A Reading List

h/t amanda at pandagon for posting it there first. fucking great:


edit: gah, ok, it looks like the embed feature isn't working with blogger, so check out the video here. sorry for the crappy ad thing.

reminds me of her older bit, "i agree with 24-hour waiting periods: sometimes you need to think it over. the other day i thought i wanted an abortion -- but it turned out i was just thirsty." or something to that effect. the general concept she's satirizing in both (Women Who Have Abortions [whatever that means] enjoy the process / are frivolous or capricious or otherwise stupid) is sadly very much in play in the non-satire world. anyway, not to get all "wider implications" or anything, i just found that really funny and wanted to share.

Labels: abortion, making with the funny

there was another bit in one of the comments that caught my notice: Personally, I find it ridiculous for a microscopic clump of cells to be considered equal to a human being, and I find the majority of abortions abhorrent and unnecessary.

if the majority of abortions should be considered abhorrent and unnecessary simply because they fulfill a desire, then i guess i've already said what i think about that. on the other hand, i think that most people have a very vague picture of "the majority of abortions" and i don't generally find much use in vague hand-waving at "the bad kind". this sort of thing, along with several other sorts of things, have over time impressed on me the general need for actual knowledge about what abortion is like and what abortions are like.

so this is a good occasion to say that i've been wrestling with the idea of starting a set of "abortion clinic diary" posts. if i can sort out the various confidentiality issues involved, i might do this. as much as i really do want to share with many people my experiences of how abortion can be both much more mundane and much more urgent than people think, i've never tried this before and i have to make sure i don't bite off more than i can chew. so i'll start once i figure it out, and i hope it goes smoothly or i'll just take those posts back down i guess.

Labels: abortion, about blogging

so, let's write a little post.

i've had so many things going at once, all worth trying to write out, but i guess i should finish what i started. my last post was short, it was to mark the anniversary of roe v. wade and i admit i dashed it off to post before midnight, just for form i guess. anyway, i was busy then and i'm busy now, but i got two responses there [at the livejournal page] that i wanted to address really quickly.


the first started off:

The problem with the abortion debate as it is currently framed lies in the juxtaposition of incommensurate elements. On the one hand are the screaming Christians: Life at any cost! On the other are the screaming feminists: Our bodies, ourselves!

What neither side seems to understand is that the other is not listening. To be sure I find the (stereo)typical feminist-abortionist position, on the whole, to be morally vacuous; their argument is predicated on a hypostasization of the Self, and indeed an apotheosis of this Self into some kind of transcendent moral absolute.

...on the whole it is the abortionist-feminist point of view that is far more damaging [than the "trust god with the course of events" crowd] for society in the long run... there is in the abortionist-feminist agenda a pronounced manic desire for control. The entire argument proceeds from the notion that, somehow, for some never-fully-articulated reasons, it is right and good that human beings should choose and control every aspect of their lives. Why this is particularly desirable, and indeed whether this is even possible, is never actually questioned.

Redacted for length but the gist is preserved. a lot of criticism of the very idea that we should want anything or that we should try to achieve things we might want. it even appears to criticize the desire to lay claim to one's own body. i have to say, i think this is absolute bullshit, because you aren't going to sit there and tell me you haven't wanted things in your life and haven't followed up on those wants. tell me where you are in life and explain to me how you ended up there by simply going with the first option-for-living that you saw at every turn. tell me your whole, own body was not your engine of action. it's bullshit because nobody can divest themselves of all desire or life aspirations (yes i know, except yogis in the mountains), and because it's not many people's belief that anyone should have to, and because if you think that christian dominionists and the like aren't using means to achieve their ends just like everybody else then you're dead wrong. there are few people in this country ready to abandon their life goals or hopes for the future, and the forces described here as better "for society in the long run" than the "abortionist-feminists" are constantly using their faith as a tool to shackle others, and anyone who forgets or denies that does "society" a disservice. if nothing else, i'd like to be shown how the desire to control what one can of one's own life is more pernicious than the desire to control others' lives.

