Before I get into this, big time spokeswoman for Feminists for Life Patricia Heaton is now showing up in ads shilling against stem cell research. This series of posts is mostly about how Feminists for Life is not feminist at all, but Heaton’s involvement with blocking research that could save the lives of real human beings, not just hypothetical ones, demonstrates that not only are anti-choicers not feminist by any stretch of the imagination, but they are also not “pro-life”.
Part four in my ongoing series of blogging about Feminists for Life’s email series “Pro-Woman Answers to Pro-Choice Questions”. I read these “feminists” so you don’t have to. This week’s installment still doesn’t answer the question that I’ve been interested in from the beginning, which is what this “feminist” organization is doing to minimize abortions while helping women out in a way that’s been shown to be effective, which is increasing contraceptive use and access. For some reason, this “feminist” organization is a little cagey about their stance on preventing unwanted pregnancy.
The project of receiving and debunking each email was beginning to feel tedious to me, and I wondered if it was worth it. Do we really need a thorough refutation to this bullshit? Luckily, Tristero put up a post that convinced me we do, because without people calling bullshit on this stuff, it gets traction in the mainstream media. He nailed exactly what it is about things like Feminists For Life or intelligent design “theory” that get them attention in the mainstream and why they need to be thoroughly debunked.
Christianists, like other rightwing extremists, have studied non-christianist American society very carefully. Proof? Their utilization of liberal phrases, like “free expression” or “equal rights” is one example. They then upend the conventions, throw in some obscure facts, sprinkle it with lies, and poof, they’ve given the impression that they know what they’re talking about and that their position has been thoughtfully considered. The result: they confuse the news media into permitting them to spew their propaganda unimpeded, as the media has a bias towards presenting all points of view that appear to have stature.
The letter I address tonight is a classic example of this. FFL is imitating feminist language to promote anti-feminist ideas. In today’s email, they take a strong stance against the coercive nature of poverty, which sounds feminist until you remember that FFL is only opposed to coercion if the coercion is towards a behavior they don’t like. They fully support forcing women to have children against their will. Like IDers, they have learned how to dress up their wolf-like arguments in enlightened sheeplike clothing, but only just well enough to get on TV, but not well enough to handle any real scrutiny. I hope this series of blog posts can be a resource guide in the future against this tactic.
It’s important to keep in mind that the anti-choicers believe that all women want as many children as they can have, and that any woman who says differently has mental problems. Which brings me to the anti-feminist fallacy behind what looks more feminist about FFL, which is their stated support for legal infrastructure to help women have children. This week’s question is: What if her partner, friends or family have abandoned her? Or what if she is poor?
Lack of support often coerces women into abortion. As pro-life feminists, we choose to support and empower women rather than abandon women.
This is a blatant lie. FFL only chooses to support and empower women who fit their criteria of a good woman, which is one that wants to have as many babies as she can. If the support you need is to get an abortion, you’re shit out of luck.
Feminists for Life’s College Outreach Program focuses on resources—housing, child care, maternity coverage in student health care, telecommuting options, financial aid, etc.—so women aren’t forced to choose between sacrificing their education or career and sacrificing their children.
We do not eliminate poverty by eliminating poor women’s children. It is degrading to poor women to expect or imply that their children aren’t welcome. We believe that poor women deserve the same support and life-affirming alternatives as wealthy women.
What they don’t explain is why all these great ideas are contigent on banning abortion. The motivation is only pro-woman if these things exist in addition to contraception and abortion access so women have actual reproductive freedom.
A woman who is pregnant needs to know that there are pregnancy care centers listed in the “abortion alternatives� section of the yellow pages that provide direct assistance and coordinate public and private assistance.
Well, they won’t give you money, medical care or a place to live, but a few actually do have diapers to go along with the piles of steaming bullshit they feed you about abortion.
Abortion is not an enriching experience. An abortion won’t get a woman a better job or get her out of a bad (for example, abusive) situation.
Strawman much? Foster is acting like anyone promised that abortion would get you a job or a nicer boyfriend. Abortion provides what is promised: An end to your unwanted pregnancy. Now, you may want to end it because you want to terminate a relationship with an abusive boyfriend without being tied to him for life with a child. Or you may want to end it because of work-related reasons. Some reasons might be amendable with outside help, but not all. Increasing the amount of outside help is very important, but it should be done because it’s the right thing to do, not as a tradeoff to take away basic rights.
