I’m pretty late on getting to this AlterNet article Can You Be a Feminist and Anti-Abortion?, but I just read it and thought it was worth discussion. It’s an interview with Jennifer Baumgardner about her new book Abortion and Life
I’ll let you read the article yourself, but Baumgardner’s conclusion is a “yes” with a bunch of caveats — and I was happy to see that she didn’t excuse the bullshit pulled by some of those groups out there which claim to be made up of “pro-life feminists,” but aren’t feminist at all.
Do I think that one can oppose abortion and be a feminist? Yes. But read that carefully: I said that I think one can oppose abortion. I don’t think that one can oppose abortion rights. You see, without abortion rights, women die. There is a more complex argument to it, but I think that much suffices: outlaw abortion, lots of women die, or are injured, by illegal and unsafe abortions. Thus, outlawing abortion by definition cannot be pro-woman.
But I do in fact respect a person who says that they themselves could never have an abortion, or that they believe a fetus/embryo to be a person, but yet do not want to make that choice for other women, and do not want to see other women be harmed as a result of that choice. I respect them — and their feminism — so long as they support efforts to prevent abortion by preventing unplanned pregnancies, and so long as they support efforts which make it easier for women to continue their pregnancies in ways that are non-manipulative.
One does not have to believe, as I do, that having an early abortion is morally neutral, or be willing, as I would be, to have an abortion at the drop of a hat should they find out they were pregnant. One doesn’t have to be willing to choose abortion for themselves or even be morally okay with the idea of abortion in order to be pro-choice — by definition, they simply have to support the right to that choice for each and every woman.
And I’ve always thought, as I’m sure that many of you do, that claiming pro-choicers and feminists think otherwise is generally quite the strawfeminist. I also think that when a feminist/pro-choice person is asked a question about someone who is “pro-life,” their mind tends to jump to your typical anti-choice person who wants to outlaw abortion and does not support real sex ed and pregnancy prevention. And I feel like we’ve had this discussion many times before, but largely because of terminology confusion, it keeps coming up. (In fact, we’ve danced around the subject in comments very, very recently.)
For these reasons, I am a bit queasy over the term “pro-life feminist.” I’m not going to try to bully someone out of using the term, nor do I want to bully them into claiming the title “pro-choice” if they don’t want to, even if that’s what I think they are. But surely there has to be a better alternative descriptor?
So, what do you think, both about the term itself and the significantly more nuanced concept behind it? Play nice as you discuss.
I have to say, I don’t like the term “pro-life.” It implies that anyone who doesn’t think a fetus is a human being is “pro-death.” But then, the term was meant to be divisive in that way. Which is why I won’t use it.
I find the idea of making any absolute moral judgment about abortion really problematic from a feminist standpoint. It feels intrusive, even when it doesn’t have the force of law behind it.
For some women, a fetus feels like a baby. For others, it feels about the same as any other being of the same size and cognitive ability. Neither group can really say what a fetus is, “objectively.” That’s essentially a religious question falling in the realm of “things we’ll never know,” which is yet another reason I object to anyone trying to push their personal belief about abortion on anyone else–I believe in religious freedom.
I’ve had this argument before with someone I know. She is passionately against abortion, and has told me it’s the only reason she doesn’t vote Democratic.
However, you press her and she tells you that she doesn’t think it should be outlawed, she’s just against it personally.
I was like, “but that’s the definition of pro-choice!”
But she was like, “yeah, I guess so…I just don’t want to call myself that. I need another term…”
*headdesk*
personally, i would never get an abortion except MAYBE in a rape situation but i don’t believe in limiting other women’s choices. ideally, i think abortion should be limited to the first trimester(unless the mother’s life is at risk) but i know how much of a slippery slope that is so i wouldn’t advocate for that to be law or anything. i’m also an advocate for comprehensive sex education.
I hate when people say they wouldn’t get an abortion. For one thing, I don’t believe it- and with good reason. I said I wouldn’t and I did. It was not a health issue, a rape, or incest. It just wasn’t what I wanted at the time, and I changed my mind. Whenever I hear people say there is no way they would have one- with a bit of contempt, of course, for the baby-killing sluts who would, and I am not sure you can convincingly argue you wouldn’t have one unless you truly have contempt for the procedure- I have to laugh, because I wish I could just tell them that I HAD ONE after standing in the their shoes.
You just can’t know. How can you accurately guess what will happen to you in your life between now and menopause?
I have to say I agree with some of Baumgardner’s criticism of the pro-choice movement, particularly her frustrations with the ‘everything with this must be fine and no one ever has any regrets or bad experiences, that’s propaganda’ mindset. I realize that a united front of opposition to those who are anti-abortion rights is important, but at the same time it seems to be hurting some women. Not to mention the issues of race that come into play, which I think disappears for many white feminists–I’ll freely admit that race is something I sometimes forget when it comes to abortion as issue.
It’s not easy to hear. At all. And I’m not sure I agree with everything she has to say, but I definitely see the need to rework the whole system.
I feel I’m pro-life. I support a woman’s right to give birth to a child, not have it forced upon her by a lack of sex education, lack of access to contraception, or worse, by being raped, and then having the government force her to carry the child to term. I support a woman’s right to prenatal care and resources to raise her child. To me, that’s “pro-life.” Taking away a woman’s ability to make decisions about her body and her health and her family has absolutely nothing to do with life.
I’m appalled that South Dakota is going through the fight again for another abortion ban. Especially one that has such poorly worded language that even the exceptions for a woman’s health are dangerously vague. I have a real problem with the term “pro-life” when what it really means is “forced pregnancy.” Here’s what that gets us:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/pdf/SRR_International_Cases.pdf
no one ever has any regrets or bad experiences
I have a problem with this argument wrt abortion because the other alternatives can lead to just as much regret. The excerpt from the book covers this in the discussion of birth mothers.
I don’t know her personally, but I have corresponded with a woman who gave a child up for adoption in 1970. She married the father soon after. They never had any other children. I know she regrets that decision more than any other she ever made. She never saw the baby, but her mom did and told her her daughter had red hair. Whenever she sees a woman in her 30s who has red hair, she wonders….
