The A-word

aDM made a comment regarding the orientation of feminine/feminist politics in the USand related it back to the abortion issue and “choice”.

And I have been thinking a lot about “choice” and “life” and pondering my current stand which is 180 degrees away from the way I used to feel about it.

In the US, the evangelicals are threatening to start a third party if Rudy Giuliani becomes the Republican nominee because he is personally pro-choice. As much as I agree with the pro-life position, I believe this move is a fundamental mistake.

Rudy has stated point-blank that he does not believe in an activist judiciary, so any Supreme Court appointments he would make will most likely strike down Roe v. Wade (which even a few liberal activist pro-choice lawyers feel was the wrong case to define abortion rights in the USbecause of the manner in which it was decided.) If the evangelicals split the conservative vote, they will get a Democratic president with a Democratic Congress which will bring in activist judges who will definitely uphold Roe v. Wade. The exact opposite of what they want…

Now, to my own views on this contentious issue, and to the laws of unintended consequences…

Most of the battle over this issue is how the debate has been framed. And from that point of view, the pro-choice lot have won. They have framed the debate as one of a woman’s choice as to what to be able to do with her womb. And, with the exception of the highly vocal pro-life lobby, there is very little debate on it outside of the courts.

I used to think like that, but now I am the complete opposite. Besides my own personal experiences, which were the main catalyst, I’ve read a little bit about the origins of this particular “movement” and its relationship to other “movements” to have become very skeptical of the assertion that it is all about choice.

Believe me, I came to this view in a very considered manner, and the catalyst was seeing my daughter at about two months after conception in a sonogram. Many of the traits this little active fish-like creature had were eventually borne out in the full-grown baby that evolved from it.

I am not pro-choice, but I don't think people should go to jail over it. But I also don't think wide-spread government-funded availability of abortion through the third trimester and up until the crown of the child’s head is passing through (which is what most of the activist "pro-choice" crowd advocates) makes for a very civilised society. 

I think the framing of the argument as to whether this little tadpole inside a woman constitutes a human life or not is the question that should be considered. The fact that many people think it doesn't points to a sick society. And abortion is a symptom, and an aggravating factor, of this sickness (not, by far, the cause, nor the main factor). 

At the risk of sounding like I’m wearing a tin-foil hat, I think that this issue has gotten the prominence it has because it gets right down to a) a Gramscian attempt to undermine the primacy of the family over the state, and b) the abortion movement sprung from the Eugenics movement, and it latched onto feminism as its sponsor after Hitler’s failures made Eugenics unpopular. 

First off, abortion undermines the institute of the family. And when the family is undermined, the State (particularly the Socialist/Communist variety) benefits. 

How does it undermine the family? It takes what was once a risky pastime whose mitigation was marriage (at least for the working classes), takes it away from being the primary tool for building the family, and turns it into a sport. Nothing more. 

One of the unintended (?) consequences of "choice" is that the bar of expectation is set lower for men, so that many men are no longer worth marrying. When women (and men) are protected from the consequences of their choices, there is no longer any reason to be selective in potential mates (and no reason for potential mates to be select-able).  The sexual revolution may have "liberated" women, but it liberated men even more; men no longer had to be marriageable to make a good sex partner. 

With the expansion of abortion availability alongside the expansion of the welfare state, what is happening is that more women are sleeping with inappropriate mates thinking if worst comes to worst, they can get an abortion. What happens, though, is that more "unwanted" children are born than aborted anyway. I know there are some solid statistics to back this up, but I can't be bothered to look the studies up right now.  (What do you expect, this is a blog, fer cryin’ out loud.) 

Hell, I’ll even go so far as to say, at the time my daughter was conceived, other than my earning power, I didn’t make for good mating material, myself. But I had no doubt that once I saw that little fish floundering around, that I was going to become a better person. Which, IMHO, I eventually did. 

Now, for the Eugenics side of things…Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, the American Marie Stopes, was an avid eugenicist, and felt that abortion was the best way to keep the lower orders (i.e. poor people and blacks) from reproducing. Note, too, that at the time, there was no welfare state to speak of. So blacks and the poor were not exactly a drain on the state.  They may have been recipients of charity, but they were never a drain on the state. When Eugenics became discredited, the abortion movement had to find other raisons d’etre. The nascent modern feminist movement seemed a good fit.* 

With this in mind, it is also no coincidence, that in the US, one is more likely to find a Planned Parenthood clinic in a black neighbourhood than in a white neighbourhood.  

