Overheard at work: every single bad pro-abortion argument ever. Seriously, it was awful. "People have to be able to make choices" (not choices that kill other people, though), "It's none of my business" (so if your neighbor is abusing their child but not hurting you to do it, is that also none of your business?), "Religion shouldn't dictate public policy" (people said that about the abolitionists, but thank goodness those people lost that fight). It was that bad.

However, the speaker was a guy, and he also believes the bad pro-abortion logic that men shouldn't get seriously involved in the abortion debate. And you should never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake. So I have every intention of letting him wallow in ignorance.

Good grief, though, how is it that these arguments still have legs?!? Every single one of them is terrible.

With the Kermit Gosnell case justifiably back in the news, there are a lot of people trying to claim that this is somehow an example of what happens when there is not enough abortion access. I covered this in my previous posts on Gosnell, but now that I'm not hanging out with people who make me breathlessly angry, I'm going to take another run at it. Because apparently this needs saying again.

( More Access Will Not Help And Would Most Likely Lead To More Gosnells )

Pro-life feminism is my wonk issue, so when I post to this blog, I'm probably going to circle back to that a lot. Especially when some group of idiots make appallingly anti-woman comments while pretending to be the most pro-woman people in the room.

Like this.

Context time. The NaNoWriMo forums, in the thread entitled "Proudly Liberal, Proudly Pro-Choice." They're kind of alienating all the pro-life liberals there (and all the pro-choice conservatives, if we were going to get into deets), but I see no need to interrupt them while they are busily isolating themselves in an echo chamber. I can hang with pro-life libs. They're cool.

Anyway.

So, in the midst of busily dissecting how horrible "anti-choicers" are, we get this little gem (same link as above). Read it. It won't take long.

So, the woman under discussion is one Janis Lane from the Central Mississippi Tea Party who said the following in this interview.

Probably the biggest turn we ever made was when the women got the right to vote.

...Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting. There is nothing worse than a bunch of mean, hateful women. They are diabolical in how than can skewer a person. I do not see that in men. The whole time I worked, I'd much rather have a male boss than a female boss. Double-minded, you never can trust them.

So, clearly she's taken a turn for the cray-cray. On that, I think any self-respecting woman, whether she calls herself a feminist or not, could agree. So much for Janis Lane.

Let's look at how the supposed pro-woman abortion apologists respond, though. Rather than saying, "Yeah, she's clearly a moron." and moving on (like any ordinary person does when confronted with Insane Troll Logic), they have to "unwoman" Lane. And more than that, they instantly go for gendered slurs to attack her. First it's "bitch," but she's worse than a bitch. Then it's "cow," but even that's not bad enough. Last "pig" is rejected on the grounds that pigs are pro-equality creatures (because apparently cannibalistic child-murder is not anti-equality or anything). Finally, the consensus is this woman isn't even human. Though she may be a "Republican house slave."

The trouble here, aside from the gendered slurs and the general disgusting attitudes, is the initial push. If you aren't sufficiently in line with our way of thinking, you aren't a real woman and should be punished. Because real women all agree with them, at least most of the time. Real women never say anything dumb. Real women don't stray from the ideological lines we give them.

Maybe these folks would be more comfortable in Stepford, Connecticut?

But even moving beyond the ridiculous group-think, the idea here is that to be a good woman, you can never make a mistake. You can't be wrong, or even an idiot. Women aren't all valuable beings with rights (whether any given woman thinks of herself or other women that way or not). Only the women this select group approves of are really human people with all the rights and responsibilities thereunto pertaining. Which is, once again, the definition of mysogyny.

I have said it before, but I'm starting to think we may need to graffitti this on every building in the world: If you don't respect the life of every human being, you don't really respect the life of any human being.

I debated with myself a long time about what order these last two should go in because I can move from a specific to a general or a general to a specific. And I have at last decided on the former.

And this is actually something I've looked forward to writing, because it deals with the intersections of a lot of prejudiced attitudes that crop up in abortion apologetics. So, without further ado...