But I guess you could say I do know her personally, because I grew in her womb. I wish these discussions got opened up to allow both birth mothers and adoptees to talk about their experiences. I don’t think my birth mother felt she had a choice. And both of us have suffered.
I don’t think anyone should have the right to make women’s decisions for them about their reproductive choices. Regret comes in all shapes and sizes. And I really need to read Fessler’s book.
I am desperately waiting for my tubal ligation to be preformed. I have given it a lot of thought and I am certain I never want to be pregnant, let alone have children. I have fought with many doctors over this and it wasn’t until I threatened to “do it myself” that they took me seriously. I have explained over and over in great detail that I would rather risk a back alley abortion than have children. Last week a ‘pro-lifer’ defended limiting women’s access to birth control and abortion offered to adopt if I conceived between then and now and I have been terrified that this woman would see my crisis as a way for her to profit even since. I can’t talk to that person again. She well-meaningly triggered a desperation that made me consider stabbing myself to damage my ovaries and uterus enough to never conceive. Then I read the posts about ‘pro-life’ being feminists and have been absolutely terrified since. The word “Pro-life” are too tainted with its real anti-choice agenda to be used. Pro-Life as a movement is anti-feminist and anti-choice. It is dangerous and is willingly killing women and children globally. Who would want to associate themselves with a movement that denies women in places ravaged by AIDS condoms or fire bombs women’s clinics. Scroll down the page and you will see Pro-life doesn’t mean not wanting an abortion personally, it means denying women any and all control over their reproductive health. You cannot reclaim this title any more than you can reclaim the swastika as good luck charm. They will not compromise and cannot be reasoned with. Half the reason I am getting sterilized is so if (and possibly when) Pro-life bans access to birth control, I will be ‘safe’. I should not have had to make this decision. I should have been free to choose a less intrusive means of birth control and to have access to an abortion if and when I chose but if Pro-Life continues to gain support and feminism backs down because it thinks it can reason with these fanatics, I will do what it takes to protect myself.
Here’s a site worth checking out, you might even want to add their product line to your store
http://www.cafepress.com/nochoice4women
I am with you, I’ll Go Anon. I never believe anybody when they say “I would never have one.” Nobody knows what their life is gonna be like from this moment until menopause, and I doubt that many of us really even know what we would do if we got pregnant TODAY. You don’t really know until all the variables are eliminated and you are really looking at a concrete situation and an impending due date.
This is my first time posting, but I read this blog often and identify (strongly) as feminist. This post was something I needed to hear.
I come from an incredible supportive family and still consider myself Christian (a liberal Episcopalian…) and have always been firmly in the camp of “I’m against abortion for myself but am all for keeping it legal, safe and rare (typical moderate Democrat position.)” I might choose abortion following a violent rape, but after my experience with a date rape in college and a pregnancy scare, I decided that I would continue any insuing pregnancy in that particular case. However, the experience was traumatic enough that it definitely challeneged my perspective about abortion.
Over the years, I have realized that my privileged status as someone in a supportive family clearly affects my perspective. As I’ve gotten older, I have gotten increasingly radical in my views on abortion, especially in light of those in less privileged positions in society. I am firmly in support of making emergency b.c. available, providing sex education to limit the need for abortion etc. That said, I still think that I will carry any child conceived through accident. My personal view has become easier for me to sustain over the years because I have increased my financial, emotional, and intellectual stability. I realize this is a product of my privileged livestyle (thus my pro-choice political stance).
However, because I have always lived in “red states” — either the bible belt or the “Mormon belt” now (if there is such a thing) — I have had a hard time being forthright about my opinion in a non-feminist forum. Even in my (English) graduate studies program, I have felt a lot of pressure to be less feminist in my perspective(s) about abortion and even in terms of my beliefs about gender essentialism in general.
My vague, problematic and probably unanwerable question is this: how do those of us who are allies, strong feminists who support abortion legally but not personally, bridge the gap between pro- and anti- choicers without alienating either group?
What seems to be at stake is the question of when life begins, and I admit that I don’t know about that. Does that make me less credible for pro-choicers? I know that the issue will continue to be about bodily integrity for women. Does it make me a target for pro-lifers? I know that they can give me lots of examples of life during early phases of pregnancy.
In sum, I guess I’m just tired of having to “mediate” feminism with our misogynistic culture.
“I am pro-life, ask me about free condoms” is my motto.
As far as feminism is concerned I think you definitely can be politically supportive of reproductive rights and be personally against abortion. The simple fact is no government should have so much control over its citizens personal lives that it can dictate and violently enforce individual medical procedures or bans on individual medical procedures.
I do believe abortion is an act of violence and should be regarded as undesirable because of that. Government intervention is an act of violence and violation against women and should be regarded as undesirable because of that. I believe human equality and freedom requires taking violence out of our calculations but government actions are controllable in an impersonal and manageable way that an individuals private medical decisions are not.
Government violence is something we can prevent with practical public actions. The small violence inherent in abortion is not preventable through such actions, it can only be prevented by individual women.
I hate when people say they wouldn’t get an abortion.
I used to say that I wouldn’t get an abortion (but obviously supported other women’s right to do so). It took exactly one pregnancy scare to knock that idea out of my head.
I spend a lot of time on feminist blogs, reading about abortion and thinking about the personhood of a fetus on an intellectual level, feeling that of course abortion should be legal for a multitude of reasons, but it’s still so sad to end the life of what would otherwise grow to be a person. Last week my period came a day late and all I could think about was how happy I was that I live in California and could get an abortion if I needed one. It might be sad, but I feel it would be much sadder to fuck up my life than to terminate a fetus. I am a living, breathing, thinking person with an education and a career and a life ahead of her; a fetus can’t even think or feel anything. Abortion is a lost possibility, not a lost life.
“It took exactly one pregnancy scare to knock that idea out of my head.”
Me too.