Feminists for Life has worked to prevent the coercion of women into unwanted abortions. FFL consulted on the groundbreaking Coercive Abortion Prevention Act introduced by Michigan women legislators in 2006. The five-bill package identifies very specific forms of coercion, from financial threats to physical violence, which could result in jail time and/or fines.
Which sounds all fine and dandy until you remember that FFL doesn’t actually oppose coercion, since they support coercing women into having children against their will. So they don’t really oppose coercion; they just oppose abortion.
In the rest of the email, they outline their support for getting child support payments, their extensive work in trying to convince women in college not to have abortions (they care about making sure college women can have babies much, much more than they do anyone else), and their opposition to welfare reform that involves depriving women of benefits for having more children. Interestingly, they note a few times in the email that they are the only anti-choice group to work for these sort of things, a tacit admission that their comrades against reproductive freedom really don’t care if women and children suffer so long as fornicators are punished.
This email raises more questions than it answers. First of all, if FFL thinks that abortion is caused by coercion and poverty, then why do they advocate a ban on abortion? Shouldn’t addressing the causes of abortion be enough? If women all want babies and it’s only circumstances that make them opt out, wouldn’t changing the circumstances make this entire question moot? Or are they willing to admit that sometimes there’s just no extenuating circumstances that can be addressed and women might actually just terminate pregnancies because they don’t want kids right now?
They claim they’re going to address that last question in the next email. We shall see.
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An abortion won’t get a woman a better job or get her out of a bad (for example, abusive) situation.
Well, actually, it might, at least in the abusive situation scenario, since it’s a lot easier to leave an abuser when you’re not pregnant and dependent on him. Plus it will probably increase the woman’s chances of being able to escape alive, especially when you look at the murder rate among pregnant women.
Amanda, I don’t know if she plays in your neck of the woods, but I have the incredible joy of seeing (in TV ads) and hearing (in radio ads) Miss Heaton on a very regular basis where I live.
Hearing her irritating voice and knowing her wingnut politics makes for a truly wonderful experience…
No Better News…
Russia has publicly balked at the draft U.N. resolution against Iran, determined as Russia is to go ahead with the construction of a nuclear power reactor at Bushehr in accord with their contractual agreements with the Iranian government. Mexican Presi…
Except when they believe we are mostly callous harlots who will dispatch with our 8 month fetuses with glee when the opportunity to fit into a prom dress presents itselt. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from the forced birther rhetoric on late term abortion.
Really? Is old Patsy Heaton going to spring for a nanny and a tummy tuck like she has?
Well, Donna, those women are mentally ill. As you can tell from the desire to kill babies. Either you want as many babies as you can have or you kill for shits and giggles. No middle ground.
[…] Via Pandagon: Patricia Heaton of Feminists For Life apparently came out publicly against stem cell research. FFL strongly supports the right of a zygote to live, provided it doesn’t spontaneously abort the way 80% of zygotes do. It’s less enthusiastic about the rights of people like those in this ad: […]
Not being pregnant could help on the job situation, too. At least, I think most interviewers on seeing a visibly pregnant woman would decide the company isn’t going to pay for her maternity leave as soon as she gets out of training.
Oh I get it now! So glad the FFL are there to clear it up for me. I guess that means using contraception also makes you a homicidal maniac.
The Pill = Jeffrey Dahmer
But why don’t they just go ahead and admit that in their website and emails to you?
I have my tubes tied. Am I committing genocide?
Here it is straight from the horses mouth:
“While they worked in close cooperation with their wives, they never had identical jobs at the factory, their roles became confused. Men sought new ways to preserve their masculinity. The first distinction to arise was economic — women would earn less than half what men were paid for doing the same job. In addition, women would be given the more menial tasks.”
from http://mamonaku187.blogspot.com/
So, in order to feel more “manly”, men had to pay women less and give them crappy jobs. He says it himself…them wonders why feminism exists.
I’m with them on helping women get child care, health care, education, and living-wage jobs to support families. How about FFL put their money where their mouth is and work on those very feminist parts of the equation, i.e. supporting the lives of girls and women who need these things instead of worrying about fetuses?
My religion teaches that the life and health of the mother takes precedence over the fetus. My mother always explained that to me as including mental health as well, so I’ve been pro-choice since I understood what abortion was (once I’d been disabused of the notion that “the Girl Scouts are evil because they kill babies” as the fundie neighbor kids told me as I went door-to-door in my Brownie uniform selling my cookies). I first stood out in the cold screaming, “My body, my life, my right to decide” when I was in college 15 years ago. Yet I still can’t wrap my head around this idea that a clump of cells is supposed to be more important, or even equally important, as a living woman.
