Comments on: Pro-Life Group: “It is shameful that Christians would rally around the physical needs of the poor”

By: Feministe » Recapin’ Your Ass

Feministe » Recapin’ Your Ass — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:00:18 +0000

[...] ain sexual gratification. Anti-feminist nutbags tell us what the movement is about. Jill: Pro [...]

By: KrlLrk

KrlLrk — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 16:20:12 +0000

Hello All
There really isn’t much hypocrisy in the “pro-life” crowd being adamantly against any and all ameliorative policies for poverty etc. It seems confusing/hypocritical to most people because they conveniently leave out class and race markers in most of their analysis and fail to read between the lines of what these “pro-lifers” are really saying. They are not against abortions for all women, they are against abortions for WHITE women. Hell, you’ll find many a Christian organization working hand in hand with a Planned Parenthood etc when it comes to sterilizing or providing abortions for “females” (in that they are non-women/non human) of color/poor. Honestly, take a look at all of the abortion clinic bombings, their locations and the primary demographic (white) served by said attacked abortion clinics. Then take a look at what these same groups say about the poor (which despite official numbers to the contrary, is highly racialized in “majority/white” beliefs/i.e. the terms are racially loaded.) When they spit fire on “the poor” , they do not and can not see one of the little blonde babies they’ve “rescued” from between the legs of some “evil abortionist”- they see a teeming mass of dusky faced, for lack of a better word here, “darkies, looking to steal their “birthright”. When you actually use the hidden modifiers/adjectives and get at the real meanings when these groups use the word “women”, “poor” and “children” then you see that these groups aren’t being hypocritical, they are being deadly serious and deadly consistent. After all, Christian groups in this country were (i’d say, still are) the number one supporters of sterilization/abortion etc when it comes to the “untermenchen known in American parlance as the “urban poor”/”underprivileged/illegal immigrants(which in turn means immigrant of color/Mexican) .

By: Jill

Jill — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:30:32 +0000

Monkey, I didn’t “twist” the quote — I put the entire quote, in context, at the top of the post. Had I only put up the headline and not included the context, or only used half the sentence and then linked to the ALL site without explaining the context, that would be twisting the quote, and you might have a point.

By: monkey

monkey — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:00:06 +0000

oh dear. you have taken part of a quote out of context repeatedly and placed it in bold font. shame on you. you are supposed to be the one representing fairness as a non-brainwashed skeptic! the quote doesn’t only say christians shouldn’t rally around the poor… the second half changes the meaning – it says that instead of focusing on poverty, “christians” should focus primarily on abortion. Of course, this is still bullshit and ignorant of the reasons for abortion, but come on, you totally blew up a part of the sentence and conveniently downplayed the second half, when that other half was a crucial part of the author’s meaning & intention. i may not agree with him, but i don’t agree with your twisting of quotes either. i know the full press release is right there, but your emphasis on only half of the quote several times, and the headline… you just give them ammunition.

By: Equine Shine » Pro-life org. says focusing on poverty is “Shameful.”

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:07:39 +0000

[...] er education and career. Such is justice for this brand of “Christianity.” Via Fem [...]

By: LiberalCatholicGirl

LiberalCatholicGirl — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:36:56 +0000

Snowdrop,

Good points…although you could make the argument that John the Baptist “leaping” in the womb in recognition of the presence of Christ could give a pro-life counter arguement.

OTOH, in the Old Testament, the penalty for murder (heck, even for adultry, homosexuality, etc) was to be stoned. The penalty for causing a pregnant woman to miscarry was much less (don;t remember exactly…but I think it was some sort of material reimbursement), putting life in utero at a totally different level than a sentinent human life.

Bottom line is that the Bible doesn’t really deal directly or firmly with either contraception or abortion, and the 2000 year Christian tradtion has similar inconsistancies and grey areas. I’m sure that God is not fond of abortion, the same way God is not fond of people having to undergo heart surgery, but he hardly has made his will and mind clear on it judging from Scripture or the tradtion of the Church. But when it comes to poverty and injustice against the poor and oppressed, including spiritual oppression of the Pharisees, the Bible has MORE than enough strong words that should leave no doubt as to where God stands on issues of social justice or who his kingdom belongs to.

How Christianity became such a parody of everything Jesus was against is just beyond me.

By: Fay

Fay — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:23:19 +0000

Beth, I feel you. My response to that is: It’s self-defense. Have you read Judith Jarvis Thompson’s essay about the unconscious violinist? Let’s see here… http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
I don’t believe I should be forced – by the state – just because I am a woman – to let another person use my body to live, even if I conceived that person.

I agree that both sides seem to only be concerned with one or the other, the fetus or the woman. It’s just shameful to me that the pro-forced-pregnancy side doesn’t seem to get that yes, okay, it’s a person, but it’s inside another person’s body. That ultimately makes it a feminist issue, because if the government can FORCE a pregnant woman to carry her child to term, then she essentially becomes a second-class citizen, at least for nine months. I find that prospect terrifying.

The solution, of course, is choice! If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t have an abortion. It’s very simple.

By: stop helping people or else « ex-lion tamer

stop helping people or else « ex-lion tamer — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:17:11 +0000

[...] e, all right stop helping people or else odd echo: first her [...]

By: NewsCat

NewsCat — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:36:27 +0000

Can somebody clarify for me why exactly do they care so much about what I do with my body? If I abort my baby, then it is my “sin” and not theirs. I will go to Hell and not them. They should be happy. I won’t be taking up a place among the 144,000.

Mary I have wondered about that myself quite a bit.

By: SnowdropExplodes

SnowdropExplodes — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:16:16 +0000

Beth,

According to my Study Bible, the womb was referred to in Psalm 139 as “the secret place” and “the depths of the earth” not only because the womb was recognised as concealing, enclosed, dark, but also because it was a place where life had not yet begun.

Both phrases are used elsewhere in the Bible to refer to the place of the dead (Psalm 63:9, Isaiah 45:19 and others).

In other words, in Psalm 139 and elsewhere in the bible, the womb is not seen as a place of life, but of before-life: the “dust” from which man (taking the Bible’s male-centric view!) comes. He may be knit together and formed there by God, but God’s knowledge of what will become of a man is not the same as that man having life.

A modern analogy would be that a computer cannot be said to be a computer until it is given an electricity supply: the computer’s maker might no exactly what the computer will do even as she builds it, but that knowledge is nothing until she plugs it in.

Another relevant passage, of course, is Genesis 2:7 – Adam was not living until God breathed the breath of life into him, and Adam began to breathe. Before that, Adam was simply a thing made out of dust.

Ecclesiastes is another relevant source, and perhaps directly addresses the balance you mention between the unborn child and the mother, for example, Ecclesiastes 4:1-3

“Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place udner the sun:

I saw the tears of the oppressed – and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors -

and they have no comforter.

And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive.

But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.”

(Admittedly, Ecclesiastes concludes these thoughts later with the suggestion, “better a live dog than a dead lion”)

I see a strong suggestion in the bible that abortion is preferable to oppression or poverty. As many others have said, there are very few indeed who undergo abortion without having some thought for what it means. It is a mistake to assume that “pro-choice” implies a disregard for the potential life that is being rejected. Pro-choice means letting a woman consider all the matters that are important in her life, such as her ability to love and care for a new child, and make a wise decision about the future.