In some ways, I feel like this issue is why we need people to identify as pro-choice. Just as the term “pro-life” gets a bad rap from people who are actually just anti-abortion, pro-choice gets demonized by the other side as being the all-abortions-all-the-time option, which it manifestly is not.
Maybe if more people welcomed the pro-choice label (because it does fit- it’s exactly what it says on the tin, pro-choice) it would demonstrate that a ranger of personal opinions exist- but that the only thing we’re all completely set on is a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and the freedom to choose her own treatment.
That is not to say, of course, that everybody can’t call themselves whatever they want ! :) But I think the term pro-choice is a valuable one, and one that gets too much bad press.
Of course you can be a feminist and be “anti-abortion,” as long as the abortions you’re “anti-” are abortions you would not have.
That’s why it’s called pro-choice. An individual’s choice for herself might be no abortion. Fine for her.
I understand people who see the value in lived experience, I understand wanting to see different sides of a discussion, and I understand how abortion can be a difficult idea for a lot of people, I understand how people might have deep moral or ethical problems with the idea of actually having an abortion. Those views ought to be respected and deserve to be engaged and explored in an open and non-judgemental context. But that isn’t being pro-life in the way that the phrased is used in the English speaking world, and none of those things matter when we’re discussing abortion rights.
In the English speaking world pro-life essentially means pro-slavery.
The absolute bottom line is that this entire “abortion debate” comes down to a single question: under what circumstances can the body, health, and life of one individual be used or threatened against their will for a subjective social good? That is the entire debate, the only question. All this other bullshit about feelings and lived experiences and the potential for regrets after various choices is pure obfuscation. It serves only to cover the fact that on a very real level the forced-birth side of the discussion is talking about slavery. The forced birth side of the discussion is saying that some people have the responsibility, enforceable by the coercive power of the state, to serve others regardless of their own will or dangers to their own health. Further it is saying that the way we identify people who should be denied their agency for the good of others is by gender. The forced birth argument is that something which is not legally considered a person trumps the basic human rights of a woman under all or most circumstances.
How about the term, pro-do-whatcha-gotta-do? I’m not sure what I would do if I became pregnant unexpectedly, or with a child that would have severe health problems, or as a result or rape, or when I was single and financially and/or emotionally unprepared, etc, etc. I change my mind every 3 seconds. I do everything I can to keep myself out of a situation in which I will ever have to make that choice.
So how about, I’ll figure it out for myself, if it ever comes to that, and I’ll-do-what-I-gotta-do. And if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, you-do-what-you-gotta-do. As I see it, that’s all we really can do.
I find this question interesting since 1) I know many Catholics that are Democrats except for the whole abortion thing; an 2) I think that if, as pro-choicers, we get to the point where we’re making an argument that the fetus is not a person, we’re on losing ground. Not because there isn’t a difference, but because there are always, always going to be people who don’t think so and there is likely going to be more and more medical evidence and advances that blur the line between viable and not. While I think it’s important to respect different ethical positions on when life begins and all of that, the heart of the argument on abortion has nothing to do with life and everything to do with personal autonomy. I think engaging in the kind of rhetoric that continues to try to draw a line between baby and fetus is the kind of rhetoric that turns off many people with more moderate views on abortion.
(Apologizing in advance if this is a double-post)
It’s really easy to declare that you would never have an abortion, until an unwanted pregnancy and the complete derailment of your life is staring you in the face. Some people can still go through with the pregnancy, other people begin thinking really hard about just *what* that fetus is and weighing the decision a little less cavalierly.
That said, if you honestly feel that all abortion kills a human life, then all abortion should be illegal. All of it, no matter the means of conception or the risk to the mother’s life. The only abortion that should be legal is the removal of an already-dead fetus from the woman’s womb. And you have to square with that–you have to accept that it means a lot more dead women, and a lot of abused and abandoned babies, a lot more teenage girls shipped off to maternity homes where their babies will be snatched away from them, and an increase in poverty for struggling classes and the decimation of the middle class, but that’s ok as long as the tissue is allowed to progress and become a baby. It means women being forced from the workplace because they’re too “risky” to employ. It means a return to regressive divorce laws because womens role in public and political life will be diminished and they won’t be able to advocate for fair treatment. It means women will have that more difficult of a time getting out of abusive relationships.
If all of this is acceptable because a blob of dividing tissue is a full human life, and in the “burning fertility clinic scenario” you would totally pick up the petri dish of dozens of embryos and leave the five-year-old child to die, then I guess you’re at least logically consistent, but you would have a hard time convincing me that you were in favor of women’s rights. But I really feel that the philsophy of “I support abortion rights but I would never have one” comes from an intellectually lazy place.
It’s too easy to get ourselves wrapped up in the terminology of the whole darn thing. My head was spinning as I read even the comments, because we’re re-defining pro-life and pro-choice and everything else — not anyone’s fault, it’s just the terms are loaded. Thoughts?
I do believe there is more to this issue than “blob of dividing tissue” vs “full human life”. I do agree that most of the mushy political middle “abortion is icky” crowd is intellectually lazy, if they were not intellectually lazy they would have staked out a position one way or another and call for a course of action.
However I do not hold to the idea that women whose politics align with yours should be labeled insincere because their stated approach to their personal lives does not align with yours. It seems fairly counterproductive since the most consequential aspect of this debate is what role governments, even democratically elected governments, should rightfully have in people’s personal lives. My answer is none to very little, your answer is none to very little and the more people are persuaded by that issue the better for women’s equality and reproductive rights.
(I have had pregnancy scares and it did not change my personal position on abortion one iota.)
It seems to me that we are to stuck in the narrow definition of the two terms. As someone who would not get an abortion (though I’ll admit, as others have pointed out, that not having been in the situation I really don’t know for sure) but that is where my identification with Pro-Life ends. Yet when I get into conversations with pro-life people I get tried of explaining that I can still be pro choice but not personally believe in abortion. Like republicans /democrats conservative/ liberal most people don’t fit into one label.