so that was point 1. point 2 will be brief i hope: somewhere along the way the comment includes an apropos that if you take a pro-abortion stance to its "logical" conclusion, you'd have to agree with Singer that infanticide is justifiable as well. i just want to disagree with that really quickly because that's only true if the standard for legitimate life is "can sustain/care for itself". that's not the real standard, to me; as i see it, the important thing is that whatever the organism may be -- even if it is a "legitimate" life -- no person should be forced to give over his or her body to supporting that life. i have the right to refuse my body to anyone at all; i can refuse to donate a kidney to my ten-year-old child, and no matter how wrong you might personally find that refusal, hopefully you'd agree that for the state to force you to acquiesce is far worse. bodily integrity is a crucial part of human dignity, and establishing inviolable respect for it is important in protecting dignity from encroachment. i personally wish roe v. wade had been decided on a basis of the human right to sovereignty over one's own body, because "privacy" is murky, easy to erode, and frankly not far-reaching enough. i don't support the right to bodily integrity because i need it to support the right to abortion; rather, i support the right to abortion because i believe it's within each person's rightful purview to decide what happens within her or his body.


okay. the second comment consisted of:

there is one point that i've been trying to point out to various people for the last five years or so on which I completely agree [with the other comment]:
"The problem with the abortion debate as it is currently framed lies in the juxtaposition of incommensurate elements...What neither side seems to understand is that the other is not listening."

The idea that the two sides are talking past each other--it's a rather disturbing notion that the definition that can't be agreed upon is the definition of human life--basically makes the entire debate unable to be rationally and decisively decided. I mean, it comes down to questions of faith, which at least the pro-life brigade has the honesty to bring to the forefront. They think this way because Jesus told them to--sort of(an oversimplification, but I think it all comes down to this, at least for American Christians).

so i have a problem with this because it ignores a couple points that seem very important to me, but i'm not surprised because many, many people make the mistake of ignoring those points. yes, it's true, the definition of life is often in contention; as you said, it's so far a question of faith. but as far as i can see, what credit the christians pro-life movement might garner by being "honest" that it is about religious tenets to them, they more than lose by continuing to press for laws restricting abortion -- and, let's be clear, not just abortion but also contraception and sexual practice and sexual orientation -- as though jesus christ were any reason to be meddling with civil laws. i don't think that the majority of americans favors a theocracy, and i am sure that the constitution does not; if christian anti-choicers were interested in being "honest" more than in politics, they'd be trying to sign people on to a full-fledged christian republic.

and the second point goes back to what i said above, about kidneys and such. i personally know a few people who are sure that the product of conception is a life at some point or at another point before birth (they disagree on when), and who are nevertheless pro-choice. why? because to them, their beliefs about the start of life are not enough to justify forcing someone else to give use of her organs and systems to a third party; these people say that even if there were medical proof to back up their own beliefs, the personhood of the embryo or fetus still would have to cede to the personhood of the pregnant woman if push came to shove. my own rationale is something more along the lines of, "i am not sure -- who can be sure? -- but it doesn't matter to me as much as the woman in question being sure, one way or the other. i would much rather protect any person's right to choose for herself than to let a mass of strangers choose for her. there are very few reasons for making another rational person's decision for her, and a whole bunch not to.

in sum, i doubt it's true that we're not listening to each other. i, at least, am listening very closely. it sounds to me like i want the government to stay away from my decisions concerning medical endeavors i undertake -- this includes preventing pregnancy, initiating pregnancy, terminating pregnancy, maintaining pregnancy, and delivering as well as any other non-womb-related endeavors -- because i see this as part of protecting individuals' bodies from the state and from the majority; and like "they" want the government to interfere with those decisions so that i will make the ones acceptable to "them", because they perceive the autonomy of the individual as less important than the majority's prerogative to regulate behavior according to their personal beliefs. obviously you ask one of them and you'll hear me demonized for being so selfish that i want to be able to "deliver [my] living baby, puncture its skull with scissors and suck out its brains" in between leaving my castrating-bitch corner office at 5 and making it to my pedicure at 6 (ah, the myth of "on demand"), or then again perhaps for dragging vulnerable women into abortion clinics to steal their babies from their wombs because i (as a member of "the abortion industry", because no one can support it who isn't part of "teh industryz") personally profit from doing so. at a certain point "listening" is not the problem; if you've heard each other and identified that your central goals apparently conflict, then what?


ok, that's all for that i guess. i've had a big old essay brewing on this stuff, but i will probably never post it because it's grown unwieldy and unfinishable.

