I know Amp’s already linked to a post on Bitch Magazine’s article on “I had an abortion” tees that are certainly creating an uproar. But what’s the reasoning behind creating such provocative and “shock-value” shirts?…
There’s a new front in the battle for abortion rights…the literal front, that is, of a t-shirt designed by writer and feminist activist Jennifer Baumgardner that proclaims “I had an abortion.” The shirt, initially for sale on Planned Parenthood’s national website and now available on Clamor magazine’s website, has generated controversy among not only the antiabortion community but also pro-choice feminists.
Sounds somewhat similar to how some, certainly not all, African-Americans using the “n-word” like Chris Rock or Dave Chappell, or Gay/Lesbian people who use the words “queer,” “fag,” and “dyke” amongst each other. Can claiming word(s) that your ideological opponents have stigmatized and turned into social taboos as “your own” so to speak, a positive, suitable, or even productive way of de-powering your opponents’ attacks on your cause or fellow activists? Is there even a possibility of removing the stigmas and taboos placed on these particular words by using this means? I leave it up to you people to decide. I’m actually very much undecided on this issue, even though I am a pro-choice feminist. I just get the awkward feeling of “lowering yourself to their level” for some reason. But this also applies to derogatory words that have historically been used against minorities and people of the LGBTQ Community.
It seems to me that there is a difference between destigmatizing a word and destigmatizing a thing. Black people and gay people believe (with good reason) that there is nothing “wrong” with being black or gay.
Many pro-choice people, on the other hand, believe that there IS something wrong with having an abortion — that it should certainly be safe and legal, but that it should also be condemned (or at least not praised).
For those (and I’m guessing that it’s a large percentage) who believe that abortion should be considered both legal and immoral, there is a large gulf between “I’m black/ gay and I’m proud” and “I aborted a fetus and I’m proud.”
The relevant comparison may be a T-shirt that said, “I pulled out Terri Sciavo’s feeding tube.” Everyone was quick to say, with Sciavo, that they were not eager or happy to kill her. A t-shirt like that, though, gives the impression that they were.
I’m not sure, but I think it could be seen as something similar to what Pseudo-Adrienne posted: “Watching shows featuring Gay/Lesbian characters could lessen homophobic prejudices”. That if we see women wearing these t-shirts, with time it would lessen prejudices against women who have abortions. They wouldn’t be the ‘other’ anymore.
Okay, no one is praising abortion. No one applauds aborting a fetus in and of itself. No one hears that a woman has had an abortion and thinks, “Yay! One less useless eater! Take that, fetus!” Pro-choice people–actual pro-choice people, not Naomi Wolf–do feel that a woman’s decision to do the right thing for herself should be praised. Taking care of one’s health is praiseworthy. Weighing a lot of unpleasant options and making an adult decision about the best one is praiseworthy. All of that should be encouraged in general.
I applaud the courage of any woman who makes it through the ordeal of arranging and obtaining an abortion in this country. I also applaud the courage of any woman to acknowledge making a decision that lots of really angry people condemn in violent and dehumanizing terms. She isn’t bragging, she’s simply telling the truth, and doing so in the face of some very insidious lies. Wearing an, “I had an abortion,” t-shirt is like me walking down the street wearing an, “Ask me about my sex change,” t-shirt. It’s an incredibly dangerous, incredibly brave action.
Richard, where would a shirt that says, “I hate black/gay people and I’m proud” fit into your comparison?
I’m undecided on the changing-taboo-words issue, too, partly because I’m confused about the protocol. So if my lesbian friend refers to herself or her partner as a “dyke,” presumably to reclaim the word, can I use it, too? After all, I have the same goal of promoting acceptance of homosexuality as she does, although I’m heterosexual. If I can’t, the word will never become acceptable, because everybody who isn’t of that particular group will always be expected to avoid the word, and thus it’ll keep its taboo status outside the group. And what happens if people within the group object to the word? Then you have a situation in which only some people can say the word to only some people, and that doesn’t change much of anything.
piny, I’d address the question I asked Richard to you, too: Is wearing a T-shirt that says, “I hate gays” courageous (assuming that the wearer really believes that homosexuality is evil)? Granted, society doesn’t condemn homophobia as strongly as abortion; does that expected response make a difference?
I think it does make a difference. There’s nothing particularly courageous about wearing an American flag pin, or an “I heart puppies!” t-shirt. So sure, iff the person is at risk of physical harm or verbal abuse. It’s just not courage in the service of a belief I think is acceptable. There’s a difference between thinking someone’s actions are wrong (or resulting from a belief system based on fear), and thinking someone’s specific actions are cowardly.
And wrt outsiders “reclaiming” words….I can’t, uh, speak for my people, or for other slurred groups, but it’s a very touchy issue. There are descriptors I use with my trans friends that I would never, ever use in mixed company, and there are words that I’m uncomfortable with non-trans-people, even friends, using. “Trannyfag” is a good example. And there’s narrower leeway granted to people who definitely aren’t friends, or who are using slang in an abusive or dismissive fashion. My friends can say tranny; Jimmy Kimmel may not.