Becky, I think the problem is less about how we define the two positions and more about how we discuss them. The fact that you (and a lot of other posters) feel the need to discuss what you might do in a given situation says a lot about the argument being made. What you would do if you were faced with an unwanted pregnancy is only salient to the discussion of whether abortion should be legal if you believe, on some level, that your decision ought to be everyone’s. I know thats not what you’re explicitly saying, but that is the implication of how you’ve chosen to engage in the discussion.
I don’t necessarily feel that there is anything wrong with forcing people to fit into a label here. Either you believe that individuals own their own bodies and ought to have the sole power to decide how their bodies will be used or you do not. Being pro-choice is the former, everything else is the latter.
To make the political personal (again) I’ve never had a pregnancy scare but I’m almost entirely sure I’d get an abortion pretty much no matter what at this point in my life. I’m doing family planning in my head already: for example, I’m going for a PhD over an MDPhD partly because doing the former leaves my having-a-kid-in-the-undefinable-future options a little more open than the latter (the other part of my decision is that I don’t like sick people. So there ya go. :p) I’ve made future space for a kid; I’m not going to try and make space for a kid in my present.
I guess it comes down to the fact that I value my own life and my plans more than almost anything. Sure, it sounds pretty cold, but I wouldn’t take a bullet for any random person, so there’s no way I’d put myself in the way of life-changing-potential-harm for a clump of cells I didn’t even want. And it’s not like there’s some baby-shortage out there; the world isn’t holding its breath for me to pop out a kid. Maybe I’ll have kids when I’m in a committed relationship and done with school and have a steady job and all that, but until (at least most of) those conditions are met NO WAY. There’s no hurry; I’d rather wait and do a really stellar job and enjoy it.
More generally, a lot of this is clearly a how-much-do-we value-women thing. (I know, duh. :p) Women get socialized pretty hard to be self-sacrificing and not make waves, and ALL the Disney moms die for their babies at the drop of a hat. It doesn’t seen ridiculous to suspect that if women (and men) valued women’s NON-procreative roles/goals a bit more, expecting a woman to give up the next 18 years of her life for another person would be a bit more demanding than people like to frame it. It’s not like guys are generally expected to make that kind of sacrifice. I mean, lately it seems like asking anyone to pay an extra 1% in taxes is like asking them to burn a puppy. Surely demanding an 18 year time/energy commitment shouldn’t be a “no big” right?
There are lots of things that society considers more important than actual *born* babies (or any other humans), so I don’t feel too bad about telling society to bite me, and continuing to prioritize women over fetuses.
Fuckingterrified,
I have considered getting a tubal ligation too, and I’m 33, in a stable relationship, and I sort-of-want kid(s) someday, and so does he. The thought of being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy is chilling. Kicker is, most of the pro-slavery people would love to see me reproduce – I’m white, intelligent (book-learning-wise, at least), and educated.
Wow, sorry that was so long!
To answer the question in the actual blog title: yes, I think “pro-life” as it’s used in the USA today is oxymoronic (and hypocritical in the extreme.) It’s blatantly manipulative in its very phrasing, and the activities of many of the people who call themselves “pro-life” make it clear that preserving life is the last thing they care about.
“Pro-choice” and “pro-life” are political terms that describe how one feels about the legality of abortion. As William pointed out, what you claim you would or would not do personally is moot.
I have grown very tired of hearing (or reading) women clarify their pro-choice position by saying they’d never have an abortion themselves. What you’d do in your own life is not relevant. If you think abortion should be safe and legal and available to all women, you are PRO-CHOICE. I think a LOT of pro-choice women are out there describing themselves as pro-life, for some reason (probably social acceptance), even though they support abortion rights.
Additionally, it does not matter whether fetuses are technically “people.” If they are people, they are not entitled to rights other people are not afforded, namely, to live off the biological resources of another, unwilling, person.
Right on, SarahMC.
It always goads me to see the “but… but… ME, PERSONALLY” kneejerk reaction in these online discussions, because it always comes off as a wrongheaded attempt at self-aggrandizement at the expense of other feminists. After all, if a troll calls you a fat ugly carpetmunching dyke, what good does it do to whine “but, but, I’m attractive and straight and thin?” all it does is lend support to his supposition that there’s something wrong with being overweight and/or a lesbian. You have to reject the implication, not the accusation.
Saying “I support the right to choose but I would *never* have an abortion” is irrelevant. If you support the right to choose, you support the right to choose, full stop. How many abortions you have had or would or wouldn’t have makes absolutely no difference to the anti-choice. Saying you wouldn’t personally have one, however, does give them ammo to declare that even “pro-choice” feminists feel that there’s something “deeply wrong” with abortion when they’re so eager to declare they would *never* have one.
Saying “I support the right to choose but I would *never* have an abortion” is irrelevant. If you support the right to choose, you support the right to choose, full stop
Absolutely. I have a friend who is Catholic, has four kids, and who I seriously doubt would ever have considered an abortion for herself, and yet of *all* my friends, when I was faced with a problem pregnancy, she was the one who said “Do you need a ride? Do you have someone to stay with you? Is there anything I can do to help?” She’s pro-choice, and supportive of the choices of other women and when push came to shove, her ‘personal’ feelings about abortion didnt matter a damn to her, what mattered was supporting me, and supporting my right to make the choice which was right for *my* life. Not once did she say “Well, I wouldnt make that choice.”
I used to explain my pro-choice position to people too- I am opposed to it for myself blah blah blah until I realized how absolutely unhelpful it is. No one gives a flying fuck what I would do with an unintended pregnancy and it makes not one iota of difference to my political beliefs, because I absolutely support every single woman’s choice to do for herself what works best for her with zero judgment from me. So I stopped doing it or at least I try really hard not to and apologize if I catch myself.
