Why You Couldn't Find Big Media Coverage of Haaland and Davids

By Jenni Monet, YES! Magazine

06 January 19

Time has run out to convince colonized newsrooms that Indigenous issues and perspectives are necessary to the national narrative.

got the call around the time I was scrolling my Twitter feed, wiping my eyes dry over the immense promise I felt watching U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) and U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) share that heartfelt hug on the House floor yesterday. It was a cable news producer from a network that will remain anonymous, and he was calling to book a panel. He’d heard I knew a few things about Native Americans and its geopolitical frame of reference?—?except, that’s not what he wanted to talk to me about. He wanted to know if I could sit on a televised segment to discuss Elizabeth Warren.

He yammered on while I continued to gaze at Twitter, feasting on photo after photo of history literally happening right before my eyes: two Native American women like me doing what has never been done before?—?breaking into one of the highest political arenas in the land. I waited until the producer stopped talking.

I politely told him that the problem with Elizabeth Warren isn’t expired controversy over her silly DNA test and, now, her bid for the presidency. Rather, I said, it’s Warren and the media itself capitalizing on this issue and ignoring the very Native Americans central to the debate—arguably the most marginalized voices in the country.

I suggested the segment be realigned to focus on the day’s unprecedented inauguration of Davids and Haaland into the U.S. House, but he said the panel was mostly booked to discuss the Democratic dilemma over whether to support Warren. He wanted a voice critical of the Massachusetts senator, assuming that this person would be me?—?both Democrat and anti-Warren. He said mention of Davids and Haaland could be as an aside; an afterthought.

There is nothing new about Indian Country getting short shrift in the media, in politics, or in life in general. And there is certainly nothing unusual about outsiders looking in, assuming that all Native Americans represent a monolith—that we all vote Democrat, that we think alike, and that we’ll go along with whatever the corporate agenda is put in front of us—in this case, a conversation about Elizabeth Warren.

But with Haaland and Davids representative of a resounding call for change, the time has come for the Indigenous inhabitants of these lands to become a priority in the American narrative.

Last year marked my 20th anniversary of being a career journalist, a profession I entered into because the very people and places of which I come from across Indian Country simply were not being seen in my newsfeeds or were being featured in really cringeworthy ways. Even today, it’s common to see non-Indigenous journalists journey to an Indian reservation and treat it like it’s some kind of developing country—and in many ways, they would be socioeconomically accurate based on the latest report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which highlights the need to honor the treaties broken by the U.S. government. But that’s the problem. Rarely does the journalism match the Indigenous point of view. 

Today Indian Country is composed of roughly 2.6 million tribal citizens who live either on ancestral lands now restricted by trust relationships with the federal government (i.e., reservations) or ancestral lands stolen and now shared with the offspring of immigrants in cities across the U.S.

But this narrative—this decolonized way of viewing the origin story of America—is rarely if ever discussed in such a way accepted as Western journalism. Rather, these Indigenous points of view are relegated to the opinion column, if relegated at all.

The fact that I write on Indigenously, a free blog site, is a testament to the fact that there remains no designated journalism real estate in the established, elite press for the original voices of America.

For this reason, I made a deliberate pivot a few years ago to work independently so that I could go to the places that few newsrooms will send me. And yet, despite my professional gains, it also works to my disadvantage. The amount of time and energy to be seen and heard from editors on stories of national importance from Indian Country is daunting if not the most difficult part of my job.

To be sure, the story about former U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia blocking the most promising bill addressing violence on Native Americans was a lead I couldn’t convince any of my clients to invest in even though I had been writing about the issue for them, previously. In this regard, the editorial fickleness I contend with is on par with Goodlatte’s message: that Indigenous issues just don’t matter to them.

Over the holiday break, I stewed over these inequalities in the media and even found some peace. But then I got that call from the network producer.

To be fair, Indigenous media is problematic, as well.

Yesterday, while driving across the Indigenous homelands of the Spirit Lake Nation, I grew annoyed, agitated even, upon hearing the live call-in radio show, Native America Calling. The conversation wasn’t focused on the energizing moment happening in Washington, D.C., around Haaland and Davids, as one might expect. Rather, the host and its guest were talking about Indigenous herbal teas. I couldn’t bear to listen anymore. Realizing the squandered media resources of that moment, I was compelled to turn the program off, and I did.

