On Tuesday, students and members of the community met in the Reece Museum to discuss Women’s Issues. The discussion was held during the FL3TCH3R show by Barbra and Wayne Dyer in honor of their son who died in a motorcycle accident in 2009.

The show deals with social and political concerns people have from all over the country and throughout the world.

The discussion  panel consisted of Tory Mills, the external affairs manager for Planned Parenthood in Knoxville; Micki Carter, former Johnson City mayor; and, Max Carville, ETSU graduate student  of Women’s Studies.

A lot of the issues regarding Women’s rights is due to politics, the stigmas placed by society and negative connotations.

There are stigmas on adoption, abortion  and reproduction in general. However, many feel as if this is not right and that the decision to have a child or not should solely be up to the woman.  Ideally, everyone should be able to have the dignity to clothe, feed, shelter their child and not worry about how they will get there child a warm meal.

“Some people cannot support a child,” said Carter. “The government does not fund her to get an abortion and then they make her have the child and will not help with prenatal care. The denial of money for services is not right.”

Another stigma is that most medical schools do not teach students how to do the procedure. The OBGYN and other reproductive health organizations will, however, teach med students how to do the procedure if they ask.

“It seems we have gone backwards instead of forwards,” Carter said. “I had hoped that by this point in time, it would be a non issue.”

Carville shares Mills’ belief that facing these issues and discussing them in a proactive manner rather than accepting or ignoring them is pivotal in initiating change.

“We all have a power,” said Carville. “We just have to use it in a way that works for us. Use your voice in anyway you can.

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