There are also some subtle differences in use that outsiders may not understand; it’s offensive when they don’t listen to what we say about words used on us, especially when they’re all, “Oh, whatever. I don’t even know what you want to be called this week.” One excellent example is the use of “trans” as a noun and an adjective. transpeople, trans community, transgendered, transsexual, trans theory, all fine. “The trans,” “a trans,” not so much.
I don’t think the shirts destigmatize in quite the same way that using words does. By using the words like “bitch” in a positive way, you are trying to drain the meaning out of them. These t-shirts are more about speaking out, making people understand how common abortion is and what exactly is at stake here. Women’s silence has made it easier for anti-choice forces to insinuate that only a minority of morally unfit, sexually deviant women make this choice. But one in three women has one at some point–people are more likely to be pro-choice when they realize that it’s your sister, mother, neighbor, friend who chooses abortion.
With regard to the protocol of t-shirts. There is a difference between wearing a “I hate fags” t-shirt and a “I love being gay” t-shirt.
The first t-shirt is undergirded by institutional and state oppression. Gays and lesbians (and bisexuals involved in same-sex relationships) are systematically stigmatized and excluded from us society.
They are segregated.
I doubt a guy wearing an “I hate fags” t-shirt will be assaulted or murdered. In fact, said t-shirt might incite said violence.
On the other hand, “I love being gay” for me is like saying a big fuck you to homophobia and Scalia and Bush and anyone isn’t down with the cause of complete homosexual emancipation. Said t-shirt may also invite unwanted fists and shoes to the groin.
And, too, which is better marketing?
As for the abortion t-shirt, given the level of misogyny (I’m thinking Handmaid’s Tale here, if Dubya et. al. had their way) I think it is very brave for any woman to wear this t-shirt.
What’s the alternative? “I engagedin my constitutionally protected right to reproductive choice”? B-o-r-i-n-g and the language is so watered down and wimpy,which is what got us into trouble in the first place.
An abortion is a medical procedure. Stating and claiming it for what it is, can be emp0wering and truth telling.
Lastly as a transsexual man I HATE to be called transgender/transgendered. Trans is okay. But transgender does not in any way describe my culture or my experience.
Thanks for everyone’s comments.
Jay
There was a similar t-shirt campaign in the early 70s during the fight for legalized abortion, and another one at the end of the decade featuring rape survivors. The whole point was to drag a forbidden topic out of the closet and force the person on the street to realize that both abortion and rape were issues affecting someone they knew, that they didn’t just happen to anonymous strangers.
That’s the point of the current campaign, I believe, to point out that real women’s lives are affected by unplanned pregnancy. The best way to beat any stereotype is to force people to look at real-life examples.
Fair enough distinction, but is praising “the woman’s decision to do the right thing for herself” what the “I had an abortion” t-shirt actually does?
Imagine an “equal but opposite” t-shirt that could be viewed as similarly courageous if worn by a pro-life woman. The T-shirt could say, for example, something like “I was the victim of incestuous rape, and gave birth to my child.” There is a definite taboo against rape and incest victims, and even many pro-lifers would want a rape/incest exception to their anti-abortion laws.
The subtext of the shirt to you — the viewer — is “I did the morally right thing, and I am advertising it so that you will do likewise.” It is NOT, as you say it is for the pro-choice t-shirt “I made the right decision for me. Your decision may reasonably differ.”
You say, “No one applauds aborting a fetus in and of itself.” I agree, but I think that is the most reasonable and common interpretation of the “I had an abortion” t-shirt. The viewer will get the message, “Abortion, in and of itself, is a good thing.” If that is not the message you wish to send, then you should not wear the t-shirt.
I had always understood these shirts in the way Amanda and April do: as a way to make the community of women who have needed, and used, the right to abortion visible, and to make it clear they range across the entire spectrum of female Americans. The idea of “de-stigmatizing” the word “abortion” had never occurred to me until I started hearing about the debate over de-stigmatizing that word. I had not understood the word “abortion” to carry a stigma.
And that is part of what surprises and worries me about this debate. Conceptualizing it in terms of “stigma,” and analogizing it to the “reclamation” of racial slurs, seems to me in some way giving in to the attempt to make abortion invisible, and helps impose a stigma that was not there previously.
Certainly the women who have abortions are frowned on (or offensively patronized as “victims”) by anti-choicers, but we know what to do about that: reject it. We have no regard for the anti-woman opinions of the anti-choice crowd, and we refuse to give them credence as part of our understanding of women, or of women who have chosen abortion. And if we – absolutely correctly – scorn oppressors’ opinions of women who have had an abortion, why then do we balk at those same people’s opinions of the factual declaration “I had an abortion”?
There may be a perception problem here: if the shirts are seen as taunting or prideful, then they run the risk of trivializing an important right by making it seem as if the women who exercise that right do so trivially. Maybe the shirts should be redesigned to make the message clearer (“I’m your neighbor. I had an abortion.” “I’m your co-worker. I had an abortion.” “I’m one of 30 million American women who have had an abortion.” “1/3 of all women have an abortion in their lifetimes. I’m one of them.” – whatever). Maybe the campaign should be publicized to explain itself. But we need not apologize for the message, or accept the oppressor’s suggestion that there is anything shameful in it, or anything to apologize for. (Honestly – are we debating whether women have the right to tell the truth about themselves?)
