PoliticsMike Penceperiods for penceIndiana

You Know You Want To Tell Indiana Gov. Mike Pence About Your Period

Women are calling the governor to protest tighter restrictions to abortion access in Indiana.
Open Image Modal
By 

Deputy Editor, Trends, HuffPost

|

Women are flooding Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s phone lines to protest his decision to sign a bill into law that will severely restrict abortion rights in the state.

But instead of voicing their disagreement in conventional ways, they’re providing detailed accounts of their menstrual cycles.

The creators of the “Periods for Pence” Facebook page explained their reasoning in a March 28 post, making the tongue-in-cheek observation that "any period could potentially be a miscarriage without knowledge," and that "just to cover our bases, perhaps we should make sure to contact Governor Pence's office to report our periods."

It seems like the calls to the governor are going well so far, based on what women are reporting on Facebook.

Some have also been leaving messages on Pence’s Facebook page.

HB 1337, which is now law, bans women from seeking abortions because of the fetus’ gender or race, or due to fetal abnormalities. That means that abortions will be prohibited even if a fetus is diagnosed with “Down syndrome or any other disability."

The phrase “any other disability” could include potential fetal defects related to Zika virus. The stipulation may also force women to continue with complicated, high-risk pregnancies or carry fetuses to term that have virtually no chance of surviving long after birth.

Open Image Modal
Women are giving Gov. Mike Pence all the details on their menstrual cycles after he signed a bill that will further restrict abortion access in Indiana.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images

The new law also requires women to listen to a fetal heartbeat and view an ultrasound 18 hours before getting an abortion. This will likely impose a significant travel burden on many women, since only four out of Indiana’s 92 counties have abortion clinics.

Additionally, doctors at abortion clinics will have to obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. “Admitting privileges” have nothing to do with whether or not a hospital will accept a particular patient. Instead, they enable a clinic doctor to admit their patient for a stay in a hospital without another doctor at the hospital weighing in. As Slate notes, the fact that some hospitals are unwilling to grant admitting privileges to abortion providers may force some clinics will close.

If you’d like to tell Pence about your period, call (317) 232-4567, or 317–569-0709. Some Facebook users have reported busy signals, but you can still fill out a form on the governor’s website or leave a message on his Facebook page.

Our 2024 Coverage Needs You

As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.

Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.

to keep our news free for all.

Support HuffPost

Before You Go

Myths About Abortion That Need To Be Busted
MYTH: Abortion is dangerous.(01 of08)
Open Image Modal
REALITY: Over 99.75 percent of abortions do not cause major medical problems.Less than one-quarter of 1 percent of abortions performed in the United States lead to major health complications, according to a 2014 study from the University of California, San Francisco, that tracked 55,000 women for six weeks after their abortions. The researchers note that this makes an abortion statistically about as risky as a colonoscopy.If that fact seems surprising, consider how American pop culture misrepresents the risks of abortion: Nine percent of film and television characters who have abortions die as a direct result of the procedure, according to another 2014 study from UCSF. (credit:Getty Images)
2. MYTH: Medical abortions -- those performed using pills -- are still fringe.(02 of08)
Open Image Modal
REALITY: About one in five abortions are medical abortions.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 19 percent of abortions in 2011 were medical abortions and that 28.5 percent of those took place in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. The Guttmacher Institute also found that medical abortions increased substantially from 2008 to 2011, meaning more women have ended their pregnancies with this alternative to surgery.

3. MYTH: Women who get abortions will regret it, and are more likely to suffer mental health issues.(03 of08)
Open Image Modal
REALITY: Most women will not regret their decision, and are no more likely to experience mental health problems than women who carry an unplanned pregnancy to term.While many women experience mixed emotions after an abortion, 95 percent of women who have abortions ultimately feel they have made the right decision, according to an August 2013 study from UCSF. "Experiencing negative emotions postabortion is different from believing that abortion was not the right decision," the researchers explained. Furthermore, while unplanned pregnancies often cause emotional stress, there is no evidence to suggest that women who choose to terminate their pregnancies will be more likely to suffer from mental health issues, according to a 2008 report from the American Psychological Association that investigated all relevant medical studies published since 1989.The APA found that past studies claiming abortion causes depression and other mental health problems consistently failed to account for other risk factors, particularly a woman's medical history. The APA accounted for these factors and found that, among women who have an unplanned pregnancy, those who have abortions are no more likely to experience mental health problems than those who carry the pregnancy to term.
4. MYTH: Fetuses experience pain during abortions.(04 of08)
Open Image Modal
REALITY: Fetuses cannot feel pain until at least the 24th week of pregnancy. Experts ranging from Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists agree with that timeline. In fact, research from UCSF found that fetuses can't perceive pain before 29 or 30 weeks of development.Then why have so many states banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy? Perhaps misrepresentation of research is partly to blame: Many of the researchers most frequently cited by pro-life politicians told The New York Times that their research does not prove anything about fetal pain.
5. MYTH: The majority of Americans don't think abortion should be legal.(05 of08)
Open Image Modal
REALITY: Most Americans support a woman's right to choose.According to a Gallup poll from 2014, 78 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances. (Fifty percent said "some circumstances," while 28 percent said all.) What's more, in 2012, Gallup found that 61 percent of Americans think abortions that take place during the first trimester of pregnancy should be legal. (Nine out of 10 abortions in the U.S. do take place during that time period, according to Guttmacher.) (credit:Getty )
7. MYTH: Most American women have easy access to abortions.(06 of08)
Open Image Modal
REALITY: Women face a growing number of barriers to accessing abortions.More than 57 percent of American women live in states that are hostile or extremely hostile to abortion rights, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That represents a marked increase from 2000, when 31 percent of American women lived in such states. In 2011, 89 percent of counties in America had no abortion clinics. This is no accident: Across the U.S., lawmakers have enacted 231 new abortion restrictions over the past four years, according to a Guttmacher analysis from January 2015. As a result, many women have to travel great distances to reach an abortion clinic, where they may face 24-hour wait periods. These barriers particularly affect women living in rural areas and low-income women, who often can't afford to take time off work and pay for gas and a hotel room. Other laws force women to go through potentially distressing procedures, such as viewing their own ultrasound photos, in order to move forward with an abortion.
9. MYTH: Women would never have abortions if they knew what it was like to have a child.(07 of08)
Open Image Modal
REALITY: Most women who have abortions are already mothers.Sixty-one percent of women who had abortions in 2008 were mothers, and 34 percent had two or more children, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That number only increased after the 2009 financial downturn. The National Abortion Federation told Slate that between 2008 and 2011, 72 percent of women seeking abortions were already mothers. A study from Guttmacher found that mothers typically have abortions to protect the children they already have; they simply cannot afford to raise another child. (credit:Getty Images)
10. MYTH: It is dangerous to perform abortions in clinics that do not meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical clinics. (08 of08)
Open Image Modal
REALITY: Requiring abortion clinics to meet these standards does little to improve patient safety and forces many to shut down.Currently, 22 states require abortion clinics to meet a set of restrictive and often arbitrary standards, dictating that they be close to hospitals and that their hallways and closets meet certain measurements. Clinics often need to undergo expensive renovations in order to comply, and leading doctors' groups say the laws do little to improve patient safety.What's more, 11 states now require that doctors at abortion clinics obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, but many hospitals flat-out refuse to grant these privileges. As a result, hospitals essentially have the power to shut down nearby clinics. (credit:Getty Images)
Suggest a correction
|
Submit a tip