I’ve heard the term neo-conservative, but never knew what it meant, or why I should care. It’s leaders were Irving Kristol and Lee Strauss, and over time their influence has completely altered what it means to be a republican.
They believed that the innate urges and desires of the masses if left unchecked would lead to selfishness and the downfall of society. They did not believe people were capable of making rational decisions for themselves, and therefore they were completely entitled to do whatever was necessary to control the populace using various social conditioning techniques.
No technique was off limits, including lying, cheating, spinning the truth, or stealing. They justify their behavior by a sincere belief that they are doing what is necessary for the benefit of society; that’s why they can twist the truth with a guilt-free smile.
I had always thought that BushCo got their ideas from George Orwell, now I wonder if Orwell used Strauss and Irving as the basis for “1984″.
If this isn’t new to all of you, I apologise for being the last one to know. It explains why an anti-woman group will call themselves feminists, why the law allowing more pollution is called The Clear Skys Act, why the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, (aka Patriot Act 2), makes americans “unlawful combatents”, etc etc etc.
Ever since I realized why and how the neo-conservatives do business, everything makes sense and I feel like I can predict what nasty thing they’ll do next.
Q: If I were a stupid incompetent psychopath, what would I do…
A: A few key seats in each house are sooo stolen.
ps - sorry, every time I come here I wind up off-topic. I blame Amanda for making me think!
What if her partner, friends or family have abandoned her? Or what if she is poor?
What happens if these things happen after she has a new baby?
What if her partner, friends or family have abandoned her? Or what if she is poor?
What happens if these things happen after she has a new baby?
Yeah, but the baby’s already HERE. Feminists For Life have done their bit. They can’t be bothering with actual babies when there are blastocysts to save from the Pill. Besides, only bad women get abandoned, so you deserve it. You should have prayed more. Or something.
Also, if you’re white, your ex-partner is white, and the baby is healthy, you should give it up for adoption to give it a better life. Also, it’s so much harder for good “Christian” couples to adopt healthy white newborns these days. Used to be there was a good supply of them, but these days with so many women aborting, or choosing to be single mothers (in part because there isn’t the same stigma), it can take a long time to get a baby. And they might have to settle for one that isn’t white!
If you and/or your partner aren’t white, or if your baby was born unhealthy, well, sucks to be you. Maybe FFL can lead a movement to bring back orphanages for the babies who aren’t in demand. We have to warehouse the children somewhere.
I love the way Heaton incessantly whines about how hard her life is as a wingnut in Hollywood. She should take a page from Yvonne deCarlo, who I hear was (is) a rightwinger who enjoyed a good back and forth with her liberal showbiz chums. Why are the rightwing nowadays such crybabies? (rhetorical question, apparently, according to psychology studies)
I don’t think Orwell used Strauss, but could be wrong. One of Strauss’ oddest, and enduring among rightwingers, conceits is that liberalism is the root of both Nazism and Marxism. Obviously both are forms of totalitarism, which is the essense of Strauss’ work as carried out — here you see the projection that’s become a defining part of the modern rightwing in the USA (especially visible since 2000, for instance when Jim Baker said that Al Gore would be dragging the election into the courts a day or so before George Bush dragged the election into the courts).
I’m sure one could find some examples of “coercive abortion”, but I’d be perfectly willing to bet an enormous (by my lights) sum, with odds, that “coercive pregnancy” is many times more common. Just as pregnancy is far dangerous, healthwise, than abortion — another thing these anti-choice people get backwards.
I would think that Orwell predated Strauss and I don’t recall him making any direct references to him, though I confess to not having read much of either of them. But it does seem obvious that the Neo-cons help themselves freely to Orwell-ian doublespeak.
And while I don’t believe that the true believers give a rat’s ass about the baybeez, born or fetal, they are happy to exploit fundie base’s discomfort with female autonomy and sex in general. Because if it gets ‘em to the polls and results in more expendible consumers and cannon fodder, well then that’s just gravy.
Heaton is also interfering in the Autism Bill. I wonder when she became a pediatric genetic specialist. Since the dissenters to the Autism Bill want it revised to ensure credible peer-reviewed research, you wonder about anyone trying to stop that. The charity she stumps for there supports some very questionable research done by some underqualified “doctors”. I wouldn’t take anything she says seriously. She is another public face who puts ideology before commonsense and morality.