The point of the t-shirts is to bring the act of abortion out of the closet. The point is to get people talking (seems to be working.)
Abortion is still a dirty little secret in this country. Something woman don’t talk about, except in the political sense. In the personal, no way. Have you told your daughter that you’ve had an abortion? Probably not.
No one is claiming an abortion as a point of pride. But it needs to be claimed as a point of fact, even among those who fight against it. (Maybe especially among those.)
What Amanda said, and what Jay said.
Plus, there’s nothing wrong with having an abortion. It’s not something of which to be ashamed. That’s the point.
Too many supposedly “pro-choice” people keep wringing their hands, and giving speeches about how terrible abortion is and how it would be better if no one ever had an abortion and how we should reach out to those nice, misguided people who want to treat women as cattle and find common ground on the point that abortion is evil. Abortion isn’t evil. We should be arguing for free abortion, on demand, with no apologies and no questions asked.
What everyone else said. Why would it be bragging rather than a simple statement of fact? “I Have AIDS” wouldn’t be interpreted as bragging about contracting HIV, only as putting a human face on a disease in the face of extreme prejudice. “Gay and Proud” isn’t interpreted by anybody reasonable as encouraging homosexuality for everyone. The only people who would feel otherwise don’t understand the difference between tolerance and compulsion. I don’t see why it makes sense to obey that conflation.
And in the context of choice, I think it is okay for the woman to send the message that she did the morally right thing, or at least chose a morally acceptable option. She made the choice she has the right to make. I don’t think she’s saying that everyone should choose likewise in the sense of having an abortion, only in the sense of accepting choice. Also, abortion, unlike having the baby, is not considered morally neutral by both sides. There isn’t any crowd of people saying that a rape survivor should be compelled to abort, and stereotyping rape survivors who don’t.
I agree with you Brian, 100%. For too long the left and left/center Democrats have let the right define our ambivalence for us. Consequently, Kerry stands up at the last Demo Convo and says, “we should reach out to anti-abortion Democrats.”
No we should not. That’s what the Repubs are for. But still Demos wring their hands and don’t know what to do!
“Plus, there’s nothing wrong with having an abortion. It’s not something of which to be ashamed. That’s the point.”
Hmmmm. Abortion as pop culture. Nice.
I’m not sure how I feel about the shirts. Maybe the point would be better made with an ad campaign about how common it is. I know that I have been in heated discussions about this topic in a room with several women who had abortions, and the pro-lifers have no idea that they are ranting about their own friends and relatives. At least the shirts are trying to deal with that reality.
The pill’s pop culture, Q. What’s the problem? Should pop culture reflect something other than what the “pop” thinks and does?
As one of the right-wing pro-lifers, I’ll just say this:
I think those shirts are wonderful. I wish everyone who had an abortion and who didn’t regret it wore one.
The more radicalized and abortion-destigmatizing pro-choicers appear to be, the greater the demographic support for the pro-life position becomes. Or so it seems from my point of view, anyway. Most of the pro-choice people I have ever met are firmly in the “abortion is terrible but sometimes necessary” camp. Nothing is more likely to move those people from their current position to my position than the perception that their allies in the trenches genuinely don’t see abortion as a moral evil.
“Nothing is more likely to move those people from their current position to my position than the perception that their allies in the trenches genuinely don’t see abortion as a moral evil.”
Overly optimistic. Not to mention arrogant and on that “I’m more morally superior than thou” high horse that a lot of people keep hearing from the Radical Rightwing. And are sick of. Sorry, guilt-tripping folks and exploiting that for a shameless means to an end will get you no where. You probably end up doing the opposite of your intentions.
Really, has your side anything else better to do than maliciously demonizing women who take control over their reproduction, or is that the only purpose you serve? A constant reminder of the prejudice and obstacles they face in maintaining control over their bodies? Which is good as women shouldn’t be complacent about their reproductive rights, certainly not in this country.
I really think there should be another March For Women’s Lives. Now more than ever, women’s reproductive rights are being threaten and women need to wake up to that, and be more active. And the politicians who share Robert’s views are the reason why. Besides I might be able to make it to this one if they have another march.
Going to go out on a limb here, and not without apprehension.
I’ve had an abortion, and I would not wear one. Not because I feel my decision was wrong – it was right for me at the time. I know many women whom have had abortions as well. None of them looks back at their situation with pride, but this intent to stigmatize women for the choice is wrong, Robert. You’ll never have to go through it, and you’ll never have to deal with the emotional aftermath, so your own comments are just as crude as many find the t-shirts. You and other pro-lifers don’t know me, don’t know my situation, don’t know the agonizing I went through when making the choice. You weren’t there with me on the table, but you (generalized pro-lifers) were sure there outside calling me a baby killer. What’s interesting is that I often feel I put more time and emotion into making my decision to terminate that pregnancy than Shrub did in his decision to send us to war. And how many pro-war bumper stickers do you see a day, celebrating the deaths of how many innocent Iraqi’s? Save your stigma for the people that deserve it, and if you disagree, at least have the decency to disagree without cruelty and callousness for those of us that have had to make this decision. I could say ‘walk a mile in my shoes’, but you never will, and you never will have to. I also do believe that were it a male and female issue, abortion would be a god given right.