That being said I think it’s good to realize that if you want people to refrain from saying “I personally wouldn’t but….” then people should try to refrain from saying shit like “I never believe anyone who says I wouldn’t but….” Yeah, some people change their minds upon learning of an unwanted pregnancy. Happens all the time. An awful lot of people don’t as well though and until it’s your mind, your pregnancy and your choice, I don’t think it’s any more helpful to throw out lines like that. People will want to defend their use of that statement if they feel like they are being attacked or jumped on.
Yeah, that’s the problem with explaining yourself like that- I would so not ever want a friend afraid to turn to me because they were afraid I would tsk tsk them or pull some shit like “Well, I would never do that but…”. I do think it’s really important that women realize how very unhelpful that shit is and I’m glad it was pointed out to me so that I could knock it off before I alienated someone when they needed me. I’m glad that you had such a supportive friend Broce!
Nobody ever says, “Well I’M not gay, nosiree, but I support gay marriage rights.” Come to think of it, maybe in some places, people do say that. But it’s pretty uncommon, at least, in my experience.
The whole point is that the labels “pro-choice” and “pro-life” are political, and in no way do they imply anything about what one would do in her own life. Apparently there’s a lot of confusion about that out there.
I’m glad that you had such a supportive friend Broce!
Thanks, I was very lucky to have good support from her…and from my older sister, who is very much like her, and from my sister’s husband. The day of my appointment there was a blizzard and my sister wasnt comfortable driving, so her husband took the day off and drove us both halfway across the state and back.
“That said, if you honestly feel that all abortion kills a human life, then all abortion should be illegal. All of it, no matter the means of conception or the risk to the mother’s life. The only abortion that should be legal is the removal of an already-dead fetus from the woman’s womb.”
Huh? That makes no sense whatsoever. There’s not much argument over whether or not killing a born, walking-around-and-talking person ends a human life, but we’ve got a pretty solidly recognized right to do that if they take action to end ours. And it’s not a matter of intent–you have the right to self-defense even if the person attacking you is not in their right mind.
It’s a similar thing with serious threats to the mother’s health. If society can’t compel people to donate organs–even after death–then it seems reasonable to extrapolate from that that it is illegal to compel someone to suffer the preventable loss of an organ for another’s benefit. If you start drawing lines where only women are excluded from this right or only women are exempt from this protection, you’ve legally defined a specific group as less-than-citizens, which is problematic to say the least and is less “I think that abortion kills a person” and more “I think that women aren’t really people.” It does make me wonder what happens when the ruckus-raising fetus is female, though. If women are stripped of the right not to suffer involuntary and preventable injury if another citizen can gain from it, wouldn’t the female fetus lack the same right?
Of course, we can’t compel blood/marrow donation or individual charity or breast-feeding for premature or immuno-compromised infants or much in a similar vein, even if the failure of a citizen to pony up of their own accord will result in someone–a born, incontrovertible person–’s death. A strong argument can be made that you’d again be singling women out for loss of basic human rights by trying to compel them to provide bodily support to someone they don’t choose to donate resources to. Presumably this would be especially difficult to argue for in cases where the woman now being compelled to provide the resources did not invite or took specific steps to prevent the resource-harvesting, either by refusing/being unable to consent to intercourse or by taking all reasonable precautions against conception/implantation, and so should retain absolute legal right to deny the infringing party the use of those resources.
Basically, if you strip the fetus of its magical privilege field and treat it as you would any other citizen, the slam-dunk arguments for compelling gestation and birth aren’t there. Somehow, though, anti-choicers who try to make that pitch without bringing “God hates you and your shame-cave” into it always always always treat it as axiomatic that the fetus’s rights trump the gestating woman’s. Even if the often-misleading or flat-out lying appeal to emotion (The baby will die! The woman is just inconvenienced!) is given some weight, well…we live in a country where people–frequently children, even–suffer and die needlessly due to lack of medical care and/or willing donors all the fucking time. If this manages to not provoke the societal equivalent of batting an eye, it’s extremely difficult to assume that there really is something so truly special about citizens while they’re fetuses–something they lack once they’re born–that means we have to engage in targeted discrimination against specific other citizens with regard to their own bodily integrity on behalf of said fetuses.
First time posting here, with my .02.
I personally do not feel I would get an abortion, except in a case where my life was in danger. It’s a personal choice, influenced by religion, the fact that I myself was adopted, and a number of other factors.
However, I have been wrong before. I once believed I would never have premarital sex. Or eat a whole jalapeno pepper in one go. Or have a one night stand, and yet, I have done all those things.
So, I don’t think I would be able to reconcile my personal beliefs with having an abortion. But I don’t think abortion is wrong inherently, and I will fight to the death to support the right for any other woman in the country- or indeed, myself, if it came to that- to get one safely and without shame.
I would never describe myself as ‘anti-choice’- I loathe the term ‘pro-life’, as if the other option is anti-life- and I proudly call myself a supporter of a woman’s right to choose. And I think that right to choose should encompass all options; adoption, abortion, abstinence, whatever floats your personal boat.
Re: Self defense
There is a logical breakdown there. We can allow someone to claim self defense when, in the heat of the moment, they are defending their own life or the life of their family from a very imminent threat.
We don’t allow someone to claim self defense if they contract out someone to kill someone else who has threatened them, even if it’s quite clear that the person is going to kill them.
The problem isn’t that they want to think of the fetus as some random citizen, they want to think of the fetus as a born baby to the woman. So “denying it food/air/a safe place to live” that results in that fetus’s death is tantamount to starving an infant to death or leaving it out in the cold. Again, this is not what I believe. I do not belive that a fetus == a baby, but I’m saying that if you do believe that a fetus is a baby, then any action that you willfully and premeditatively take (no matter if you deep-down wanted to or not) is the same thing as killing a baby, and that you will have a hard time describing it as a “self defense” killing to people who picture the baby as a passive victim.
I do not belive that a fetus == a baby, but I’m saying that if you do believe that a fetus is a baby, then any action that you willfully and premeditatively take (no matter if you deep-down wanted to or not) is the same thing as killing a baby
Ah, but there is a logical breakdown here. The rest of Preying Mantis’ argument still stands. Even if you believe that the fetus is a baby, again, babies do not have the right to literally use another person’s body as a life support system. And no one accuses me of killing Joe down the street when I fail to donate the kidney that he would die without receiving. Which, as Preying Mantis said, suggests that there is indeed seen to be something special about the fetus and its rights.