I’d say it’s nice to find reactionaries paying at least lip service to positive concern for people in tough situations, except that actually that has been their schitck for the past 5000 years or so. There are relatively few authoritarian ideolouges who will come out and say, apparently even to themselves, that they just don’t give a rat’s ass for the welfare of other people, or anyone who doesn’t already have the social clout to guarantee their own benefit, or people who are getting systematically screwed by someone else. There _are_ such voices to be heard, but the vast majority of conservative thought has been devoted to rationalizing why situations and setups that obviously lavish a hugely disproportionate amount of society’s resources on a few, and rely on brutal threats (often carried out, for the sake of example) on the many, and blatant extortion under these threats of the many, day in and day out, are nevertheless actually the greatest good for the greatest number, in accord with the “natural” order, if only the befuddled masses had the enlightenment to see it that way. And I suppose most of these rationalizers have themselves pretty well convinced too.
But the thing that “conservatives” and reactionaries have to prove is that they are any different from the thousands of years of ideologists preceding them whom we today see as obvious thugs and/or idiots in their pretensions. Or alternatively, that the levels of misery that seem so inexcusible when we look backward in history or overseas are in fact the very best deal humanity (or if they like, their favorite version of a loving creator-god) could get.
Because if it were true, for instance, that the only reason that women would seek abortions was that they were placed in unbearable jams that social concern, whether organized as government programs or via private or religiously-organized charity, could have allievated, it is up to them to explain why the society did not in fact offer these positive supports. Nothing stopped the churches prior to Roe v Wade from offering comprehensive help for women trapped in abusive relationships, economic jams, etc, and hitting up their more fortunately rich parishoners for the funding. Nothing stopped huge continent-spanning or global corporations from having more enlightened attitudes toward either hiring women with the understanding they’d have to pay more to enable them to take time off for childbearing, or alternatively just pay their workers more so that a single income could indeed support a family.
Nothing that is except the forces of capitalist competition. But suggesting that perhaps capitalism is not actually ordained by God is political dynamite. To be sure some religious traditions, such as Roman Catholicism, have flirted with this argument but have typically wound up endorsing fascism as the alternative. Again–it would be up to them to explain why a “corporative state” winds up running death camps and being hell-bent on self-destructive wars of conquest, when supposedly all they are trying to do is establish the City of God on Earth as best they can.
As birth control and abortion were legalized in the USA, these reactionaries, if they were correct, had no barrier to a positive strategy of undercutting the bases of these alleged “evils,” as they saw them, by positive means that did not require capturing the machinery of government to enable negative ones. It would have taken some positive committment on the part of believers who had some wealth and standing in the community, but we are told that “naturally” such people, the elect of God no doubt, support the conservatives, so what would have been the problem?
As I’ve commented here before, my parents were and are particularly nutty Catholic anti-abortionists and opposed to BC as well. When I was in junior high I remember them doing a little bit to support something called “Sow Hope” which was supposed to offer pregnant women options to bear their feti (we called them “babies” of course, I being ignorant of the very high percentage of conceptions that abort naturally).
Well, even at home, I didn’t hear all that much about such “positive” efforts and I sure don’t see much sign of them in real life, then or later. I know that there are church-supported “homes” for women (mostly young girls) who promise to give the babies up for adoption, and I know these places do darn little for the mothers during pregnancy and next to nothing afterward. And there is that adoption quid pro quo which kind of neutralizes the whole pretense that this is about positive help for them, or charity in any clear sense. And even on the starkly class-maintaining terms of these systems, which invest heavily in shaming the very women who supply the supposedly precious babies, they operate on a thin shoestring.
Indeed, they suggest that if only we will all knuckle under to their severely hierarchial vision of society, we will all be so much happier. But it seems to me they’ve had many millenia to prove that point, and here we are today, in the richest country ever organized around the principle of private property and private action, which is also the richest and most powerful nation by any standard ever, and we have mass misery in the streets.
Screw ‘em.
Until I see Patricia Heaton storming fertility clinics all over the country so she can save all of the unused frozen embryos that are tossed in the trash with the used syringes and catheters, her every word on this subject is like a turd falling into my drink.
*sorry, just came over from the Bill Hicks topic, I couldn’t resist*
Patricia Heaton has always disgusted me to the very depths of my being. I hated “Everybody Loves Raymond” (no, they do not) and her character in it was a twit.