“I also do believe that were it a male and female issue, abortion would be a god given right. ”
Heh. Yeah it would definitely be a sacrament then. But only then. And in my perfect little world, anti-choice men would be forced to bear triplets without drugs or option of a C-Section, and they would have to give birth to them via their urethra. But that’s just me.
Robert, do you condemn pro-lifers who carry those big pictures of aborted fetuses, and pro-lifers who scream at women entering clinics, and pro-lifers who buy billboard space to say things like, “Abortion stops a beating heart,” and pro-lifers who put bumper stickers on their cars that say things like, “A child, not a choice”? Because if the “I had an abortion” T-shirts will turn some pro-choicers into pro-lifers, then I have a feeling that those signs and billboards and yelling will turn/have turned many pro-lifers into pro-choicers.
Ahh, forgot to say why I wouldn’t wear one. Abortion is a private decision and at most require input from her doctor and her partner. For me, I also struggle with the fact that I’m a mother now, and have another baby on the way, and with these changes in my life, I don’t want to look back on that decision as a political statement, and feel entitled to a certain amount of private grief (not guilt, grief). I do believe that people need to be realistically aware of the statistics of women and abortion – In my family and my husbands family, both being upper-middle class white families, btw, the statistics break-down like this:
Immediate female family members in my family: 5
Number of members whom have terminated a pregnancy: 2
Husbands Family:
Immediate female family members in his family: 8
Number of members (known) whom have terminated a pregnancy: 3
CLOSE (known) friends whom have terminated a pregnancy: 4
Now consider this: All these folks grew up around or in Church going white collar families and were not poor or on welfare. Several are college graduates, including masters degrees (multiple) and law degrees.
Really, has your side anything else better to do than maliciously demonizing women who take control over their reproduction, or is that the only purpose you serve?
I have no objection to women taking control over their reproduction, or with people controlling their own lives in general. There are means of taking control which I do not find morally acceptable. My wife and I are in the middle of an ugly custody situation with her ex-husband; she could take control of her family life by shooting the son of a bitch, but that would be morally wrong.
As far as demonizing and malice and all the rest goes, in the tens of thousands of words I’ve written about abortion and life issues in general, I don’t think any of them can be fairly characterized in those terms. You’re reacting to something in your own head, not to anything I’ve said or done.
“You’re reacting to something in your own head, not to anything I’ve said or done.”
No Robert, I’m reacting to what I’m seeing being written by you. I’m not stupid or hysterical, I pick up on subtle hints fairly easily, especially if they’re meant to be condescending and cheap shots.
How can you say that when prior you were hoping for people to be offended enough at the idea of de-stigmatizing abortion to come around to your way of thinking that it’s a moral evil? You in essence have called women who have abortions murderer’s, or likened them to murderer’s, and then you state that you aren’t demonizing or being malicious? Gimme a break here, Robert, I’ve heard enough about you from our mutual friends to know that you’re a smart guy, but that whole justification or dismissal is absurd.
It might work. Of course these are all qualitatively different situations,
but if the goal is to destigmatize ‘something’ (in this case, having had an abortion), then taking it as your own can work.
I watched the word ‘queer’ go from being a word that made me cringe and fear (in the 70’s) to a word that I and friends used but would take offense at if someone ‘not queer’ used, to today where I really have owned the word. It really seems to have lost its power to offend and deride (Queer as Folk, Queer Eye for the Straight guy… etc). It’s not that i don’t feel offended by the word as much as it has lost its sting so much that few people use it any more to offend.
‘Fag’ (and ‘dyke’.. but i’m a fag, not a dyke) seems to be in that middle stage. I have occasionally used it in referring to myself (or others) as
oops… submitted to soon… anyway.. middle stage…
and have had other GLBT use it in referening me, themselves and others.
but if a straight person used it (unless they were deeply in the culture somehow..) to reference me, I’d be offended, or at least a bit uncomfortable.
It has yet to lose all of its sting.
but the point is that by taking it on as your own, it does eventually lose its power.. and in the meantime make ‘you’ too less stigmatizable.
So, I say go ahead. USE it, see if it works. It just might.
Jay: reguarding the use of the word “transexual”, I’d hope you give people a bit of leeway in making the mistake the first time. Just like me, people can be misinformed and make honest mistakes. I’ve corrected lots of people who’ve said “there are no bisexuals” or similar things, and the ones who’ve honestly listened deserved polite treatment.
As for the naming thing, well, I call myself queer, bisexua, genderqueer, and sometimes gay (when I’m not in the mood to explain bisexuality to someone who isn’t likley to politley recive it), but I’m fine with anyone using the term queer, as long as it’s not mean spitited.
You in essence have called women who have abortions murderer’s, or likened them to murderer’s, and then you state that you aren’t demonizing or being malicious?
Where have I said this?