But that’s just it, you don’t have a legal obligation to keep Joe down the street alive, but if you starve your CHILD, or you leave your child out in the cold and it dies, you’re legally responsible. You don’t have a legal obligation to feed and house Joe.
I wrote a really long post DAYS ago … did it totally disappear or is it in moderation?
Since when do I have an obligation to feed and house my child? It’s called adoption, and safe haven laws. It’s physically impossible to put a fetus up for adoption — which again, means that people who use this line of argument are giving the fetus special privileges by expecting a higher standard of care than for a born human being. And again, I have no obligation to allow my child to live off of my body. Say it’s an adult child we’re talking about instead of Joe down the street who needs my kidney. You may think I’m an asshole for refusing to provide it, but no one could legally compel me to give it up, and few people would want to. So, again — if no one can force me to give up a kidney to my child, why do they think they should be able to force me to literally use my entire body as a life support system for that child by letting it live inside me? There is no logical reason.
Daisy — unfortunately we ALL lost comments in the server switch. I’d say that like a dozen comments on this thread, including a couple of my own, got lost in the great interwebs. I meant to copy the whole thread and paste in the bit that the server didn’t switch over . . . but I forgot. SORRY.
If the child is living with you, then you do indeed have a legal obligation to keep that child alive. So until we can “adopt out” a fetus, then you are the defacto parent/guardian of said fetus and cannot kill that child.
A friend of mine had her baby reach up and grab her trachea and squeeze and was nearly choked to death a few weeks ago. That doesn’t mean she’s allowed to hire someone to kill her baby since her baby nearly killed her.
If you honestly believe that a fetus is the same thing as a born baby, there is no legal precedent for a parent legally being able to kill their baby.
Mighty Ponygirl is right that there’s no legal precedent to allow a parent to kill their child. Cara is right that there’s no legal precedent forcing anyone to use their organs and other bodily functions to sustain another person. And that’s what makes abortion such a tough issue to square with legal precedent — pregnancy is kind of its own thing, and it’s not exactly analogous to any other situation.
Cara’s right that there is no requirement for a child to be cared for by its parent; so you could make the argument that a woman could remove the fetus without intentionally killing it, and if it dies that’s not her fault. But if a parent knowingly places her child in a position where she knows it’s going to die, I would guess that she would be held legally responsible.
But pregnancy isn’t like caring for a born person. The requirement that you use your body to support another being is a huge burden, and the law should adjust for that. It does recognize that in other areas, as Cara pointed out — in that we don’t require people to give blood or donate organs. We wouldn’t let a person with failign kidneys use my kidneys for nine months. If someone did decide to borrow my kidneys and getting him off would ensure his death — but keeping him on would be totally against my will — I’m not sure that we would require I sustain his life.
All of that said, if abortion were ever illegal and if the fetus were accorded full rights as a person, it would be mighty hard to argue that women shouldn’t be tried for murder for all the reasons Mighty Ponygirl said. Which is why we need laws reflecting the fact that pregnancy is not the same as parenthood, and abortion is simply not the same as willfully killing your child. No one should be made to use their bodily functions in the service of sustaining another life, even if the body in question is female.
Daisy — unfortunately we ALL lost comments in the server switch. I’d say that like a dozen comments on this thread, including a couple of my own, got lost in the great interwebs. I meant to copy the whole thread and paste in the bit that the server didn’t switch over . . . but I forgot. SORRY.
OMG, Cara… I feel like I am Stanley Kubrick, going back to those monkeys fighting over the watering hole. Seriously, I went back to the Dawn of Man, or at least (haha) the Dawn of the Catholic Church.
I’ll try to remember it!
Muddled version of my post that dissolved into the ether:
Pro-life theology is recent. Judaic law and St Thomas Aquinas did not believe “life begins at conception”–patriarchy meant that “women’s stuff” was handled by women, midwives, nurses, maids, etc. The guys all went “yuck” and didn’t even go there.
At some point (reference here), probably during the middle ages, patriarchy was “consolidated” and males invaded this traditionally female territory, as they increasingly saw children as THEIR property/heirs that had to be protected. And pregnancy/childbirth became part of regular “medicine”–whereas it hadn’t been previously.
Canon laws reflected this–there was virtually no anti-abortion rule in the Church until this time. Abortion was first outlawed as it was believed to be primarily connected to prostitution, not because they worried wives and mothers were getting abortions. The midwife “inducing abortion” was still privately acceptable.
It was only when microscopes were invented that anyone had a clue about “when life begins”–and after that point, a bevy of laws was passed, in accordance with Church law, which became about the question of “ensoulment.”
Why, you ask, is she telling us all this.
Because the way I argue with “pro life” women, who tend to be religious/Catholic (as I am)–in a specifically feminist way–is to explain how Church law evolved. (For Protestant women, I argue from the Bible directly.) And when they seem to get it, that anti-abortion is a relatively NEW invention by men to control the means of production, I hammer the point home: Men made the laws to suit themselves, these laws do not come from God.
I consider myself a pro-life (don’t like the term, for reasons others have explained) feminist, but this is a personal view and I do not want abortion outlawed for any reason. This is the same position I try to bring other pro-life women to, and they will usually listen to me because I use their language and argue from their point of view, that human life is sacred. However, in saying that, I explain that the definition of “human life” has DRIFTED CONSIDERABLY throughout the centuries. I have discovered that many women are very attentive and WANT A REASON to discard the rightwing bullshit. But you have to use the morality and theology they already live by to make these points.
Also, I have discovered that women who are prolife have abortions anyway. In some cases, prolife rabble-rousing is a form of penance for what they feel is a sin. I was shocked to discover one of the most gung-ho pro-life women I know (note: this is South Carolina, and they are everywhere) had an abortion herself.