[Of course, Planned Parenthood has morphed into a business as well, making something like $200 profit a pop…But that would have nothing to do with where they stand on the issue, of course.] 

At the end of the day, perhaps the discussion of choice should really revolve around a woman’s right to choose what sort of person she sleeps with rather than to kill the unintended consequences of sleeping with someone she could never envisage being a father to her children.  

And men should work on being marriageable, themselves, if they want to get laid.  

But I’m thoroughly convinced that the widespread availability of abortion only exacerbates this problem rather than solves it.  

Would outlawing abortion solve this problem? I highly doubt it would be the only thing that would need to happen. So maybe I am more moderate than most religious conservatives? 

(I like to say I am not conservative because I am religious, but vice versa, and many of my socially conservative views have been reached by starting from the exact opposite side of the issue, anyway.) 

And as far as abortion being a symptom of society’s sickness, I think the Russian and Chinese models for state-funded abortion-on-demand, as most of abortion’s proponents here in the UK and US aspire to, are hardly something to emulate given the sort of societies they enjoy there. 

I do know that if the debate were re-framed into a discussion of what constitutes human life and what sort of value we put upon it, rather than what is a woman’s “right” to choose, the pro-choice side of the aisle would lose. And that’s why the debate is never allowed to go in that direction.**  

 

* I also have my own thoughts on the founders and leaders of the modern feminist movements which leads me to believe their intentions were more Communist than Feminist. 

A) In the late 1940s, Betty Friedan was not pushing a hoover around wistfully wishing she could go to work in a high rise, her professional life began long before The Feminine Mystique: in 1940, for instance, she was a Stalinist member of the Communist Party USA who had penned a vigorous defense of the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty between the USSR and Germany.

B) Simone de Beauvoir’s own vigorous, effective argument about whether men are necessary at all in The Second Sex did not belie her own torturous co-dependent relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre.

C) The relative silence in the face of Islamo-Fascism, female genital mutilation, and the role of women in Islam, by major feminists today does not convince me that sisterhood is what it is all about

D) In fact, the “celebration” of hejab by the likes of Germaine Greer, et al. leads me to believe that one-worldy multicultiness trumps women’s rights more often than not.  But what do I know, I'm just a man.

 

** That’s why whenever the possibility of adoption couseling as a federally funded alternative is raised, a lawsuit regarding separation of Church and State is made faster than you can say “ACLU”.

Comments

[AF]

Where to start!

"At the end of the day, perhaps the discussion of choice should really revolve around a woman’s right to choose what sort of person she sleeps with rather than to kill the unintended consequences of sleeping with someone she could never envisage being a father to her children".

Why would you say that James? This is the problem with forced pregnancy advocaters. You make sweeping allegations having just accused the feminists of doing the same around 'right to choose'.

Speaking from the experience of having helped a friend cope with abortion - ill tell you something. She was MARRIED and in another case Im aware of engaged! His horror at discovering her pregnancy when she was on the pill (it has a failure rate) left her high and dry and he walked out. Why would you INSIST she then has to bear a child when she cannot afford to raise on her own. Why should she be linked to this cretin for life? So you liked what you saw. Good for you! But dont apply your values to someone else and think the world works that way. Its often a complex set of circumstances behind each and every individual case. The danger is to take the alarmist single cases put forward by forced pregancy bunch and use that as a measure for all situations.

In the UK the abortion movement was NOT linked into the feminist movement at all. In fact it had relatively little to do with it. The church got a hold of the issue after the introduction of the pill. And we all know why that was. It was the Church not feminists who politicised the issue. Furthermore regards the US and Roe, Hugh Hefner bankrolled it. About as far away from the feminism i support as is humanly possible. The guy is vile. As are most of all of the key players you mention above. That doesnt mean there isnt a feminist case for abortion today, however.

Im so sorry but it makes me shudder to read ill conceived notions about abortion. I work part time as a volunteer in helping women with these decisions and I would never force my pov on any of them. I wish i could share the complexities of each case but obviously i cannot. You can however read stories posted anonymously on an abortion clinic blog if you wish. My grandmother used to look after women recovering from illegal abortions and so i feel i should do something to honour her feminist courage. It wasnt pretty what was happening then and its happening again - in 2007 in the USA.

