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Toxic Meme Alert! Today's Phrase Is: Abortion Rights
- If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It
Abortion rights: the term is everywhere these days.
Pro-choice organizations use it; anti-choice organizations use it. The phrase seems to have slipped into today’s lexicon without making a splash. But really, what does it mean?
Let me ask you, feminist females who are in the pro-choice camp. Do you want abortion rights? Are you going to go around carrying a sign saying, “My body, my abortion?”
I don’t think so.
I believe that this meme is classic rightwing ratf*cking from the Gingrich school, and to use it is giving the He-Man Woman-Haters’ Club yet another victory in the framing wars.
Here’s how they do it. First, they smear pro-choice activists as “pro-abortion” (yes, this meme is all over anti-choice sites). BZZZZZT! Wrong-o. No woman is pro-abortion. No woman says,"Hooray! I'm getting an abortion today!" No woman goes skipping down the street, deciding between a mani-pedi, lunch with Samantha, Carrie and Charlotte, and an abortion. That idea is pure misogynistic crap. Women are airheads who can’t be trusted to make these decisions, the fundiegelicals imply (or state outright). These godless temptresses think abortion is cool and hip. They don’t want the responsibility of caring for the child they, apparently, created all by themselves out of angel wings and holy water (because of course, men are never blamed or held responsible for an unwanted pregnancy by the fundies).
So, step one is to make pro-choice women out to be heartless, airheaded, irresponsible monsters who kill their unborn children on a whim. Step two: use the words “abortion rights” to define our struggle. BZZZZZT! Wrong again. Our struggle is for full equality, which means total control over our bodies. Choosing whether or not to reproduce is a private matter and a private choice; as such, I firmly believe that the state should have no rights over my ovaries whatsoever. That includes my access to birth control, the morning-after pill, fact-based sex education (not the kind that tells you condoms cause AIDS, thank you very much), and yes, abortion.
That might seem like a radical position to some, but let's turn it around for one second. Can you imagine men allowing the state to determine their reproductive rights? “Sorry, boys, no coming except on Tuesdays, Saturdays and alternate Sundays. Oh, and condoms are illegal in 35 states. I swear, it’s all right there in the Bible!” Yup, that would go over like ham in a kosher deli.
So, pro-choice men and women, are we going to let this toxic meme take over our discourse? Or are we going to keep it real, and do our parts to stop the right wing from winning yet another battle in the war against women?
I don't want abortion rights. I want human rights. And no right-wing brainwashing is going to convince me otherwise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmExAiCcaPk
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Thank you! I'm tired of this crap which makes women to be the bad guys in all of this. If women (and men) are denied sex education, contraception, medical care for an unwanted pregnancy due lack of insurance because they make too much to get medicaid, help in feeding a child which would not have been born if sex ed and contraceptives were available and covered by insurance like VIAGRA, what other options are there? Okay, yes there is adoption, but that's still basically forcing an unwanted pregnancy on the woman. Once ALL the options are taken away to prevent pregnancy a woman is then forced to carry a child just so she can go through the trauma of either giving it up or forcing her to keep it (while the father, in some cases, has run for the hills and may not come up with the child support).
I'm pro-choice. I'd never have an abortion, but it's not for me to say whether or not someone else should or shouldn't. We now have pharmacies which won't give out birth control (how is that supposed to stop unwanted pregnancies and stop abortions? It definite will NOT help cutting down on abortions or unwanted pregnancies). We have schools not teaching sex ed (so we have teenagers without a clue and who aren't going to stop having sex, so we have an increase in unwanted pregnancies) because it would interfere with the parents teaching their kids (some parents have a problem talking about sex to their kids as much as talking to them about drugs).
Common sense dictates: If you want to cut down on the number of abortions you give people other options. Fact-based sex education, access to contraception, access insurance that will pay for contraception (like they pay for Viagra), access to proper medical care.
If the religious right, non-religious right, or anyone REALLY wanted abortions out of the picture, they'd do the right thing! Not try to legislate it out of existence (that would bring back the backstreet abortions), but give MEN AND WOMEN every available means to prevent unwanted pregnancies and hold BOTH SEXES responsible.
Very well-said.
I believe that the religious right, as a movement, does not want to stop abortions. If they did, they would be advocating for sex education and birth control and help for single mothers. Instead, they want to force pregnancy as a way of keeping women in their place.
Just look at this story about an organization called QuiverFull, and tell me you aren't totally creeped out. These types of very large families are getting more and more attention on cable channels like The Learning Channel, but TLC doesn't tell you they are Christian conservatives. Very sneaky.
Yet the organization that Sarah Palin belongs to, Feminists For Life, seems to be an exception in the "pro-life" movement. They are also anti-war and against the death penalty, and they do advocate for sex education and birth control, as well as supporting women who decide to have their babies (especially those who are still in their teens) with financial aid and other resources.
Too bad they're not all like that!
is that I personally would never "choose" to have an abortion. That's just me and my right to feel that way. The important word there is "choose". That's what I would "choose" for me and I don't feel that I have any right to "choose" for you. That is why I am "Pro-Choice".
I make my choice based on my life and beliefs and feelings and I keep my damn hands and mouth out of your life and beliefs and feelings. That's what being pro-choice means to me. It's about a whole of things other than just abortion.
I am not Pro-Abortion nor are any of the of the pro-choice women that I know. We all wish that no other woman ever had to "choose" to have an abortion. If they do, well, that's their choice.
I believe you're right about the description of "Pro-Choice" being newly framed as "Pro-Abortion" being just another way to try and control, shame, or manipulate women.
Well guess what folks, we ain't that dumb.
My body, my mind and my choice is an excellent way to "frame" it.
A Dishonest/Biased Media Is A Crime Against Democracy!
I would not choose to have an abortion either. But I am fortunate enough to be married and well-educated and to have various options available to me. If I were in other circumstances, however, I might feel differently.
And that would be no one's business but mine, as you say.
I think it says something kind of good about two women who would not "choose" abortion for themselves and yet would fight tooth and nail for rights of others to "choose" differently.
A Dishonest/Biased Media Is A Crime Against Democracy!
I agree. We have a gift!
Pro-Choice Yesterday, Pro-Choice Tomorrow, Pro-Choice FOREVER.
Some things are simply not subject to change.
A Dishonest/Biased Media Is A Crime Against Democracy!
Especially this: "(because of course, men are never blamed or held responsible for an unwanted pregnancy by the fundies)."
Don't you just love it when some cretin says, "She got pregnant"?
That one makes me see red every time.
GONE FISHING
I agree with everything you said madamab. I am very fortunate not to have had to make the decision whether to have an abortion. I know that it is an excrutiatingly difficult decision to make, though, as I accompanied a friend when she had to have one. I don't think it is ever a decision that any woman would make without a lot of soul searching and weighing all her options. Nobody should judge someone until they have walked in their shoes, though, so people need to stop judging women who have abortions. I am pro-choice, because I believe that nobody else has the right to make that choice for a woman but herself. I will say that if men didn't just walk away all the time, like they have no responsibility, then maybe some women wouldn't be forced to make that choice when they really don't want to.
did you catch Obama's presser?
Utterly bizarre how he addressed the issue of abortion as "not just about women's freedom," as if he had read my post! What a weird coincidence.
Do not worry, I'm going to have a rant about this later. I'm so mad I can hardly see straight right now.