Maybe they should change their moniker to “Feminists for Pre-Life.” After that, they certainly don’t seem to give a crap.
kac90b,
As it said in the incomparable mid-1980’s book _Not the Bible: America’s Number 2 Best-Seller_, the revised list of televangelist Commandments, as handed down infalliby by Oral McJorrity, includes:
“Thou shalt not abort the innocent babe in the womb. After it’s born–open season.”
Yes, Caitlin, you’re spot on. I wonder why more people don’t point out how amazing it is that not one of these fetus-lovers gives a damn about the thousands of embryos destroyed in IVF procedures, when they get bent out of shape by abortion or stem cell research…
between this and the no exception law which will most likely be passed in Nicauraugua, how many of y’all (y’all = women of childbearing age) want to get your tubes tied in order to premptively opt out of this whole forced motherhood phenomena? i can’t be the only one.
maybe msn should do a study of that.
Scarlet and Caitlin:
a lot of anti-choice types are in fact trying to shut down IVF clinics, or at least to force them to offer unused frozen embroys for “adoption”. Do a search for “snowflake babies”; it’s very very creepy. They can’t shut down fertility clinics entirely, because there are plenty of procedures that don’t result in identifiable excess embryos (e.g. drugs to promote multiple ovulation followed by conventional sex or artificial insemination of some kind — any embryos that bite the dust in those procedures live and die entirely within the woman, which I guess makes it natural and OK for the wingnuts). They want the drugs and some of the research to continue so they can keep feeling all warm about septuplets with life-threatening birth defects.
But I’ve got a deal for the FFL: come back to me when there are no women anywhere living in poverty, and we’ll talk about letting you convince some of them not to have abortions. We’ll talk about it. (Does anyone notice that this kind of crap is exactly the same logic that’s used to support the predatory economic practices commonly called “free trade” — we’re supposed to let big companies screw us over now, in the expectation that there might someday be a few minor programs for retraining and economic adjustment that help everyone losing a job to “rational economic realignment”. You know, the kind of realignment that always seems to result in the realigners making more and everyone else making less.)
And unwanted childbirth is enriching?
I know the fetus worshippers believe that children are “enriching” in the spiritual/emotional sense, but you can’t convince me that having children is good for your economic well-being. Raising a child is very expensive. As has been discussed before on these pages, parenthood is one of the causes of lifelong wage slavery.
I also grew up in a strict Catholic anti-abortion household, and I remember groups like “BirthRight” who were supposed to provide anything and everything a woman needed so she could avoid an abortion–money, clothes, baby items, even a place to stay if she got kicked out the house. (One of them provided counseling and “sponsors” the woman could stay with who were supposed to be neutral and not pressure her into having the baby–just be supportive and make sure that any external circumstance that was pushihng her toward abortion was dealt with. Now there’s a real pro-choice platform!) These kinds of groups were our answer to “what if she can’t afford it, what if she gets abandoned,” etc. arguments with the pro-choice crowd.
Then I remember the Randall Terry types taking over the movement and milking it for personal profit and political gainh. Groups like BirthRight fell out of the public consciousness, and then nobody mentioned them anymore. That’s when I realized the movement was really just anti-abortion and anti-sex, not pro-life, and that’s when I left.
And now people are acting like this is a brand new idea and nobody thought of it 25 years ago? Geez. I’m too young to be spouting “Well, back in my day…” stories, damn it!
Bluefish -
I asked my OB about this when she looked oddly at me when I requested that my tubes be tied during my c-section. She said that she’s literally had hundreds of calls in the last year of childless women in their 20s and early 30s asking for information about sterilization methods.
She said she used to feel very uncomfortable doing sterilizations because there were so many good contreceptive options that are reversible, but with all that is going on, she would really rather perform the surgery for everyone than have to wonder if any of those women had been forced to have a baby.
I live in a pretty liberal, and fairly wealthy area, so I suppose that maybe the women around here are more sensitive to the weather, so to speak, and have the means to procure surgery.
DORTHY: I’m with ya there. Further, I don’t believe pro-life and pro-choice are mutually exclusive positions. A real pro-choice/pro-life platform would look something like this:
1. The potential for life begins at implantation, not conception.
2. The goal of any pro-life movement should be to prevent unwanted pregnancies. To that end, it would support sex education and access to effective contraception – including the Morning After pill, which prevents implantation.
3. Once a woman becomes pregnant, she should be presented with the full range of options, including abortion; and…
4. …she should also be presented with the social and economic supports necessary to have and raise a baby if she so wishes.