Like our ancestors, those of us who crave the Indigenous narrative must forage for this sustenance of our media diets—hunt for it in digital territories like Facebook and Twitter to nourish our minds.

This has to change, and Haaland and Davids are emblematic of this call to action.

Time has run out to convince colonized newsrooms that Indigenous issues and perspectives matter in a way that is legitimate rather than opinionated.

Patience has worn paper thin for Indian Country to be seen worthy of first-class journalism daily as opposed to the kind of reactionary framework we came to see at Standing Rock.

The hunger for validation from the legacy press of the authentic Indigenous narrative is no longer a hunger but a famine imposed on our very democracy; that to understand the story of this great nation can not be done without including the Indigenous narrative.

Rep. Haaland and I come from the same pueblo. Seeing her yesterday at the U.S. House, dressed in our traditional mhanta and moccasins was one of the most powerful images I’ve seen. But it can not be one of the only stories you’ll see about her in our newsfeeds.

As she tweeted yesterday, Haaland was integral in re-opening the government and as part of those efforts, passing bills that fund tribal services, although as she quipped, “inadequately,” so. These are the headlines that should become the follow-up story—not the history, itself. And because so few others are doing this, it will unravel here. I simply can’t stand the ignoring anymore.

The Other Abortion Ban: I Wanted to Provide Abortions for My Patients. My Med School Wouldn't Teach Me How.

By Stephanie Ho, The Washington Post

06 January 19

I wanted to provide abortions for my patients. My med school wouldn’t teach me how.

ast year brought one of the toughest moments I’d ever faced as a family doctor. A woman had shown up for her appointment after a three-hour drive to one of our clinics in Arkansas, and we had to turn her away. A state restriction had gone into effect, requiring that abortion providers contract with a physician who has hospital-admitting privileges. It works by weaponizing antiabortion attitudes within the medical community.

My staff and I had been attempting to comply with the law since it was passed in 2015. We reached out to every OB/GYN we could find. Receptionists would hang up on us or refuse to take a message. The doctors who did answer said that while they might personally support a woman’s right to choose, their colleagues did not. One told me that for him to sign on as a backup, he’d need permission not only from his hospital administrator but also from the Diocese of Little Rock — “and after that,” he added, “the pope.” We finally found a willing obstetrician in November.

This fear doesn’t surprise me. Medication abortion is one of the safest procedures out there; it’s less risky than wisdom-tooth extraction (which requires anesthesia). But doctors and nurses in Arkansas are so afraid of abortions — and the attendant politics — that it’s almost impossible to learn about them as a medical student, let alone administer them. Where I grew up, in the River Valley of western Arkansas, nobody said the word “abortion” out loud. When I went to medical school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock, that censorious silence didn’t relent. Over four years, the most exposure we got to the topic was a half-hour guest lecture. (At that time, 17 percent of medical schools offered no formal abortion education, according to a national survey published by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.)

That implicit disapproval carried over to my residency in family medicine, which I began in 2008 at UAMS West in Fort Smith. Second-year residents gave presentations on a topic of their choice — and mine, on abortion, was the most highly attended and contentious that year. A senior faculty member vocally disagreed with my description of abortion as a common medical service, interrupting every few sentences and quoting the Bible at me. Someone dubbed me the “abortion chick,” and the nickname stuck. Whenever a patient at the clinic wanted to learn more about terminating a pregnancy, the staff would call me in to talk her through her options, even when I wasn’t scheduled on a shift. My fellow physicians didn’t feel comfortable sharing information about abortions.

Third-year residents could pursue an elective rotation, and I was determined to learn how to perform an abortion. Because I was not aware of any local providers, I enrolled in a program at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, in Denver. The residency director said it was not an appropriate elective for a family medicine resident, and that he would have to talk about it with the other faculty physicians at Fort Smith. Then he said that the program didn’t permit residents to rotate out of state. I responded by citing the portion of the resident handbook that said we could travel for hard-to-find specialties — and pointed out that another trainee had done so the previous year in a different subspecialty. (Reached by an editor at the Post, a UAMS spokesman declined to comment, saying that the residency program has since changed directors. The medical center did not return phone requests for comment.)