If we can get them to stop seeing it as a sin, they might stop the rabble-rousing.
The Palins, the Quiverfulls, et al, too far gone… although admittedly, I will argue with them too. It’s a dirty job, etc. etc.
Hope all this made sense, my first comment was far better! (And if this looks like a derail, it’s because it originally was comment #10, or something!)
Eeep. That should read:
The midwife “inducing miscarriage”.
Note: This wasn’t invasive, or considered particularly odd or immoral. It was usually accomplished using strong doses of pennyroyal tea.
Eek. My comment got chewed up by the server too, methinks. Ah, never mind, here’s a new one.
Daisy: Thanks for your comment! I knew that there used to be ideas about the foetus coming alive at its “quickening”, but hadn’t a clue how canon law evolved. To be fair, I’ve long made up my mind that whether or not I get squicked out by the thought of abortion personally (due more to the fact that it’s a blobby, goopy, bloody thingy that oozes out from inside one’s body!), I can be a pro-choice Catholic (and fairly lapsed on many other social teachings, anyhoo). But thanks for the entire spiel, it was really very informative and I’d love to know how to argue the pro-choice stance to Christians; usually I collapse into a fit of “But… but… can’t a woman choose? Why do you keep going on about ‘sanctity of life’??”
If it’s kinda off-topic, though, can I ask, does anyone know how many Catholics/Protestants/Eastern Christians are actively anti-choice? Because the painting of the entire right-ish portion of the Christian faith as anti-abortion (which is what my geography teacher does when she describes fertility transition in countries like the Philippines) seems rather general, I’m sure there are many people (like my mum) who think, “I’m Catholic, but I have no problem with BC, abortion, whatever…”
(Sorry if this seems digressy and long-winded, I’m not a very concise person and tend to ramble on a lot!)
I knew that there used to be ideas about the foetus coming alive at its “quickening”, but hadn’t a clue how canon law evolved.
Yes, this is when Aquinas said life began and the soul entered… what is interesting is that this was entirely subjective; EACH WOMAN, after all, defined “quickening” (movement of fetus) for herself.
She could always say she didn’t feel anything, even when she did. OR: she might not recognize this physical sensation for what it was. In any event, the definition of her pregnancy was mostly “women’s business” and was not spoken about among men or in polite company–allowing a lot of leeway.
regarding saying “i would never get an abortion myself” – i think it does make sense to make that point sometimes when confronted with the supposed argument that anti-choice really means valuing life because being pro-choice on the other hand actually means being pro abortion (and this is the attack i’ve encountered most often from vehement anti-choicers). so then a small part of the counter-argument is that pro-choice doesn’t mean “pro-choosing abortion” anymore than it means “pro-not choosing abortion” as a universal rule, but rather promoting the the idea that everyone should be able to choose/decide for themselves. i think besides the fact that forcing anyone not to have an abortion would be just as much of a problem as the opposite, there are many women who are 150% pro choice while, personally, having qualms about abortion – as someone already said, abortion is an act of violence (but in a different way from the violence of the state denying someone access to an abortion and all acts of reproductive injustice), which some feel they’d never be comfortable with… the personal is certainly relevant, because it shows that people have different attitudes towards abortion, what’s bad is to suggest in any way that how one person thinks/feels at a given time should be forced on everyone. i think that if a pro-choice woman does feel she herself would never get an abortion, it’s valid to express this, BUT explicitly as part of the larger point that women are different, with different views, circumstances and resources, which means that they need and should have different options – after all, that’s the basic pro-choice idea and it’s precisely what anti-choice people try to obscure.
true, depending on how/when one says “i’d never have an abortion,” it can be taken as bashing those who have abortions (and as so many women have pointed out it’s probably only true until one is proven wrong) – so i think it’s definitely something to be weary of.
but i also agree with the person above who said that if you don’t think it’s ever ok for people to declare “i personally wouldn’t” then to be consistent you also shouldn’t declare “i don’t believe people who say they wouldn’t”: if the former is not relevant to the issue, then neither is the latter.
And this really speaks to the point I was trying to make.
Pregnancy is a state of perception. If someone “perceives” that it is a baby, then the killing of it is abhorrent. A woman could be very excited about her pregnancy and “perceive” that the fetus is a baby. She could have the name all picked out and start working on the nursery and send out photos of her ultrasound and no one would batt an eye at it. The last thing on her mind would be “killing the baby.”
A woman could have an unwanted pregnancy and see the baby as little more than a glorified tumor–a ticking timebomb in her uterus that will destroy her life.
But the woman with the wanted pregnancy could have her pregnancy go molar. At that point, she will stop perceiving that the pregnancy is “a baby” and start seeing the pregnancy as a cancer that will kill her and seek to terminate. Hell, she may find out that the child will be born with severe physical and developmental disabililties, and come to understand that she simply does not have the resources in her life to care for a special-needs child.
And the woman with the unwanted pregnancy may go to a Pregnancy Crisis Center and see an ultrasound and have someone tell her that the fetus has fingernails and decide “wow, it’s really a baby” and decide to carry the pregnancy to term.
Declaring that you’re “pro-choice but would never have an abortion” is admitting that your perception of pregnancy is that there is something there that is “human enough” that killing it would be monstrous, but that women should be legally allowed to kill that same entity. You’re lending credence to anti-choice rhetoric. They love when feminists fall over themselves to declare “they would never have one” because it’s a glaring moral hole they can exploit, not to mention, it plays so well into their favorite virgin/whore dichotomies.
But your perception of what’s there doesn’t change the reality of what’s there. Attempting to equivocate a 3-week embryo with a 3-week infant is ludicrous, and we all know it. You may perceive it as a baby, or a human life, but that doesn’t mean that it will become a baby–become a human. It has the potential to, that’s all. The whole point of pregnancy is the development of the human organism from a divided cell to an individual who can eat and breath on its own. It can go off the rails pretty easily, some place the rate of spontaneous miscarriage due to a developmental snafu as high as 90% (most of those happening without the woman even knowing).