Murder is a legal term that means the deliberate ending of a human life with a certain type of intent. It’s murder for me to shoot my wife’s ex-husband because I want him to die; it isn’t murder if I run him over by accident, or if I shoot him in the woods because I mistake him for a deer.
The only way abortion would be legitimately considered murder is if the person performing the operation, or the person who requested it be performed upon her, thought the fetus was a human being and wanted to end its life. That’s murder by anyone’s definition. If a person is honestly convinced that a fetus is not a person, then by definition they do not have the requisite frame of mind to commit murder. Manslaughter, at most.
I do believe that abortion is the termination of a human life. If you think that belief is an a priori demonization of women who have abortions, well, you’re entitled to your view, but that’s a usage of “demonization” that robs the word of any descriptive value. It’s also an attempt to shut down debate or discussion; an entire sheaf of beliefs is automatically stigmatized as “demonizing” just for describing reality in a way that the stigmatizer finds objectionable.
I am inclined to agree with the previous poster who stated that the bloody posters and sidewalk shouters of the pro-life movement end up damaging the cause, at least to some degree. However, I also observe that the intellectual tactics of the pro-choice movement are excellent at firming up the base and radicalizing those who are already committed to a pro-choice viewpoint, but singularly ineffective at generating support from folks who are undecided or who have moderate views. As I am not such a person, I encourage that behavior, since I believe it leads to outcomes that I find personally desirable. I’m not shy about expressing the view, because my experience is that people such as Pseudo-Adrienne who are already radicalized on the subject do not take my sincerity for granted, and are sure I’m playing an intellectual mind-game, and end up more committed to the radicalizing tactics of which I approve.
That’s all my comment was meant to express – pleasure that my ideological opponents are engaging in behavior that I think leads to a better outcome. I am well aware of the heartbreak and distress that accompany many abortions, and the difficulty with which many women are forced to make a terrible choice. I am not a “demonizer”; I don’t throw blood at women going into abortion clinics, I donate money to people who want to give those women additional choices. I don’t put up flyers denouncing the pro-choice movement as a tool of Satan; I pray for them to have a change of heart in the way that I had a change of heart.
and then…
You don’t feel that this is drawing a very direct correlation between murder and abortion? It’s a poor example, and if it’s not your intent, you’d be better off finding another one.
No. It’s drawing a direct correlation between morally objectionable methods of exerting control. In both cases, the mechanism is death. As I explained in my post, death and murder are not the same thing. Abortion is not (generally) murder, but both are morally wrong.
Their are plenty of examples outside of murder that could be used that would be less insinuating. Bottom line is, you’re entitled to believe it is morally wrong, but you also are well deserving of flack when you draw shakey or imprecise correlations that imply a great deal more than you clearly are willing to acknowledge, and imply that politicizing that will radicalize women who have terminated pregnancies is a good thing because it fits your agenda. Taking away the choice of abortion isn’t going to stop it from happening, it’s just going to endanger the women that face the choice. And just because you’re pro-life doesn’t change the fact that you’re going to regularly come across women whom have had abortions, and whether they tell you or not, likely offend or hurt them by discussing so cavalierly their “moral evils” when you sit pretty in a position of never having to make such a choice yourself.
Especially, Robert, if you’re going to act as though pro-choicers shouldn’t say certain things because of certain people’s far less generous, far less sensible readings. Do you think that careless analogy you made lost the pro-life side any potential converts?
“…when you sit pretty in a position of never having to make such a choice yourself.”
That what infuriates me the most about anti-choice men. As you said, they sit pretty in a position where they’ll NEVER be confronted by such a decision, yet they just feel the need to lecture women on moral values. It really comes down the possibility of will you ever face such a decision. I had a high school female friend who changed her views on abortion after she was drugged and raped and became pregnant. She had always said before that if she ever became pregnant even by rape she would carry the pregnancy to full term. But she became pregnant due to rape and she decided to have an abortion and completely changed her views on the subject because of her own experience. She even wrote an article in our school newspaper on why it’s wrong and downright cruel to demonize women who have abortions, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy.
I would like to see how quick anti-choice men are to piss and moan about moral values and their need to lecture others about them (the same “I’m morally superior to you, so do whatever I preach” bullshit), should some “miracle” of science makes it possible for them to ever become pregnant.
Well, that miracle would presumably end up coming in the form of an option. No man would accidentally get pregnant in all likelyhood, even if science figured out a way for them to have a pregnancy. My thoughts is it would likely just make the situation even a bigger can of worms because the fact that pregnancy would always be the choice and not abortion would be omitted from the argument, and higher moral ground would be claimed despite the obvious differences.
This entire discussion is why the t-shirts are necessary. People feel free equating the supposed immorality of abortion to murder because they think that abortion, like murder, is relatively rare. In fact, 1 in 3 women will have one. It’s not only not rare, it’s a common and while it’s not an easy decision for a lot of women, it’ s not the misery that most anti-choicers and even some pro-choicers hope. I know a lot of women who’ve done it, and not a one regrets it.