Labels: abortion, politics

since today is the anniversary of the decision of roe v. wade, the left/feminist blog world is having "blog for choice day". i've long been brewing what i have come to think of as the "huge-ass pro-choice post of doom" (it's written that way on my mental to-do list), but sadly it looks like the day of its wrapping-up will not be this day. so i'll keep this brief.

i'm pro-choice because i don't think anyone can know better than me what decisions are best for my life, and i have to accord that reverence for self-sovereignty and bodily integrity to others; that means i trust women to be moral agents. i value women's lives and have realized what can happen to them when they are prevented from choosing for themselves whether, when and how to have sex, to be pregnant, to deliver children, and to parent. crucially, i believe that states and private interests continually attempt to assert a prerogative to commandeer women's bodies in their wars, whether social or military, and i believe that this is deeply, fundamentally wrong. i believe that, as my friend laura says, reproductive justice is social justice. the existence of a second-class citizenry is always unacceptable, and reproductive inequality is a significant mechanism in the oppression of women, as well as of racial minorities and the poor.


update: some similar, better posts from others
laura's (different laura) at notafeministbut
amanda's at pandagon
jill's at feministe -- filled with a lot of topical reading suggestions, to boot
and finally, a link round-up, which i'm still reading through

Labels: abortion

Labels: abortion

i wrote an email to patrick today, and initially i only intended to share a link with him but then i got carried away on a little rant, and i thought i'd continue those thoughts here.

i'm gonna just paste it and then go on with a few more notes from there. so sorry if you read this twice, patrick.


yay abortion!
or rather, yay more abortion rants from me. but then again, yay abortion, too. i'm damn glad it exists and that sentiment prompts me to send along another zoe williams article, which is also prompted by aforementioned sentiment.

it looks like she is doing a multi-part story on abortion, actually, on the occasion of the 39th anniversary of abortion rights being recognized in britain. i really liked the language-oriented stuff of hers that i read earlier, about irony and about the word "cunt", so it makes me happy now to read that she seems to be smart about politics as well. and to be clear by "smart" i didn't mean "agrees with me"; i'm honestly really happy to see HOW she's agreeing with me, which is in exactly the way that i happen to think is right. so yeah, maybe i just mean "agrees with me a lot". haha. but anyway i'm still happy to read these; it's really rare to get to see someone in a mainstream publication call lefties and moderates out for fearfully conceding to anti-abortion-rights people that abortion is "regrettable" or a necessary evil. i don't think it's evil and i'm tired of having to start that far back in the "debate" terms, or to just concede the damn thing and be pissed of it. like, isn't it *unwanted pregnancy* that's bad and maybe traumatic? i really disagree with the entire idea that abortion has to be that way too. in fact, the women who've had abortions mostly report that it isn't. by and large, the few women who say their abortions were traumatic were forced or pressured into the abortion by parents or partners. the rest are women who wished they didn't have to have the abortion -- they wanted to keep the pregnancy but knew they couldn't afford it, or found out that it would result in health risks or birth defects or stillbirth. those ARE awful and traumatic situations; but it's not the nature of abortion that makes it so. and if anti-abortion-rights activists really meant it when they said their aim in hyping up "post-abortion syndrome"* was to reduce the trauma visited upon women, then instead of doing that they'd be working to make it easier for women to keep the pregnancies they do want. they'd be voting to make healthcare more affordable and accessible; they'd be voting to increase assistance to poor families rather than shaming "welfare queens"; and they'd also be adopting disabled, chronically ill, or non-white children at a rate sufficient to fulfill their promises that every unwanted pregnancy can be solved by adoption. but they don't do any of these things, and their claimed position of wanting to protect women is very weak.


