So-called pro-lifers are among the biggest hypocrites and liars out there. They profess to be defending the sanctity of human life, when in fact they care about only the nine months (or less) between conception and birth. They are perfect examples of zealots, who redouble their efforts when they have forgotten their aim. They knee-jerk attack Planned Parenthood when that organization is about a lot more than abortion. They use all manner of sophistry to attack not just abortion, but birth control and sex ed in schools. The “right to life” movement is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The abortion debate is unusual in that it isn’t one end versus the other, but one extreme versus the middle ground. Pro-choice means exactly that – pro-choice. It’s up to the one with the “baby bump” to determine the outcome of the pregnancy. Pro-choice can actually be anti-abortion sometimes. This is because the real opposite of anti-choice is – anti-choice. One side says that every pregnancy should be carried to term, while its real opposite is that every pregnancy should be terminated. Unless you want humans to go extinct, you don’t want to harbor that attitude. If you are truly pro-choice, you support a woman who wants to carry her pregnancy to term when others tell her to terminate.
If you really examine both sides of the abortion fight, you realize that pro-choice is actually anti-abortion, while “pro-life” is pro-abortion.
Say what?
What.
Pro-choice activists by and large support better birth control, better access to birth control, and comprehensive sex education, all of which prevent abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Anti-choice activists oppose these measures for the most part. It is like opposing highway deaths while condemning seat belts, airbags, and defensive-driving training.
Self-appointed custodians of other people’s wombs may be sincere in protecting embryos and fetuses, but after the moment of birth their concern drops to zero. They may make the occasional pseudo-charitable gesture, crowing about giving one box of food to a homeless shelter; but their concern for human life that is not white, straight, male, fundamentalist Christian and wealthy is scantier than a stripper’s outfit. Where are they when people hold rallies against hunger, against war, against gun violence? Lots of things stop beating hearts, so why don’t the soi-dissant guardians of human life oppose them?
Not only that, many of them show no interest in providing for those babies that they want to “rescue” from the “abortion mills.” They want every ejaculation to get a Social Security number, but could not possibly care less whether those babies are fed, or housed, or clothed, or educated, or medicated when necessary. In fact, they don’t seem willing to make sure all pregnant women have access to affordable prenatal and perinatal care, or even to proper nutrition. Sure, sure, they’ll trot out one or two individuals they have “helped” – but are they willing to provide assistance for ALL expectant mothers? The people who oppose abortion are often the same ones who oppose providing affordable child care so the mothers can work and earn money rather than depend on public aid.
Sister Joan Chittister, a Roman Catholic nun, rather famously said, “I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.” Even though she was speaking from an anti-abortion viewpoint, she still gets credit for pointing out the hypocrisy of abortion foes.
The latest dirty tactic by anti-choice activists is hopping on the voting restriction bandwagon. In other words, they are willing to destroy democracy and civil rights in the name of safeguarding the unborn. Clearly they don’t want the poor and marginalized – those who suffer the worst when denied reproductive freedom – from having a voice in government.
Meanwhile, governors in solidly red states sign “heartbeat” bills that will abolish abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detectable. This often occurs before a woman even knows she is pregnant. Apparently, antis think that life is just a heartbeat. Could that be an indication of their intellectual capacity, or at least of their understanding of biology?
Outlawing abortion will never stop abortion, merely force it underground. Women facing unwanted pregnancies will try all manner of risky methods to self-abort. “Back-alley” quasi-clinics will pop up like mushrooms after a frog-strangler. Girls and women who can’t find a practitioner, or afford one, may simply abandon their unwanted offspring – one does hear stories about newborns found in trash bins or other places from time to time. The basket-on-the-doorstep cliché has some basis in reality.
Some parrot “Adoption not abortion!” Yeah, right – order women and girls to give birth, and then take their babies away. What if the fetus is racially mixed, or handicapped? Currently there are approximately 424,000 children in foster care in the United States. Unless they get adopted, as soon as they turn 18 their flimsy support vanishes, and they will wind up homeless, or exploited by human traffickers, or in prison.
The anti-choice crusade never has been, is not, and never will be about protecting the sanctity of human life. It always has been, is, and will always be about controlling women, about reducing half the population to the status of brood cows. Controlling women’s reproduction is the mark of a highly bigoted and patriarchal society. Such a society is a sick society, trying to fly with only one wing. Denying half of its residents many opportunities means that many great minds are forbidden to develop. To paraphrase Malcolm X, you can’t keep Woman down without staying down with her.
Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one. But don’t force your views on anybody else’s uterus. And while you’re at it, care about life AFTER birth.
12 Responses to “Sound Off! 6/5/21”
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Your first sentence said it all, but I think you were generous “Pro-lifers” (really should “Pro-Controllers”) ARE THE BIGGEST hypocrites……..
they are often also pro-gun for everyone w/out any limits, pro-death penalty, pro-fossil-fuel industry, anti-equality and anti-equity and as we’ve seen this past year anti-mask and anti-vaccine this past year.