Closing down abortion clinics won’t prevent abortion. Stigmatizing the procedure won’t prevent abortion.
Preventing pregnancies will prevent abortion. Limiting economic and social hardship for people facing pregnancies, wanted or unwanted, will prevent abortion.
Magikmama-
See, that’s what I’m talking about. I always had this attitude that “oh sure, I’d like to be a parent, but first I’d like to finish my education, travel, learn how to feel comfortable in my own skin, find the right person, etc.”
That’s the same attitude that a lot of articles will shame women about like “if you wait too long to have a child, your child’s fertility will suffer/you won’t find a man/you’re at a risk for fetal complications/you won’t have as many precious babies and therefore you’re responsible for the declining birth rate, etc, etc, etc.”
I’m at that point where I’m in my prime childbearing years, I’m about to finish my masters, I’m relatively financial stable and I’ve met a person with whom I could imagine starting a family. Aces right?
Not so much. The anti-choice/forced motherhood movement both here and abroad totally terrifies me. This is something I can’t properly explain, but reading all of the attitudes that these folks spout regarding women and their supposed lack bodily autonomy makes me feel like I’m being invaded and colonized. I know this is how they want us to feel and this is the point. But, it’s one thing to read about theories regarding women’s bodies as property, but it’s another thing to actually feel it and to feel like society is inching closer to that.
Like reading the “Handmaid’s Tale” during the Clinton years and thinking, “Thank God that’s not us.” Then reading it now and thinking, “How can i avoid this?” The difference between a hypothetical and a reality. It makes me want to take the path of least resistance and relinquish my plumbing altogether.
And that’s the thing, we will always have articles which will shame and chide women for their choices regarding work, dating, education, childrearing, but can you imagine an article that reads, “Young women choosing to sterilize themselves because they are terrified of being forced into motherhood!” can you imagine that article hanging out somewhere with other dreck titled, “Biologists determine it’s natural for me to want to have a boyfirend!”
Ya Know?
This is straight from the Michigan NOW Chapter’s website on the Coercive Abortion Prevention Act:
We need your calls and letters to go to the members of the committee urging them to vote NO on these bills. These bills are ill-informed and dangerous to women suffering the ill-effects of domestic violence. The vast majority of battered women who feel “coerced� to consider or have an abortion are forced to consider this option not because of threats from the batterer but because child custody laws do not adequately protect battered women and their children or because current social policies do not allow battered women to feel they have the resources necessary to provide for their child such as employment, employment training, safe child care, and housing and health care.
[…] See also. […]
[…] The Republicans are bringing out the big guns to respond to Michael J. Fox’s incredibly moving ad promoting candidates who support stem cell research: James “Movie Jesus” Caviezel, Patricia “Feminist For Life” Heaton, and a couple of Missouri football players. […]
Devil’s Advocate,
Face it, you _are_ advocating for Teh Devil here. As I expounded at some length above, there has been _nothing stopping_ the self-named “pro-life” people from being _actually_ pro-life. Never mind checking if they also are against the death penalty; if they consistently advocate for peaceful options before throwing in with the latest jingoist national crusade; Heaven forfend we ask them to consider whether the domestic policies they support are in fact just ones or rather based on systematic violence or not! Let them just, in this one narrow category they have been making so much noise about since Roe v Wade, point to their track record of positive support for women who choose not to have abortions.
My, my, those crickets sure are soothing, aren’t they. You can hear the whipporwhils in the distant trees too.
Get it. They are not “pro-life.” They are never going to be “pro-life.” They won’t reverse the deep attitude of shaming women they are all about; they won’t help take care of the kids. Not gonna happen.
Now on the other hand if you hang around your typical feminist activists, you will find lots of support for actual born human beings of all types as well as support for women who have decided to roll the dice and attempt to bring _potential_ people into the world.
For me at any rate, I have had to accept as biological fact that human life does not begin at conception (which is now Catholic dogma, science be damnned) or implantation. You haven’t got a human being until you’ve got a fetus developed to the point where it can survive outside the woman, OK? There is a lot to be said for a process of gradually extending more legal protection, on the presumption of _approaching_ full humanity, as well as the choice of a woman to extend her pregnancy that far thus implying an intention to bring forth a child. But until actual viability a woman’s unilateral say-so, perhaps hemmed in in later stages with increasingly stringent formal challenges but until viability fundamentally, her will alone, should determine what happens.