Pseudo-Adrienne wrote:
Er. If I offended anyone with my use the words ‘queer’ and ‘dyke’ in the Watching shows featuring Gay/Lesbian characters could lessen homophobic prejudices thread, I deeply apologise. I am a younger member of the GLBT community, and most GLBT kids my age think nothing of using ‘queer’, ‘fag’, ‘dyke’, ‘tranny’, or the like to describe themselves, and the truth is that I just don’t notice using them. Indeed, I feel more identification with ‘dyke’ than I do with ‘lesbian’, and I have homosexual male friends who would rather call themselves ‘fags’ than ‘gay men’.
That said, I am not 100% sure that using traditionally derogatory words to describe one’s self is either a major help or a major block to greater acceptance or lessening of the power of the people who would try to hurt you, because these words are still used in a negative way. There is a huge difference between me or my girlfriend or a sympathetic straight person calling me a dyke, some random asshole shouting it at me from their car. I thouroghly feel that I am a dyke, but that doesn’t stop an insult from being an insult, and feeling like it.
John Jasper:
My reasons for hating transgender have to do with well meaning white people who do not understand the legal, medical, therapeutic, bureaucratic and insurance issues that trannsexuals face, but feel compelled to speak on behalf about issues they know nothing about.
Thanks.
Robert,
I agree with others who have written here that anti-choice men really don’t have much to say on the issue of abortion. Particulary when said men don’t talk about children in poverty or ending rape or domestic abuse.
At the very least, until all men (including others that have posted on this thread) are 100% involved in all aspects of rearing children and ending all violence against women and all violence period, we’re really not in any position to pontificate about abortion.
You’ve not been pregnant nor will you ever be pregnant. Neither will I.
So as we say in twelve step programs, it is best if you take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth.
Regards.
Lots of people don’t react positively to t-shirts used to reveal personal information, regardless of what the personal information is. It has a teenage flavor about it, and that’s not the aura one would want to bring to this. I suspect that this lies behind some of the negative reaction to these t-shirts in the pro-choice community.
Also, in order to de-stigmatize abortion using these t-shirts (or to communicate the idea that many normal women–your neighbor, your mother, your co-worker, etc., have had abortions) then many, many women (especially suburbany-looking women in their 30s, 40s, 50s) would have to wear them.
That’s just not ever going to happen, partly because suburbany women in middle life don’t wear, and won’t ever wear, t-shirts advertising any feature whatsoever of their personal life.
Is the fact that a person will never face a decision really a factor in whether they can express a valid viewpoint?
“You are a 50 year old woman and can never be drafted, what right do you have to support the war?”
“You live in an affluent suburb with quality public schools, what right do you have to oppose school vouchers?”
I am a “pro-choice man”, which I guess shouldn’t have any more weight than being a pro-life man, anyway, since I’ll never be in the position one way or another.
But my “pro-choiceness” doesn’t mean that I’m not making moral judgments. I just think individuals should be free to make immoral choices in this area. Just like there shouldn’t be any laws against going to Atlantic City and blowing your kids college fund on the roulette wheel. I think it’s an immoral thing to do, but I’m not willing to legislate against it. (And I know that my wife, who’s opinion apparently gets more weight, feels exactly the same. She is pro-choice, but thinks abortion is immoral.)
So, while I definitely disagree with Robert in his conclusion that the pro-life position is correct, I do not disagree with his factual claim that
I just don’t think the NARAL/ Brian viewpoint that “Abortion isn’t evil. We should be arguing for free abortion, on demand, with no apologies and no questions asked” is a majority position, even among the more-than-50% of the people who are broadly pro-choice.
That, of course, is an empirical claim that would require a survey, not argument. But it is certainly not a rare viewpoint that abortion is immoral, even among pro-choicers, even if it is certainly much lower on the immorality-scale than killing babies.
Robert: When God aborts a fetus it’s called “a miscarriage”. God aborts more babies than man ever will. We’ve got to stop that murdering bastard.
Richard,
I appreciate your belief that you can make moral judgements without actually ever experiencing any particulary phenomenon. All of us do this all the time.
For me, men’s participation in misogyny is so entrenched that I’m not sure there can ever be a time when the force of a man’s judgement on abortion will have the same equivalency as a woman’s.
I am also pro-choice, of the Brian variety that sees abortion as a medical procedure. Abortion, for me, is about the ethics of giving women the right to define how and what and when and where and with whom they will do with their bodies what they wish.
In this way, as a transsexual man, I can fight for a range of options that benefit me (i.e. in my right to change my body to suit me).
Why is abortion immoral? We say it is life. But what kind of life is it? It is not viable outside the womb. And even in the womb, it’s future is subject to an onslought of chemicals, stress and violence it’s a wonder that as many fetuses arrive in the world at all.
Is it immoral because it is threatening potential life? What exactly does that mean?
Thanks and regards.
Jay
Well, certainly I don’t view abortion as immoral in the same sense that killing a child is immoral — otherwise I would certainly be pro-life to the same extent that I am anti-infanticide.
But just because a fetus is not a child does not mean that there is not a moral continuum on which abortion can be reasonably placed. I think drowning puppies is immoral, but probably should not be criminal. I think not giving to charity is immoral. I think failing to act as a positive role model for your children is immoral.