*there is no such thing as "post-abortion syndrome," it is not in the medical diagnosis handbooks, and very few women report depression or mental illness after abortions. post-partum syndrome, however, is very real, and it is figured to be one of the most common health problems afflicting women after childbirth.

Labels: abortion

[cross-posted to the livejournal.]

well, the nicaragua bill to ban all abortions, bar none, was passed unanimously in the legislature. it'll probably be signed into law soon. i am really upset that this is what reality is like.

this blogger has a disturbing take on it. her analysis chalks this up to using religion as a cover for plain old misogyny -- which sounds about right -- but also throws in something i'd never thought of, or even heard of:

I don't believe for a moment that people in Nicaragua are so pious as to need to have a theocratic government in place. It's more like this is the way they defend the institutional mysogyny that allowed them to laugh-off one of the biggest scandals to come out of the underbelly of the Sandinista revolution : Zoilamérica Narváez, stepdaughter of Daniel Ortega, the former sandinista president of Nicaragua, accused him of making her his sexual slave from the age of 11.

narvaez alleges that ortega abused and intimidated her sexually for years. leftist leaders in the country, and in the region, have said little to nothing about it. that's the spirit of emancipation for you. it's distressing, and so is ortega's strong support for the abortion ban, which appears to be in the service of his electoral interests; but i guess finally i'm also not surprised. i've done a little reading about the sandinista movement and the revolution years and it seems that women contributed a great deal to the fsln, in both support and combat positions, and in return were excluded from the leadership and were told time and again that "women's issues" were not an immediate concern, were a distraction from the revolution, were divisive or counterproductive for solidarity within the movement, and would be dealt with after the revolution had succeeded. women were fine to have along as long as they wanted to help, but their interests did not count in party decisionmaking. this may have been because the leadership genuinely were willing to step over anybody to reach their political goals, or it could be that the narrowly-defined definition of "the goals of the revolution" were simply an excuse for continuing the sexism. the sandinistas are certainly not alone in this; this has happened in lots of leftist revolutionary movements. we should not make the mistake of assuming that all those who fight for equality mean the same thing.

in the same vein, i often see liberal boys and anarchist boys get a free pass on their misogyny, or give themselves one, because they "really care" about progressive politics. this happens a ton in high school and even college but of course the interwubs is filled with assholes too, and it's hard to know if they are prevalent in the general population as well. if you follow Democratic political blogs, you might know about one called DailyKos, considered one of the biggest players in the "netroots" and run by a guy who does campaign consulting for Democrats. i saw the exact same dynamic play out there, repeatedly, when Kos essentially told readers concerned with women's rights in politics or with sexism on the blog itself to go fuck themselves because he "[didn't] care" about dissenting opinions (i find it hard to believe he acts that way professionally) and thought the "bitching" was the same kind of "divisive" shit that loses elections for liberals. i had to paraphrase most of it because i can't remember all the details, but that was the sentiment.

anyway, i just wanted to update the abortion ban post, but while i'm at it i think i'll reiterate: we shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that all those who fight for equality mean the same thing. fighting class oppression is worthy and brave; but if you have to use sexism to assert your masculinity in this fight, your fight is wrong. fighting sex and gender oppression is worthy and brave; but if you argue that allowing the "feminine vote" will help counter the "pauperism, ignorance and degradation" of immigrants and former slaves*, your fight is wrong. fighting racism is worthy and brave; but if you resort to religious scapegoating to prove it's not you who is the enemy, your fight is wrong. and so on. i strongly believe that feminism, at its best, impels us to care about the rights of all people, and to stand against all kinds of oppression.

liberation is not a zero-sum game. i wish people would think on this more often. when we treat it like a zero-sum game, we end up politicking against one another for social advantage and polarizing potential allies, instead of supporting one another in opposition to all oppression. it's truly sad to me that members of all groups seem to want someone left underneath them to shit on, or alternately feel they need to shit on someone to get ahead.


*which one group of women's suffragists did do, i read, after being disappointed by their abolitionist allies' supporting the fourteenth and fifteenth amendment's giving the franchise to blacks and not to women. those words were elizabeth cady stanton's. she and susan b. anthony had both been close with abolitionist men like frederick douglass and took the decision quite bitterly. by the same token, of course, their abolition-movement friends had sold them out, too, accepting the feminists' help but not reciprocating in the clutch. same story.