'there is very little debate on it outside of the courts'

There is tonnes of debate - it is part of your Presidential curriculum! you are in the process of seeing basic access to it dwindling to nothing in the US anyhow. When i posted on this topic over at A Tangled Web i received hatemail. (It was partly this that prompted me to discontinue blogging).

Why do people feel they have the *right*, since we are dismissing womens in this issue, to decide for them or frame the debate the way they assume it is? You accuse feminists of framing the debate and yet with no knowledge at all of the issue other than your personal view of your own situation where you were lucky enough to be able to go ahead and enjoy family life, you see fit to do likewise and frame the debate as, essentially womens fault for sleeping around?! Thats what gets me most because its NONSENSE.

'I also don't think wide-spread government-funded availability of abortion through the third trimester and up until the crown of the child’s head is passing through (which is what most of the activist "pro-choice" crowd advocates) makes for a very civilised society'.

Wittling down access to nothing is getting what you want and no better than making it illegal. It isnt 'pro choice'.

Its simply pro choice. You dont have to make that choice. Thats the point.

[AF]

Thinking about it if we are going to have a wider and better debate then we should publish the stories of women who have had abortions and that is something the group i work with is considering. We should be honest. For example a case in the US of a 14 year old girl who died during an illegal abortion was hushed up. We should get the facts. After all it was the lack of access to abortion, the ruling that under 16s have to tell their parents and have consent that led this girl, from a very conservative family, to the decision she made. Maybe it is time feminists simply came out and made the stories public. Take away the taboo that leads to the assumptions and demonstrate abortion is a human issue rather than feminist. It certainly isnt communist feminist.

Another point i wanted to make was that the rise in UK abortions correlates with a) the decline in the use of the pill ever since the 80s and the aids scare and subsequent cancer scares and b) the accession of religiously conservative countries to the EU.

[AF]

And a final word on this regards 'But what do I know, I'm just a man'.
bluff that is used in the anti-feminist debate ;). Here is some real life. If you want the source ill post it:

Friday, October 20, 2006
iraq

again

again today i talked with another woman whose husband is in iraq. this woman, whom i'll call julie, is in her early twenties, has one child. in fact that child will soon be a year old. but he has not seen his dad since he was four months old. he is too young to even know that he has a dad. his mother is doing her best to raise him alone and does have help. so her situation is not as dire as many that i have seen. but the problem is that when her husband came home this summer after basic training, she became pregnant. as difficult as it is to actually have a conversation when you are halfway across the globe from one another, they managed to do so. and they were in agreement that another child would not be good for their family right now. already, they wonder how their soon-to-be one year old will accept his daddy when daddy returns in another year or so. and, even with help, raising a child alone is not easy so how could she do the kind of job she would want with two? with the miracle of video cams, daddy will be able to see a part of his son's first birthday party but he is missing his son's first words, his first steps and will return to a child in whose upbringing he has not participated for two whole years. to this young couple, having another child would put stress on every family member and, they decided, much to their surprise, that abortion would be best. surprising because in the past, abortion was not a word that ever entered their minds, let alone their conversations. but wars change people, change their thinking, change their decision making. so julie had an abortion today. she goes home hoping that her son's daddy comes home next fall as he is scheduled to. she said she could handle it with one child but not two if he doesn't make it. brave women and men, dealing with the longest war in more than a century.

Of course the question is then - why not use contraception? To which id answer: how do you know they didnt?

[James G]

Sorry,
But you are putting the cart before the horse here.

I would have to say that perhaps the Church was right, because mere cretins like the one your friend was married to would never have been allowed to look himself in the mirror, or mix with decent company ever again without emigrating to another country. Particularly if his leaving her would leave her broke.

Abortion isn't really debated in presidential politics. It is a litmus test on both sides of the aisle.

I understand there are people who make hard decisions. The decision to put a child up for adoption is just as difficult, but women do it every day. And someone close to me did just that, and I respect the hell out of her for it.

Anyway, do you support partial-birth abortion? State-funded?

Do you think that it is behaviour that any civilised body politic should accept as being paid for by them?

As to consent...It is unfortunate that girls kill themselves because they think their parents will disapprove. Her parents didn't live up to their part of the bargain of being parents if she couldn't go to them. I can't speak for her, but if the same thing were to happen to my daughter she would get all the support she possibly could.

Not to mention the criminal implications (many of these underage girls are knocked up by adult men, or even relatives) which deliberately get overlooked by abortion clinics. If more guys were put away due to the evidence that could be gathered from abortion clinics, then perhaps that would have a moderating effect on male sexual behaviour.