Maybe as a better analogy, I also understand that I should not be legally required to care for an aging parent if the need arises. But I feel it would be immoral not to.
Maybe, then, for me the “I had an abortion” t-shirt is comparable to a “I dumped my dad in a nursing home” t-shirt. Maybe you had a good reason for it. I don’t know. But even if you did, I don’t think I’m ready to de-stigmatize it every case.
Richard,
Thank you for your post. And for your honesty too.
Take care and regards,
Jay
Aaargh!
I was deleting a pure spam post and I accidently hit the “delete” button for the post ABOVE the spam post!
I didn’t see who wrote the post; only that it was pretty short, and that it was in this thread.
So if your post is missing, that’s why. Sorry about that.
Jay:
My reasons for hating transgender have to do with well meaning white people who do not understand the legal, medical, therapeutic, bureaucratic and insurance issues that trannsexuals face, but feel compelled to speak on behalf about issues they know nothing about.
I’ve never found that black yellow or brown people have any more or less ignorance about trans issues than white people. Have you? Anyhow, I don’t much mind the word as I do the intent.
True. Ignorance is no problem, but ignorant people who don’t listen when we’re all, “No, I don’t like to be called that,” or, “That’s not an accurate description,” really bother me.
John:
Well…I’m white, coming out of a white lesbian community in the mid-1990s. My experience has therefore been with said well-meaning white people. Perhaps most people, of all colors, are ignorant on transsexual/trans issues. My experience has proven otherwise. Anecdotally, most people of color I know are much more knowledgable and open than whites.
I also think there is a big difference between individual ignorance and group ignorance. I had groups in mind when I said “well meaning white gays and lesbians.”
It has been my observation, and I’m intersted to hear from other anti-racist activists posting to this blog, that systemically and institutionally white gays and lesbians have much more power, and are in positions of authority, more often than gays and lesbians of color.
So it is white gays and lesbians who make my life _institutionally- difficult when they call me transgender and advocate for some changes to the medical system, for example, without talking with me about it or any other transsexual either. And they are chatting with non-gay, non-transsexual people, who say, “oh you’re gay, and you’re telling us we should do x for the lgbt community, so let’s do x.” (Does anyone else besides me have problems with the monolithic nature of words like “community” or “lgbt”)?
As an analogy whenever I hear white lesbians or gays say, “oh black people are more homophobic,” I respond, “than who?”
“White people? That’s funny,” I continue, “last time I looked Dubya, Scalia, Trent Lott and [fill in your local white homophobe] are all white. And they are in a position to make your life shit. Not some black minister down the street.”
In the end, individual ignorance is annoying. Group ignorance, however, when coupled with any modicum of institutional authority, can radically change people’s lives for the worse.
Thanks,
Jay
Sorry Josh, I wrote John. A bad consequence of typing too fast and not paying attention.
Jay
Probably it isn’t. The trouble is, very few people are making that argument firmly and clearly — NARAL isn’t — but how do you convince people to support a position, unless you firmly and clearly advocate that position?
Which is why I think that it would be good if some women, who have the confidence to do so, would wear tee-shirts with “I Had An Abortion” on them. It would encourage people those who are less confident.
I don’t have access to the Bitch Magazine article. What’s the argument against the tee-shirts?
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It seems to me that there is a difference between destigmatizing a word and destigmatizing a thing. Black people and gay people believe (with good reason) that there is nothing “wrong”? with being black or gay.
You’re forgetting that in the g/l/b/t community, there is a long-standing debate about being ‘visible’–that wearing Pride shirts just antagonizes people and is in-your-face and we shouldn’t piss people off by rubbing their noses in it. To people who hold this view, a T-shirt that says “I’m not a lesbian, but my girlfriend is” is every bit as offensive and in-your-face as a shirt about abortion.
Murder is a legal term that means the deliberate ending of a human life with a certain type of intent.
Yes; with ‘malice aforethought’. That refers to the intent of the act, not how much the murderer valued the victim’s life. If a neo-Nazi sympathizer who genuinely believes African-Americans are not fully human kills an African-American, we do not say “That isn’t murder–he didn’t think he was really ending a human being’s life.”
Most Americans dislike being ‘out’ about abortion because, bluntly, they are morally illogical and selfish. They want to have access to abortion as needed, despite feeling that it’s not really a nice thing, so they (as with most people who are afraid they are doing wrong) draw weird and artificial lines in the sand. MY abortion is OK because I was using birth control when I got pregnant, but HER abortion is not OK because she didn’t use contraception. MY wife’s abortion is OK because we already have two kids, but HER abortion is wrong because she only has one and could have afforded another.
I have a lot more respect for the anti-abortion people who believe abortion is murder, and that women who abort should be prosecuted as murderers, than I do for the “oh, it’s OK if it’s rape or incest” wafflers.
And for me, it is just the opposite. It seems to me that both “extreme” positions are intentionally blind to the values that the other side is promoting. For me, there is a value to the “life” and a value to the “choice”, and it is simply a question of balancing the conflicting values and recognizing that the “choice” to not be pregnant for months outweighs the other one. But the fact that it loses out in the balance doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize it exists.