And as long as we have a legal regime and social set-up that throws unreasonable hurdles, restrictions, and deceptions at women in the early stages, we need to make more allowance for late-stage abortion.
Frankly, I think it will do just fine to just guarantee the right to abortion for all women as late as they choose, and rely on women not to carry to late in the term feti they have no firm intention of birthing.
“FFL only chooses to support and empower women who fit their criteria of a good woman…”
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Old. Busted. Phrase.
Okay, I’ll bite, Jane:
What’s your exact beef?
MARK:
A “pro-life� agency can’t be expected to broaden its scope to include an answer for every social ill before it’s freed from accusations of hypocrisy. If such an agency states in its mandate that it wishes to reduce the number of abortions through lobbying for positive social change (and through offering effective birth control), that’s all it has to do. It doesn’t have to take on advocacy to end the death penalty (though I can’t imagine how anyone could seriously be pro-life and, at the same time, for capital punishment). It doesn’t have to provide food and shelter for homeless men. It doesn’t have to be all things to all people.
It just has to be what it says it is: an organization that links women who are pregnant (and those who have young kids) with helpful services such as affordable housing; an organization that supports sex education and distributes birth control products to people who can’t afford to buy them.
First, why don’t you tell me who “they� are, exactly? Because not everyone who espouses a pro-life philosophy is anti-choice and anti-privacy.
I’m not defending “Feminists for Life,” or the “crisis pregnancy centersâ€? that exist solely to lie women into childbirth. While I may bed with the Devil from time to time, I’m certainly not doing that here.
You won’t hear any disagreement from me.
/snip/
And that is where we part company. The potential for life does begin at implantation. Uninterrupted, that clump of cells probably will grow into a human being – and this, by month seven. With medical support, a baby born two months premature can survive outside the womb. That, I think, should be where the line is drawn.
Are you a doctor, Devil’s? Your medical advice about how all pregnancies going wrong at 7 months can safely be handled with a delivery strikes me as different from what most doctors say. Pray tell, what’s your secret? I’m sure a lot of people would like to know.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Okay, Jane. Whatever you say. That’s an interesting bit of horseshit, but let’s pretend you’re arguing in good faith, even though we know you’re not. What legal ramifications do I propose against women who don’t make choices I agree with? Please, examples, because I thought long and hard about it and realized that not only do I think women should be empowered to make all sorts of choices, I think this even when I strongly disagree that it’s the right choice. For instance, I think having 6 kids is wrong. But I think you should have federally subsidized daycare and public education all the same. Can’t say the same about these so-called “feminists”.
Old. Busted. Phrase.
not to mention completely empty of any rational argument.
(and through offering effective birth control)
Heh. Good luck.
AMANDA:
Why, I got it from that bastion of Conservative values, Planned Parenthood (http://www.ppacca.org/site/pp.asp?c=kuJYJeO4F&b=139571) They talked about medical advances increasing survivability for babies born between 24 and 28 weeks (six and seven months). And they didn’t question viabilty after seven months, although they did add the caveat it must be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Here’s another: “Of fetuses born at 28 weeks, approximately 80% survive.”
The Aussie Government Health page gets the last word: “The odds of survival depend on the baby’s degree of prematurity and birth weight. A full term pregnancy is said to last between 37 and 42 weeks. Recent figures (1998) found that at 24 weeks the odds of survival are 58 per cent, rising to 98 per cent or more by the time the baby reaches 28 to 30 weeks gestation. These statistics will continue to improve as neonatal care and research evidence evolves.”
And I never said, “all pregnancies.” But please, don’t let what I actually said get in the way of what you want to hear.
No one is disagreeing with the facts, DA. I’m disagreeing that you know enough about medicine to use the sledgehammer of the law to make medical diagnoses for women that have pregnancies going wrong at 7th months or later. Because:
Uninterrupted, that clump of cells probably will grow into a human being – and this, by month seven. With medical support, a baby born two months premature can survive outside the womb. That, I think, should be where the line is drawn.
Sounds an AWFUL lot like you think a “line” should be “drawn” at 7 months, meaning that you think that the law is better able to diagnose a pregnant woman than a doctor. Now, if you have the super secret medical knowledge that means that doctors who prescribe late term abortions can avoid having to undertake this unfortunate event, please, give it up. It’s wrong of you to be coy. Because you’re talking about fetuses and brains and whatnot, but since we’re talking about abortion, a medical procedure, you need to provide the evidence that doctors are misdiagnosing foul pregnancies and aborting for no reason whatsoever.