Then came the end of my residency. It was commonly known among residents that if you applied to work at our training medical center and had done a decent job, you were essentially a shoo-in. In my first interview, I was forthcoming about intending to provide abortions at some point in my career. I was not offered a second interview. I decided not to attend our graduation ceremony.

The only other hospital in the area was a Catholic institution, and I doubted that it would even consider hiring me. But I didn’t want to leave: My house, family and patients were all in Fort Smith. My only option was to open my own practice, a highly unusual path for a newly minted doctor. So I took out loans and, in 2011, bought equipment from an out-of-state doctor closing her practice. Unlike most other providers, I did not cap how many Medicaid patients I saw. I lived paycheck to paycheck, paying my bills late and pouring every extra minute and dollar I had into keeping the practice afloat. When I told my malpractice insurance company, SVMIC, that I wanted to provide the occasional medication abortion, it tripled my monthly premium from about $600 to $1,800, claiming that it didn’t normally insure doctors who offer that service. (SVMIC also declined to comment for this piece, telling a Post editor, “We do not discuss our confidential insurance relationships.”)

Although I could provide medication abortions, I didn’t want to advertise the service and subject my staff to the scrutiny and harassment that would follow. So none of my patients asked me for an abortion. I started providing medication abortions only after Planned Parenthood’s Fayetteville clinic asked me to fill in for a doctor there who’d fallen ill — first twice a month, then every week, then twice weekly.

At some point during my residency, a faculty member pulled me aside to ask, “Why do you even want to do this?” Then and now, my answer is: If I can, and I’m willing, then why wouldn’t I? I was more hesitant about going public as an abortion provider. But as politicians continued to pile on restrictions, I saw how that affected my patients — and other doctors — and I realized that I couldn’t do my work and keep quiet. It didn’t feel right that my silence might hinder access to care by perpetuating the sense of shame around the procedure. Today, I am one of four physicians regularly providing abortions in Arkansas, which is home to 1.5 million women. Who else is going to speak up for them?

In January 2016, the organizers of a reproductive-justice rally in Little Rock asked if I would speak, and I accepted. Before I did, I let my father know: He’s an immigrant from Taiwan, always aware of how his children’s actions reflect on him. To my surprise, he was completely fine with it. Some people need abortions, he said simply. It made sense to him that, as a doctor, I would help meet that need.

Not everyone was so supportive. After finding out about the rally, one local family wrote to me saying that, although I had provided them with excellent care, as Catholics (and as donors to a local crisis pregnancy center), they could no longer come to my practice in good conscience.

Yet the exodus of patients that I feared never came. After that, I was no longer afraid to say I provided abortions. I eventually closed my practice — ultimately, I couldn’t make the finances work — and took a full-time position at Planned Parenthood Great Plains, where medication abortion was just one of many primary-care offerings, along with family planning, HIV care and transgender services.

Even so, the abortion work is hampered by a raft of medically unnecessary and insulting restrictions. Planned Parenthood clinics here currently can’t provide surgical abortions, because Arkansas requires that our facilities be outfitted comparably to a hospital surgical center. I’m legally required to hand out pamphlets filled with falsehoods about how the mifepristone pill, which ends a pregnancy, can be “reversed.” My patients sit through 48-hour waiting periods and mandatory follow-up visits, which impose costs — gas money, time off from work, overnight stays, child care — that many can barely afford. The contracted-physician requirement was only the latest imposition; the state legislature will consider passing two more bills restricting abortions when it reconvenes this month.

Reproductive rights depend, in part, on the medical community dispelling taboos. Abortion should be a topic of normal conversation, especially among medical professionals. It is, after all, a part of ordinary life — a routine medical procedure. When I first hosted a lunch for Arkansas medical students called “Meet the Provider” in 2017, I expected only a handful to attend. Instead, some 30 people came, and next time, we expect more.

The path to becoming an abortion provider can be extraordinarily frustrating in states like Arkansas, but younger doctors seem to be much more aware of inequity, stigma and other barriers to medical services. I’m hopeful that their sense of openness will ultimately mean better access for patients.