I feel like both extremes are afraid that, if they even recognize the existence of a conflicting value — however small — that they will lose the entire war.
For me, I think often about “gender selection” abortions in (mostly) China and India, where potential parents determine the gender of their fetus, and then abort the females so as to guarantee that when the do give birth, it is to a male baby. The results, in China at least, is that there are about 20% more male babies born than females.
Is that a bad thing? If your view is that abortion is a medical procedure — no apologies, no regrets — then you really can’t have a problem with that. It is the parents’ choice to abort, and there is no one who is harmed, so there’s no problem.
Now, I’m not saying I would pass a law and throw Chinese parents in jail, if I had that choice. But, if you oppose gender selection abortions — which I do — and want to work toward eliminating them, then I think you have to recognize that there is a moral component to abortion, and that — as in most cases — the “right” answer has to do with weighing conflicting values, not in completely ignoring one set of them.
A lot of people have moral ambivalence about abortion. I don’t think that ambivalence is something we have to solve; we can live with it. The problem is pro-lifers who refuse to acknowledge abortion’s ambivalent moral nature. Many concservatives, including the Catholic Church, are perfectly willing to accept a flexible moral view of war, a male domain historically. Robert, for example, may understand that I can’t reasonably call a man who shot a German on Normandy Beach a murderer, although in a way he is. I can understand why the man did what he did, and he doesn’t have to wear a t-shirt for me to get it. People used to call childbirth the woman’s battlefield, where she faced pain and death ( how would we view abortion if a lot of us still faced death when pregnant?). Maybe we should just look at abortion, preganancy in general, as when a woman is allowed moral flexibility, the way people have always allowed it for men at war.
I’d just like to point out that a lot of women still do face life-threatening situations throughout pregnancy and giving birth. Maybe in industrialised nations it’s not as many as in the past, but pregnancy and giving birth still have many attendant risks and are far from being the simple cakewalks anti-choicers like to make them out to be.
Richard, you say:
I think I’m going to have to disagree with you there, though. My opposition to gender selection abortions is not a problem with the abortion. It’s a problem with the gender selection. It’s not the procedure I’m protesting at all, but the sexism and the inevitable problems that result with a huge gender-imbalance in the population. I don’t consider the abortions themselves to be the moral issue.
I hope that makes sense. I’ve only got a moment and I keep finding my attention drawn away by the preview function… It’s hypnotic.
Compare an alternate system where sperm can be strained into “X” and “Y”, and then the woman fertilized with the child gender of her choice (assumedly, male in the large majority of cases). Or, further along the line, a couples walking into an adoption center and disproportionately saying, “We want to adopt a boy,” thereby leaving more girls as wards of the state.
I find the first distasteful, but not really immoral, and the latter not really than offensvie at all. It is in comparing those two alternatives to “waiting until the fetus is old enough to do a sex-test, and then aborting the unwanted ones” that I find “excess immorality” in aborting the female fetus, above and beyond sperm selection or adoption preference.
But another way, if there was not a “gender imbalance” problem, and exactly 50% of the population aborted male fetuses because they wanted a girl, my moral disapproval would not be affected.
I can see where you’re coming from now, but that angle fails to trouble me. I suppose we must simply have different bases for our moral qualms.
Thus Robert:
So if I earnestly believe that Christians are not human beings, and that I therefore have a right to hunt anyone who makes a confession of the faith like a beast, and I act on this earnestly held belief by gunning down some folks at Sunday services, does that mean, on your view, that I am not guilty of murder, but rather of manslaughter at the most?
Come on, now. If you’re going to come down on abortion, at least don’t be mealy-mouthed about it.
Well, if I were a judge in that case, I’d certainly decide for “not guilty by reason of insanity.” Of course, you’d still be locked away – in an asylum, not a prison – but it would be technically not guilty nonetheless.
Amp:
Why? This looks alarmingly like treating someone as crazy simply because their beliefs are morally depraved. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but in actual historical reality lots of Nazis and Klan members have actually thought this way about Jews and Blacks (for example) and acted accordingly, to horrifying effect. I don’t think they were “insane” in any sense that affects legal or moral responsibility. They were just evil. Why should our hypothetical murderous anti-Christian be thought of any differently?
Of course, you’d still be locked away – in an asylum, not a prison – but it would be technically not guilty nonetheless.
Doesn’t Oregon have “guilty but insane” as a verdict?
For me, there is a value to the “life”? and a value to the “choice”?, and it is simply a question of balancing the conflicting values and recognizing that the “choice”? to not be pregnant for months outweighs the other one.
Hm, earlier comment got munched. Richard, you’re talking about something entirely different, which is agreeing that the other side has a point–just not a compelling one.
What I’m talking about is people claiming a particular moral value–“a fetus is a human being” or “It’s a woman’s body and therefore her right to choose to abort or not”–but then drawing lines based on their comfort levels, rather than their stated moral values. If a fetus is a human being, then you can’t justify an abortion on the grounds that it was conceived through rape. Nor can you honestly say that a woman’s choice justifies abortion, unless it’s a choice we don’t like (sex selection), and then we can stop her.