On January 29, ChiSPAN stood tall with many groups, including Illinois Choice Action Team, UIC Feminists United and the ISO, in protesting the annual meeting of SpeakOut Illinois, an anti-Choice group. We caravan-ed it out to Oak Brook to let our voices rip in support of choice. There, we rallied against attempts at limiting access to abortions, such as the outrageous anti-choice attempt by the U.S. House to redefine “rape.”

PPACA, the reform passed by the Congress and Obama, was marked by the shame of the Nelson amendment and other attempts to mirror it in repeal proposals. ChiSPAN will not rest until reproductive rights are respected in law and will continue to militate against these severe limitations on health care rights.

Here is an excellent video made of the event:

On January 15, 2011, in solidarity with the south side activist group FLY (Fearless Leading by Youth), we observed a mock-funeral commemorating the needless deaths in that part of the city. As it is, the University of Chicago lacks a Unit 1 Trauma Center, and citizens who are in accidents or crimes that involve significant trauma are driven to the North Loop branch of Northwestern hospital. This is unacceptable and illustrates exactly the sort of inequity that single-payer would help to end.

Our collective group, which predominantly comprised African American youth, blockaded the entrance to Rockefeller Chapel as people were exiting a Martin Luther King birthday memorial service. In case the message from our fliers wasn’t clear, passersby could turn to the banner which stated “MLK would be with us demanding a trauma center at U of C.” Here is an excellent independent take on the controversy.

Also, ChiSPAN is endorsing a pro-choice rally on January 28. Details are still TBD!

We were very beyond-proud of our first book event in Andersonville at Women & Children First. Sonya Huber read from her “engaging, enraging” and “irreverent” memoir Cover Me, in which she faces the inequities and dashed pride of navigating the “Chutes and Ladders” world of health insurance for freelancers and its holey “safety net.” She read from Chapter 5, which closes with an incisive take on the “abusive relationship” and “traumatic bonding” that occurs with insurers and the insured in America.

This book, as well as this op-ed about her parents’ struggles with insurance in their small business, tells a story that happens every day to hundreds of thousands of people in America. David Summerhays from ChiSPAN spoke after the reading, talking plainly, personally and engagingly about the need for single-payer.

Continuing a fantastic year for books portraying the absurdities and dashed hopes of the (still-) broken health care system is Lionel Shriver‘s ferocious novel So Much for That, which came out in March. Written in a take-no-prisoners vein at once deadly serious and bleakly funny, So Much dares to wonder (as the insurance system does) exactly how much money a human life is worth, as she portrays two families dealing with deadly illnesses. Then check out Shriver’s interview at the Harold Washington library in which she, a long-time American resident of Britain, comes out as a single-payer supporter. (“Nothing,” she deadpans, when asked about what is wrong with the England’s National Health Service.)