I read an article on Twitchy about Charmaine Yoest's appearance on MSNBC. I have not watched the video, but apparently abortion apologists are Not Pleased with how the interview went down. Particularly @tommyxtopher who wrote his own article about labels. Or @lizzwinstead who is still ranting on Twitter tonight about an interview that aired this morning. Because apparently she just stews about stuff all day instead of, say, going to work or buying groceries or doing the things that normal human beings do to...you know...live.

Whatever.

Anyway, as Twitchy notes, Lizz Winstead is horrified that MSNBC did not instantly require Charmaine Yoest to call herself "anti-choice." Because, Tommy Christopher protests, "Like *we're* not also pro-life?"

First off, I suspect MSNBC put the kibosh on "anti-choice" because that does not put pro-lifers on the defensive. Instead it would have given Yoest a wide open door to say something like, "You mean you don't oppose choices that kill children?" Hardly a rhetorical advantage for the abortion apologist.

Second, no Tommy, abortion defenders are not pro-life. They are defending the legal protection for the killing of defenseless human beings, and justifying these deaths as legally, ethically, and morally acceptable. No one who claims it is okay to kill innocent human beings is in any way "pro-life." I will agree with that the converse of pro-life is "anti-life," but Mr. Christoper's disliking that fact does not mean...anything at all really. He just dislikes it.

So, here's the thing, most pro-life people will cheerfully say that we are anti-choice-to-kill-children. Because every sane person in the world is. But, the more that slur gets tossed around, the more likely the pro-life movement is to stop being so kind about not saying "anti-life" or "pro-abortion" in general, instead of just to each other. And if "anti-choice" is rhetorically unpleasant, "anti-life" and "pro-abort" are ten times worse. Once again, the labeling advantage is against those supporting abortion. For all the squawking of Tommy and Lizz, if they were given what they wanted, the response of the pro-life movement would put them in an even worse position, label-wise, then they're in right now.

Poor them. Maybe once I'm done trying to end my country's legal protection for the greatest human rights injustice in history I will be able to spare some sympathy for them.

But probably not.

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.

This is the final part to my series, and though perhaps it was a bit of an ambitious first try, I feel pretty happy with having finished it. Certainly I'm quite glad to be able to put a definition on a lot of the ruts abortion debates get stuck in.

So, onward to the finish line.

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I see these six things happening in nearly every abortion debate I encounter. Frustrating, no? But, I stack them up against the momentum of the pro-life movement legislatively, culturally, and globally, and I am certain it is a matter of time until they, and legal abortion, finally fade. Abortion will be abolished. I am confident it is fully possible for us to see it in our lifetimes. So I encourage all of you, when facing these roadbumps, don't give up. Science, logic, and human rights are on the side of life.

And, speaking on science, I plan on joining in on a new project starting next week called Life After 40. And here is the video on it.

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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No, I haven't forgotten about this blog. However, real life intervened for a while and when I was able to come back, I felt like going back to a thread that was so old and likely dead would be a bit counterproductive, so I wanted to wait for something more current.

And thankfully, something did just happen on the same community (which is still really image-heavy) as the previous posts came from last night which touches exactly the next point that I want to make next in this little series.

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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.

I have been wondering what to do my next entry on and then what should come along but a Fandom!Secrets thread about abortion.

Okay, first off, why should anyone care? Well, maybe you shouldn't. Fandom is, to be honest, the internet dork sanctuary. All the TV/movie/book/anime geeks and all their fannish glee all hang out and geek out and squee and swap fanfic and...yeah. Bunch of nerds all being nerdy. But fandom also gives insight to the "average abortion defender." The people represented in fandom, most of them, are not pro-abortion activists. This is not the group with all the newest talking points, this is not the group with the direct line to Cecile Richards or Nancy Keenan. These are average people doing average things.

Second, what is Fandom!Secrets? It is, essentially PostSecret for fandom. People create images to do with various fandom things and attach to them secrets and submit them anonymously to this LiveJournal community. Some of them are frivolous. One of yesterday's was someone saying they think most Transformers fans are morons or trolls. Some of them are serious. Also one of yesterday's was someone saying that they were raped the week before The Dark Knight came out and that that film had helped them recover. There's a spectrum.

So this thread (WARNING: Very, very image heavy.) came along and I thought I would see what could be learned for it, and I will be blogging on the conclusions I've drawn for a few entries, since even this one turned out to be longer than I expected.

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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.