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I know it's been a while. I have been doing productive things with the time, though. Like graduating college (finally!) and now (slowly) embarking on a career. But now I have a few moments and I can come back to this blog, and my long-interrupted series.

My next point was...not going to be this one. To be honest, this one was going to go at the end, and be all conciliatory about things the pro-life movement could improve on, in terms of how we communicate and such-like. But the truth is, I've seen enough evidence lately to realize that the problem is, unfortunately, much more severe than just us needing to be better at explaining ourselves. Not because we don't need to do that, but because the other side not only isn't listening, they're literally making stuff up. So I'm bumping this point up and coming at it from a new angle, 'cause this really does merit pointing out.

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After a brief hiatus, I think it's time for the second entry in this series, and so, having laid the groundwork for what I'm talking about in the first entry, I'm going to dive right in with the second thing I learned.

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Still, I'll leave things on an upbeat note. This video was created by Students for Life of America (a wonderful organization), and is so hopeful and celebratory (with some great shots of the March for Life, too) that it can't fail to lift your spirits.

After doing some thinking on where I do want this blog to go, I'm settling on mostly a snarkish sort of direction from a pro-life perspective. After Gingi Edmonds vanished from the web there seems to be an opening in the pro-life blogosphere for a snarky sort of blog. Of Gingi was a bit more insane than I'd like to be, so you won't see me ranting in quite the same fashion she did.

To that end, I was looking around for something to commentate on (always a plus), and discovered this entry on the pro_choice comm here on Dreamwidth. Since that entry is a repost from a personal blog, I've decided to look at the original blog-posting as well as what was posted to the comm.

So, let's have a look.

Pro-Choice: A somewhat Christian position

Oh dear...

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I may come back and add more to this after church, but for now I'll just put up a short note.

Yesterday, President Obama released the following statement for the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Today marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women's health and reproductive freedom, and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.

I am committed to protecting this constitutional right. I also remain committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.

And on this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.

Okay, feministy rant to be added later. For now, I will let John Piper do the ranting. This video is a year old, and unfortunately, it still applies.



EDIT: All right, now that I'm back from church and can get to the feminist ranting and give it the attention it deserves. Because Obama's little statement there is stupendously anti-feminist. Did you catch it?

"...On this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams."

*suppresses urge to throw things*

Women. Do. Not. Need. Abortion. To. Be. Equal. With. Men!

Women are equal, as they are, with no additions, subtractions, or modifications required to make them that way. In fact, the very idea of changing women in order to make the culture in which they live view them more positively is, by its very nature, antithetical to feminism. It is the opposite of feminism. It is anathema to feminism. If a culture views women wrongly, or views anything of which women are capable--including pregnancy and motherhood--wrongly, the solution is not to change women, it is to change the culture. The suggestion that women are, by their nature, inferior to men simply because we can become pregnant is insulting, offensive, degrading, and pig-headed.

President Obama, as a woman, I am offended by that statement.

I wish I could say I was surprised, but I had a feeling that this would happen. Of course, I'd hoped it would take a little longer, but even that is not surprising really. Just disappointing.

Two days ago Kermit Gosnell, the abortionist, was arrested on eight counts of murder. One of a grown woman, and seven for children he had delivered alive and then stabbed to death. Predictably the abortion apologists--desperate not to be required to admit that this man is actually doing something they support just doing it the wrong way--are quick to blame the pro-life movement, claiming that it was "limited access" that caused this situation.

The Grand Jury report does not bear this out.

The first line of defense was the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The department’s job is to audit hospitals and outpatient medical facilities, like Gosnell’s, to make sure that they follow the rules and provide safe care. The department had contact with the Women’s Medical Society dating back to 1979, when it first issued approval to open an abortion clinic. It did not conduct another site review until 1989, ten years later. Numerous violations were already apparent, but Gosnell got a pass when he promised to fix them. Site reviews in 1992 and 1993 also noted various violations, but again failed to ensure they were corrected.

But at least the department had been doing something up to that point, however ineffectual. After 1993, even that pro forma effort came to an end. Not because of administrative ennui, although there had been plenty. Instead, the Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.

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