Labels: abortion

[cross-posted from my livejournal, as usual. still trying to get a feel for blogger.]

this bbc article reports that nicaragua's legislature is considering banning all abortions. what this translates to is removing the “life of the mother” exception on its already-existing abortion ban. currently nicaragua, like el salvador, allows abortions only when it would save a pregnant woman's life; and el salvador is no fucking picnic. recent articles i've read, and this post at pandagon, about the law in el salvador report that when a pregnancy is discovered to be ectopic -- "in the wrong place," usually meaning located in a fallopian tube rather than in the uterus -- still nothing can be done until the threat to the woman's life crosses over from certain-and-impending into clear-and-present. what this means is that the pregnant woman is ordered bedrest, monitored daily and hourly until her fallopian tube ruptures, and only then operated upon to remove the now-dying fetus.

that is how doctors have to follow the law in el salvador, and i would not be surprised if the same law in nicaragua is yielding the same results; it's hard to get details because national studies report that legal abortions are rare, but they estimate that illegal abortions number 36,000 yearly and are one of the biggest causes of women's deaths. this is all bad enough, but what is devastating is that nicaragua is now considering doing away with even this one tiny concession to women's wellbeing. the new version of the law would not even pretend to consider women and their fetuses as being of equal value, which to me is already insulting enough and deadly enough. this new version would make the categorical statement that women are LESS important than the fetuses their bodies might support. i still find it absolutely incredible that ANYONE would seriously entertain such a blatantly woman-hating idea -- let alone that the congress will probably pass it, and one of its supporters is legislator daniel ortega (current leader of the leftist FSLN, the party of the 1979 revolution) is backing it. sometimes, reading the news makes me cry.

as if that wasn't bad enough, yesterday i read some more about it, and apparently the individual who provoked this consideration, starting in 2003, was a nine-year-old girl raped in costa rica, whose parents took her home to nicaragua to request an abortion at a government hospital. public handwringing ensued on the part of many of the country's ministers, half of whom announced their hope that the abortion would be refused; president bolanos, later accused by his health minister of not being sufficiently opposed to the abortion, convened a panel of medical experts, who issued an ambiguous ruling that acknowledged that a pregnancy might kill the girl. finally her parents withdrew her from the government hospital and she obtained an abortion elsewhere, whereupon the catholic bishops of nicaragua announced that "everyone involved with the abortion" was excommunicated. (and you know, i'm actually surprised; i thought the Church was at least better than this.) those who wanted this girl forced to carry the pregnancy to term effectively wanted her sentenced to death. you'd think the public furor would have been over the fact that nicaraguan children face trauma and possibly death thanks to adults raping them. but all that i read about this horrifying part of it was that "a 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of raping her" -- but, as far as i could tell, neither excommunicated or nor threatened with death. god damn it.

i said, god damn it. what does it take, in this world, to be more valuable than the multiplying stem cells living off of your blood? in a case like this, not even a misty-eyed shout-out to "the innocence of children" can explain why a potential-mother should be less worthy than the non-sentient creature depending on her: this potential-mother was a child, and an already-born, living one at that, and yet this nine-year-old's right to stay alive caused furor in nicaragua, because it was not considered as important as the "right to life" of the "child" inside her. is a fetus truly more important than a nine-year-old because the latter has had nine years to sin? or did i miss something about "original sin"; does it not take up residence in your soul until the moment of birth?

or is it something to do with the tarnishing nature of sperm? anti-choice assholes tend to frame pregnancy as something that you shouldn't get a do-over on because you fucked up: you already made your choice and that was to have sex, you were a slut who couldn't keep her legs closed, you're irresponsible, you shouldn't be allowed to shirk your obligation now. but let's face it. when some assface raped this girl, she made no such "irresponsible" choice, and the catholic church still thinks she isn't worth saving. a spermed girl is a used up girl, and "sanctity of life" will not restore her hymen or her market value. cut your losses and save the pure, unborn seed of the child's rapist.

Labels: abortion