And these "Catholic" countries you refer to are actually more formerly Communist than currently Catholic.

Anyway, I know I will not convince you otherwise, but that I have been convinced, and I hope you will be open-minded enough as you age to allow yourself to see the arguments on the other side.

I understand your passion and compassion, but like I said, abortion is a sympton rather than a cause. That's probably why I have a more moderate attitude than most pro-lifers.

At the end of the day, I think men should be held just as responsible for their actions as women are. Making abortion cheap and easy doesn't help.

[James G]

Actually, now that last testimony you put is probably the worst load of bollocks you could present to someone who did miss his daughter's first steps because there was no work to be had in England at the time, and a Navy brat whose father was deployed on ships most of his childhood.

Sorry in that case, abortion is the easy way out.

Very flimsy arguments.

[aDM]

They are not flimsy arguments - and moreover they are not yours to moralise over James.

Anyway, do you support partial-birth abortion? State-funded?

Yes 100%

Do you think that it is behaviour that any civilised body politic should accept as being paid for by them?

Do you think that women will stop having them or abortions generally because you say so and bury the issue?

I accept they will happen and happen in less than 1% of cases. I very much want for these to be legal, above board and not carried out by some halfwit in a 2 bit clinic who will do it for easy cash.

Its worse than 'unfortunate'. It will happen because you cannot pry into peoples private lives and tell them how to raise their daughter or react to it.

Abortion is never the easy way out. Never.

'Making abortion cheap and easy doesn't help.'

Eroding it back to dirty hidden clinics or internet abortions (buying the black market pill as they do in Brazil) isnt helpful either. You make it sound like an easy to access cop out. Im convinced the only way forward for this debate is for less taboo and outright honesty. There are too many myths.

There shouldnt even be a forced pregnancy argument. Your only argument is to keep the status quo legal with full provision, and focus on better sex education, adoption processes that take into account the shame and stigma of a pregnancy that lasts long enough for everyone to notice and quicker and better adoption processes. But anti choicers dont. Ever!

[Gorse Fox]

I assume that you can guess tha Gorse Fox's view. Again it comes down to "respect for the individual". This works at several levels.

1) women deserve respect and are not mere objects of male satisfaction.

2) men deserve respect and are not just tickets to a council flat.

3) embryos deserve respect and must be defended and protected as they cannot defend and protect themselves.

Now GF is sure that a number of liberals will come up with a 1000 "what ifs" regarding rape, illness, deformity etc. GF doesn't deny these are problems. He does, however, recoginise you have to have a moral baseline against which you can judge each separate case and make a moral choice that is correct when placed in a moral context. (Too often today the choice is made in an amoral context).

[aDM]

The embryos respect is not above the respect i apply to a living, breathing, sentient human being with fully formed relationships that have a direct bearing on a decision. If it was as easy as Gorse states life would be as easy as pie! ;)

[lisa]

Oooohhh! I’m lovin’ this! Some juicy stuff!

So, I think it’s a bit petty and hideous when people assume that pro-lifers are pro-miserable women, and that pro-choicers are pro-murder. This is a complicated matter and it’s not black and white.

My stance? I’m personally pro-life, but politically pro-choice. Our governments do serve the purpose of making some appropriate and meaningful laws that help to protect us, but there are some issues that the government shouldn’t have control over. Period. I think partial-birth abortions are detestable, it doesn’t take very long for an embryo to show signs of post-natal life. I believe in limits in this respect. I say hooray to laws that would ban them, think about it: should we accept and hug Ted Bundy because he was doing what was in his “rights” as a human being in this country?. We could bring up Welfare too, but that’s neither here nor there considering the many types of people who use it, and the varying reasons for that. I also think it’s sad that a pretty respectable and competent Presidential candidate could loose a large number of voters based on a religious concept, that for whatever merit it may hold, goes against the basics of Liberty.

It penetrates a lot further than ‘will I be pleasing the Feminists/Socialists or the Church?’ Take the very essence of the issue. Life and questions of. A woman, and I speak from some serious serious experience, could give two defecatings about what the church or the government or her feminist sisters are thinking when faced with this decision. It is all about emotion, existence, pain, fear, happiness, the wind that caresses your face and could possibly one day do the same to the clump of cells in your womb- or not. If there were ever an existential, Nirvana-like (yes, it is a religion, but I can’t think of a more appropriate description) experience for a woman, it is when faced with this decision. You have to go deep, really deep. You have to go so far into yourself that it is scarier than meeting Leatherface’s cousins in the West Virginia mountains. Who was it that said “Nature is cruel?” Imagine that one of the most defining, important, delicate moments in your life; when you need to be the most level-headed you’ve ever been, that your emotions go bonkers because of hormones. And let me tell you, I think there is merit to the choosing one’s partner element as far as ‘sleeping with the wrong people’ goes. Our species thrives now because of survival of the fittest. That’s a fact. I do believe that abortion allows men and women to not be so picky about the issue of procreation, that we often drop the ball. And it is more than helpful to a woman to have TRUE support from the man you’ve procreated with, whatever may come of the circumstance. I love this quote (have to look up the author in a mag I recently read, get back to you on that one) that this women made about sexual decisions. She likens choosing one’s partner to baking. She says we should learn to “sample that unidentifiable ingredient before adding it to the cake mix.” It could be salt after all….. I also find it fascinating that in our evolution, the human is at a point where they actually have to make a decision like this. Even just as early as 60-100 years ago, there was no choice to be made. You were preggo and that was that. Yeah, you might’ve been ostracized and/or put in a home for pregger unweddeds- “off to take care of Aunt Margaret”, but there was no life/lack of life decisions to be made. Being more responsible with oneself can really make for an easier life.

The military husband really is a flimsy argument because it underscores the sacrifices that many families have made since the existence of “common and modern” military life. This is what it all boils down to, Sacrifice. What are we really willing to sacrifice for what we think is right and what will make us happy? People in the military are quite aware of the chances of long distance relationships. And many many many a mother has raised quite healthy children basically alone, and those children had to eventually re-meet their fathers. It was all a sacrifice (for whatever reasons, i.e. serving one’s country or needing a steady job that in some countries would otherwise not be available).

These are the questions a woman deals with in this issue:

Am I willing to sacrifice my peace of mind for (fill in the blanks) an abortion, adoption, raising a child?
Will I be able to LIVE with the decision of ________, will I be sacrificing a piece of my spirit?
What will happen to my child if I ________, will I be sacrificing his/her life, his emotional well-being, his lifestyle?
Will I be sacrificing my relationship, the well being of, the lifestyle of the sperm donor (husband, boyfriend, one night stand, whomever he may be) if I _________?

Or religious deity of choice forbid….

Will I be sacrificing my life (health-wise) if I ________?
How will I feel about my rape/molestation if I _________, will it help, hurt?

There’s more where these came from, A LOT MORE.

Who cares about political jargon when it comes to the issue of nothingness versus life. We wouldn’t be able to sit here and argue about it, there wouldn’t be a Kagillion galaxies out there that would drive oneself nuts about if one thought about it hard enough. Maybe it’s right, maybe not, but I firmly believe that unless in the very face of it, the political jargon is equal to nothingness. I am VERY close to saying ‘if you haven’t been there yourself than….you can guess the rest’ Just like those galaxies that may or may not be there, sometimes we have to make a decision about a life that may or may not be there. It’s all about the sacrifices you’re willing to make to see what’s beyond the Milky Way. And there’s a lot of nothing out there, but it doesn’t make it right or wrong.

What we need to be analyzing is the state of the human race, and more importantly, the individual. What does it take to make or break a person? And as far as politics go, how much are we willing to give of ourselves to the law? Government please do protect us a little, but let us also utilize free will. Let us also hope that when using that free will, we will choose wisely, whether it be to sign off on a Bill, to vote , or to decide what is best for you and your possible family. Every human being is faced with some tough decisions at some point, it’s the nature of the beast, but how these decisions affect us is what is important. We have come a long way since the invention of the wheel. We are unquestionably inquisitive, whether religions are true or not, we have an inner compass. We’re are all in a state of adjusting those compasses.

[lisa]

That sounded a bit dramatic, but concieving under the least optimal circumstances is dramatic. I probably should've edited before commenting.

What I failed to mention, that is really important to me is that I am a birthmother of a healthy, happy son who I get to see about once a year (and would be more often if he weren't across the water) and the mother of a son I am raising. Both of these children have been a tremendous gift despite any tragedy or losses associated with their unique circumstances. I can't imagine life without them, and because of the joy they bring, I feel that life is the right choice. It might not seem like it in the beginning, but I can't help but think there must be a reason why you fell into that statistical 1% of failed birth control.