions increase," said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute. "Clinic regulations, waiting periods, ultrasounds -- you keep adding these things and it becomes really difficult" to obtain an abortion, she explained.

Last year, states passed 92 abortion restrictions, and they have passed an additional 39 in the first half of 2012, according to Guttmacher. The pace of abortion restrictions in state legislatures accelerated after victories by conservative candidates in the 2010 midterm elections.

Wendy Parmet, associate dean at Northeastern University School of Law, noted that court decisions after Roehave helped open the door to increased regulation in the states.

"We are moving back to the world we had before Roe," Parmet said, adding, "We are moving toward a world where some women have fairly ready access to abortion and other women have a really difficult time accessing abortion."

Regional Disparities 

Regional disparities in abortion access have emerged in the South, Midwest and Mountain West, where women face more barriers than in the Northeast or on the West Coast, Parmet said. According to data from Guttmacher, 87% of U.S. counties had abortion providers in 2008, compared with 83% in 1973. Five states now have one abortion clinic, including Mississippi, which had 14 in 1981.

"Access basically depends entirely on where you live," said Julie Rikelman, litigation director for the Center for Reproductive Rights. "Even though it is supposed to be a constitutional right available to all Americans in the [U.S.], it is really a right only available to a minority of American women," Rikelman added (Crawford,Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 9/27).

Elizabeth Street by Laurie Fabiano

The subtitle of Elizabeth Street is A Novel Based on True Events, and overall, the novel works.  A few parts seemed forced, but what the heck--  Laurie Fabiano had a great family story to tell, and I'm glad she did.  And, by the way, this was a self-published novel before being published by Amazon's very own imprint called Amazon Encore.

Elizabeth Street tells the story of Italians who emigrated to the United States in the beginning of the 20th Century and ended up in NYC. And it's not the standard story of Italians in New York.  Yeah, there are gangsters, but it's a bit different from the story of Tony Soprano.  I learned why Italian-Americans know exactly where their families were from in Italy; it has to do with the unification of Italy.  (Italians aren't from Italy but are from specific places in Italy.) And I learned that when Italians arrived at Ellis Island they were "considered to be two races. A race from the north and a race from the south.  The northerners are classified 'white' and the southerners 'in-betweeners.'  Of course, in Italy, the northerners simply call you peasants or Africans." (pg 110)

But Elizabeth Street isn't a history textbook though the history in it is very interesting.  Elizabeth Street is the story about Giovanna Costa, a very strong woman who does what she has to do in order to protect her family, including taking on the Black Hand. This is an engaging tale, and I highly recommend it.

Mark Twain & Cats

"When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade without further introduction."

-- Mark Twain

The Girl with Borrowed Wings by Rinsai Rossetti

I don't usually read YA fiction though I know there's a trend right now for adults to gobble it up, especially if books are part of a trilogy, and I don't quite understand this phenomenon, especially the trilogy part. (Except, of course, trilogies make more money for publishers.)  However, I did read The Book Thief last year (long after the brouhaha about it was over and when I could borrow it from the library without being placed on a hold list of a few hundred patrons) and couldn't believe The Book Thief was designated YA.  (FYI: It wasn't categorized as YA in the country of its original publication, Australia.)  Anyway, I just finished reading The Girl with Borrowed Wings by Rinsai Rossetti which was published by Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin, and the designation of YA is very appropriate-- so much so that I almost stopped reading several times for a few reasons.

But before I go into those reasons, I want to say that while I was reading The Girl with Borrowed Wings I imagined myself at twelve years old reading this, and I would have loved it.  Why? I would have loved the fantasy, the different worlds, and the flying.   Reading this as someone who is far older than twelve, well, it's different.

One difficulty I had is one I have with many novels told in first person.  I find it hard to believe that narrators think lyrically, especially young narrators though I'm not sure how old the narrator is when she's telling her story.  Nonetheless.  Even if the narrator is now fifty and telling her childhood story, it's hard to believe she's thinking so lyrically.  But as I said, this is a problem I have with many first person narrators.

Another difficulty I had was with freedom.  Oh, don't get me wrong.  I love freedom, and books written by Americans are almost always a story about gaining freedom.  But Rossetti uses freedom so blatantly-- there was no subtlety at all.  Again, thinking as a twelve year old this wouldn't have mattered because I was yearning for freedom myself at that age.

And the last major difficulty I had was with the last forty pages or so.  It was as if someone told the author, "Your main character needs to change in order for it to be a story, and she's got to change drastically, and there's got to be a satisfying resolution to the story."  Unfortunately, the writing lesson about character development that has been taught in English classes or literature classes or in writing workshops or in a zillion places in cyberspace or wherever needs to be tossed out the window.  If you want a good reason to do so, study the last 37 pages of The Girl with Borrowed Wings-- after reading the entire novel, of course.  But again, this wouldn't have bothered me if I were twelve, for I wouldn't have noticed this remarkable gain in speed in the story telling, this remarkable change in narrator Frenenqer Paje. Instead, I would have thought, "Wow, anything's possible."  Now, I just think that the author either got tired of writing or her editor commanded this spectacular and speedy change because the editor didn't want to risk Goodreads reviews that criticized the book because the protagonist didn't change in an obvious way.

Rūta by Kit Masters

Kit Masters' self-published novella, Rūta, is advertised as being an allegory about British schools whose students are poor and about a teacher who is intrigued by a female student whose name is Rūta.  (No, it’s not a Lolita thing.) The school situation is horrible, and Rūta is, well, there, but the story is about the narrator who is a physics teacher, artist, and writer, and it’s not really about his fixation with Rūta. (There’s no creepy element here.) Instead, the narrator is a complex character, and it’s his experiences as a teacher, artist, and writer that intrigue me.  The narrator has a distinctive voice, and the inclusion of art in this book adds to the novella’s uniqueness.  This book is a free ebook on Amazon for those who have Amazon Prime, and I recommend it to those who want to try something smartly different.

The author has a very short trailer for Rūta: