What could drag me away from our annual WELL retreat in January? A request from an Osaka women's health group to speak on the history of America's women's health movement could. What an exciting weekend it turned out to be!

The Osaka Women's Clinic Group facilitates women's health counseling and networking all over the Kansai region. They soon hope to open a women's clinic that would be feminist, run by women and staffed by likeminded professionals. The focus of the day-long event on January 29, 2003 (Saturday) was the problems and prognosis of such a project.

The group had originally invited a woman from the original Boston Women's Collective that had issued the first Our Bodies, Ourselves in 1971. Because of a family emergency, she suddenly was unable to come, and eventually recommended contacting me, since I was a founder of the Emma Goldman Clinic for Women in Iowa City in 1973. No one knew how to get hold of me, but Sumie Uno and others called Naeko Wakabayashi here in Tokyo to see if she knew how to contact me; she did, so away I went ...

The morning session featured a panel with three of us talking about the problems, perils and promises of creating a clinic. The nearly 50 women attending this workshop were women who staffed hotlines for women who had suffered sexual harassment or abuse or needed abortion or birth control information. There were lesbians who worked at centers concerned with domestic violence between lesbian partners and other health issues concerning lesbians. There were housewives who volunteered at local and regional women's information centers and so on. Many were afraid that if the Osaka women's group opened a clinic, they'd lose out on their wonderful networking energy. It was a very interesting discussion.

In the afternoon, I spoke on the problems that faced women before and after Roe v. Wade and how we built the Emma Goldman Clinic. I also spoke about the three generations of women in my family, from my Mom, who had an illegal abortion in 1934 when she was 18 years old--Catholic, alone in a dingy hotel--to my generation, who organized clinics and movements around women's health issues, to my daughter's generation, who had many choices about where to go to consult about AIDS, abortion and sexuality.

Then there were many interesting questions from the audience of over a hundred women about building and maintaining a feminist clinic. there were many radical professionals and feminist legislators, common women applauding, and other organizers wondering where they fit in. I was so glad to be part of it.

The Osaka Women's Clinic representatives will speak at PGL 2003, so keep September 27-28 on your calendar too. Thanks.

For more information about the Osaka Women's Clinic presentation, Creating a Feminist Women's Clinic, check out the Peace As A Global Language conference website at: http://www.eltcalendar.com/PGL2003/

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