The logical problem with the argument you’re making about self defense and abortions is that it only holds up if you consider a pregnancy to be a transient threat. The thing about pregnancy is that it is essentially 9 months of active threat. There are things that can go wrong at pretty much any stage of gestation that can cause serious physical harm or death, and there is a biological guarantee of at least some physical harm during delivery.
To use your analogy, lets say Joe calls Bob on Monday and says “I”m either going to kill you or beat you up”. On Tuesday Bob comes home to find Joe sitting in his living room with a gun. Bob has no way of knowing if the gun is loaded, and Joe doesn’t do anything actively threatening other than sit on the couch and say “I’m thinking about maybe killing you” while waving the gun around. If Bob had a gun do you think it would be a crime for him to shoot Joe? What if Bob had hired a body guard who, upon seeing this scene, shot Joe. Would that be a crime? If Bob called the police, what do you think would happen to Joe? Lets say no one shoots Joe, they just threw him out the door and he broke his neck falling down the stairs? Would that be a crime? Maybe there are no stairs but its February in rural Minnesota under white-out conditions and Joe was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Would it be a crime to throw him out (to his almost certain death)?
I find it hard to believe that any of these actions would be seen as murder, even though Bob has the ability to simply leave his house (which obviously isn’t an option for a pregnant woman). Still, very few people expect Bob to leave his home. In some states you aren’t even expected to leave a public space with a clear escape route if you’re threatened. In order to attack the self defense claim for abortion you have to manage to argue that either a woman’s own body is somehow less worthy of security than property she owns or that there is something special about the fetus that grants it rights and protections which are not only otherwise unheard of in the law but also supersede several of the woman’s constitutional rights.
Declaring that you’re “pro-choice but would never have an abortion” is admitting that your perception of pregnancy is that there is something there that is “human enough” that killing it would be monstrous, but that women should be legally allowed to kill that same entity. You’re lending credence to anti-choice rhetoric. They love when feminists fall over themselves to declare “they would never have one” because it’s a glaring moral hole they can exploit, not to mention, it plays so well into their favorite virgin/whore dichotomies.
It’s not always that feminists “fall over themselves”, I feel; rather, it’s pointing out that pro-choice does not mean forcing abortion on every pregnant woman, just as pro-life shouldn’t mean forcing women to carry to term. Whether someone says “I’m going to get my tubes tied” or “I think I’d give birth and not abort”, it’s essentially about choice.
Is it a valid analogy to compare this to saying “I’m against suffering, but I don’t think I could bring myself to euthanise my cancer-stricken cat”? Sometimes stuff is very personal and people can’t bear to get involved (even when they should), I suppose.
But your perception of what’s there doesn’t change the reality of what’s there. Attempting to equivocate a 3-week embryo with a 3-week infant is ludicrous, and we all know it. You may perceive it as a baby, or a human life, but that doesn’t mean that it will become a baby–become a human. It has the potential to, that’s all. The whole point of pregnancy is the development of the human organism from a divided cell to an individual who can eat and breath on its own. It can go off the rails pretty easily, some place the rate of spontaneous miscarriage due to a developmental snafu as high as 90% (most of those happening without the woman even knowing).
Precisely! To argue that a blastocyst is sentient life, as opposed to cellular life, makes no sense. You don’t see protesters at third-grade bio practicals when kids scrape cheek cells out their mouths and stick them under the microscope, not even when you could make the case that your cheek cells aren’t viable outside your body. For me, there’s no guarantee that the potential will become concrete until the birth itself; there’s higher certainty in the last trimester, yeah, but even then there’s a medical exception for late-term abortions, as there rightly should be. Definitely no one who has the option to would wait so long, the blastocyst/early stage is a lot more clear-cut: that’s not sentient life, that’s not yet human life.
I consider myself both pro-life and a feminist. Here’s why:
-I’m pro-life in every aspect of my life. I’m against the death penalty, I’m vegetarian, I’m anti-abortion. I firmly believe that life begins at conception. And no, it has nothing to do with religion (I’m an atheist).
-I am more concerned about preventing unwanted pregnancies through education and contraception availability than immediately overturning Roe V. Wade. Pro-lifers need to realize that contraception and sex education is a friend of the movement. Abstinence-based comprehensive sex education is the best way to reduce unwanted pregnancies.
-Reproductive concerns aren’t the only issues women face.. I don’t understand how abortion and choice has taken over the feminist movement. Pro-life feminism isn’t an oxymoron.
A few impressionistic responses to some of what’s in this thread:
–Yes, a lot of Catholics are Democrats except abortion. But a lot more Catholics are Catholic except for the anti-abortion part. And most Catholics, like most everythings, are more complex than either of those options.
–There is a lot of hand-wringing here about the other side caricaturing pro-choice people as abortion-all-the-time, “pro-death” and so forth. But at the same time there is a lot of stereotyping the “pro-life” or, as most on this thread (and I) would say, anti-abortion or anti-choice side. My experience is that they are not for the most part motivated by hating women and wanting to control them, for example. It would be more productive to give them the benefit of the doubt, I think.
–A related point pertains to the initial blog post itself. I happen to agree that abortion should be legal, and I don’t dispute that making it illegal harms many women. But it is a bit lazy of argument to say that opposition to the legality of abortion can’t possibly be feminist. For one thing, if fetuses are people–which is not what I believe, but again, I think the opposition should be given the benefit of the doubt as to their sincerity–then half of abortions kill girls. Surely there is some room in feminism for worrying about them, too. You may think doing so is misguided, but that doesn’t make it not feminist–in fact to some people in the opposition, it is explicitly feminist–think for example of people who work against selective abortion in China.
Again, I am pro-abortion rights myself, and I am familiar with the arguments against the anti-abortion side’s positions. But I am troubled when our side fails to see the humanity in the other side, or to try to imagine what the issue looks like inside their heads. The vast majority of people opposed to the legality of abortion, although they may be misguided in many ways, are not Joe Scheidler maniacs but sincere people of conscience.