That, or you’re one of those people who sincerely thinks women wake up one day and go, “Shit, I’m hugely pregnant. I forgot to deal with that. I don’t fit in my clothes anymore. Why don’t I get a wildly expensive, extremely painful surgery done by a mythical doctor who will do it without actually inquiring how I got into this situation.” I know you’re a woman; is this how you think?
AMANDA:
I think abortion should remain legal and be free for the asking; but that yes, there is a line past which one is no longer terminating a pregnancy, but killing a child. If not at the point of viability, when a fetus could live independent of its mother, should that line be drawn sometime after a full-term birth? If viability isn’t the test, what is?
I don’t think doctors perform late term abortions for shits and giggles, and I don’t think any woman would undergo one if she didn’t see a pressing reason. But – and I’m digressing from the topic a bit here – sometimes I think people undertake late term abortions based on misinformation or unproven assumptions (e.g., that an otherwise wanted fetus with Down’s Syndrome or Spina Bifita would be better off terminated through a late term abortion than born, or that fetuses with clubbed feet or cleft palates would.)
Where late-term abortions are concerned, this has less to do with whether abortion is right and more to do with whether a viable (and otherwise wanted) fetus capable of surviving without further draining its mother should be destroyed based, perhaps, on prejudice.
I personally find many reasons offered for late term abortions deeply offensive and dehumanizing. Some of those abortions seem less based on safety or privacy than on consumerism: that is, the view that babies are commodities; that they must, on pain of death, conform to social standards of beauty or intelligence.
And doctors, for all their medical knowledge, are notoriously ignorant of effective habilitation strategies for children with disabilities. Their information may be wrong, and trusted only because of its source.
I don’t think anything can be said of all pregnancies, but I think the above is very true of some.
Heeeeeeell no, I don’t believe that.
Okay, you have a long list of moral obligations that you are perfectly free to follow yourself. And that’s good. But you’re dancing around the issue of what you mean by a line that should be drawn. Are you or are you not advocating that the law should force doctors to perform C-sections and/or induce labor on women who they think should in fact be getting abortions?
Think hard, because while you dance around stating outright that you think the law should interfere, that’s exactly what it sounds like you’re advocating.
I personally find many reasons offered for late term abortions deeply offensive and dehumanizing. Some of those abortions seem less based on safety or privacy than on consumerism: that is, the view that babies are commodities; that they must, on pain of death, conform to social standards of beauty or intelligence.
You find certain medical care offensive. Fundies draw the line at finding women who want to live offensive. We’re all free to determine our own medical care within our line of offense. But what you’re doing is dancing around the question of whether your morals should be the law.
This discussion, for what it’s worth, is why I think Backlash should be required reading, particularly the last part where anxiety about late term abortion causes a court to overrule medical reality, Angela Carder’s family’s wishes and her wishes and perform a C-section instead of a late term abortion. What happened was a classic example of what happens when hypothetical viability is prioritized over what should be priority number one for doctors, which is the current patient’s health. From NAPW:
It’s an extremely important case because it’s the classic example of what happens when the law demands that they know better about things like viablity than doctors and that the lines they have drawn are appropriate. Yes, I know you said “not every pregnancy”, DA, but this is what you’re advocating for more of—doctors being held in contempt of court, judges who don’t understand medicine determing that they think a fetus is viable, and women dying during C-sections they don’t want. And for all the wonderful advances in medical technology to keep premature babies alive, the fact of the matter is that the fetus really is part of its mother’s body and therefore its health is dependent on hers. Women who are getting late term therapeutic abortions—which you yourself concede are the majority of late term abortions, not the “want to fit in my prom dress” monsters of anti-choice imagination—are generally too sick to deliver a baby, so even if they’re forced to against their will (which does happen in this “lines drawn” environment), you’re not likely to produce the sort of premature baby that has much chance of survival anyway.
What we fail to understand is that doctors are trained extensively to weigh competing factors and yes, sometimes they don’t make the right decisions. However, the court systems already have a way to exert quality control, which is the threat of medical malpractic suits. A perfect system? No, but what is? We’re talking about the most effective system and the most effective is to allow doctors to terminate pregnancies at any stage if they and the patients feel that’s the best idea. Will this mean that there’s a possibility of abortions occuring for reasons that make Devil’s Advocate uncomfortable? Definitely? Is preventing that more important than giving doctors and patients the freedom required to maximize lives saved? Not in the slightest.