Hi Freya – yes indeed. I saw the Twitter screenshot in your bulk emai about funny how the God who did all the thigs listed to chiuldren would suddenly care about fetuses. That is right on the nailhead.
I think I have mentioned it here, but, though I have never had (or needed) and abortion, never having been pregnant, nevertheless, my life was saved by one. It was my mother’s Some years before I was born, she had an ectopic pregnancy and would have died without her OBG,who did the surgery and saved her life, including by catching her bolld and transfusing it back into her. Obviously, that shaped her attitude to abortion, and equally obviously, it shaped mune too. And ectopic pregnancy is certainly not the only way to die from not getting a needed abortion.
I tend to call them killers or murderers rather than hypocrites, mostly because on some gut level I believe that true hypocrisy requires some recognition of the cognitive dissonance, and most of their brains are too fried for that. But hypocrites will do.
This is the BEST commentary on the Abortion, Pro-choice, Pro-life issue I have read. You hit the nail on the head. The only thing I want to add is this: As long as men can’t get pregnant, they have no right to control a woman’s right concerning this issue.
I agree with Lona. What Freya and Joanne said.
Robert’s last sentence says it all !!
Thank you!
Ditto Lona’s and Joanne.
I too agree with Robert’s last comment. Perfecto.
Thanks Freya
Very well said Freya. In her later years, my mother spoke so often about the value she placed on quality of life…I’ve often wondered if any of the pro-life folks ever considered that concept for infants and children.
Very well ‘sounded off’, Freya!
Just one point not specified by you …
Who are the loudest voices, especially in the ‘bodies’ that formulate these laws? Not many of them even have a uterus, I suspect (although I also suspect that quite a large proportion possess at least one gun) …
I loved the guts and the clarity of Paxton Smith, Lake Highlands High School valedictorian speaker, on this subject.
https://youtu.be/XpJkErsb7UE
Well done, Freya. The dozens of bills being pushed in republican legislatures around the country are ALL unconstitutional under current law. I am hopeful the Supremes will uphold precedent but also apprehensive given it’s current makeup. Your point about republicans caring about life only to the point of birth is also well taken, the states with the lowest interest in anything resembling post natal care for children or mothers are all republican. The solution is time, really, as hard as that is to consider.
Republicans are dying off, the “greatest generation” is shrinking fast, republicans as a share of the voting public have been going down by 1-2% in EVERY election since 1994. That will only accelerate as demographics reshape America. Less than half of children 15 and under, right now, are white. As those children move into voting age, people will be surprised to see just how progressive they are. This generation has been raised with great diversity in their classrooms, sports, activities. My grandchildren are in that group, as were my sons, they’ve always had best friends of other races. Yes, some children, will adopt their parent’s views on race and other things, particularly in red states, but not nearly so many as people think. The nation is changing fast and the republican party has nothing to offer but more of the same.
I think a shift in leadership is coming too. Men have run things forever and a look around proves how poorly we have done. I think a couple thousand years of female leadership – nations with female leaders are doing very well now – is appropriate as well. And will happen. Rich old white men are over, so are their racist poor cousins, even if they don’t know it yet. I don’t think the 2022 midterms will follow the usual pattern as 65% plus of all Americans agree with Democratic ideas, ideas that will get more progressive as more youth become voters. It’s not lost, though the climate battle may be, nothing else is. There’s hope. And, I hope to live long enough to see some of this begin to reshape the nation, world.
Well put, Gene. The Old White Men of the GOP know their power is slipping, and they are determined to hang on to it as long as they can. They find the thought of sharing power with women, POCs and LGBTQs unbearable. Those creeps would rather let the US of A go to hell in a handbasket than let people unlike them take over. I worry that we are headed for serious trouble, that there will literally be blood in the streets. Let us hope against hope that we can defeat all voter suppression laws before the 2022 elections, because if the Rethuglicanazis regain control of Congress then Biden will be stymied every step of the way.
I’ve been a Patient Advocate at Planned Parenthood for over three years (well…with a gap for the pandemic.)
Patient Advocates hold patients hands during abortions. I’ve hugged, dried tears, given assurance, etc, for hundreds of women and I know how much they were relieved when it was done.
I wish I could do one of those “Clockwork Orange” ”re-education” things and make these hypocrites see the things I’ve seen/hear the stories I’ve heard.
Choices equal freedom. The more choices we have the more freedoms we have. To make something illegal eliminates a free choice. This could be said about many things, not just abortion.
We need men to stand up for and speak up for pro-choice abortions, or we will lose that right.
We have seen voter rights repealed, so don’t kid yourself it could happen to abortion rights.
Voters need to turn out for a greater Democratic majority to make it clear what the Republicans want is not what America wants.