"What does that hanger thingy mean?"
There's been much ado over the goods being hawked by Planned Parenthood. This cute little bag, was spotted by the eagle eyes of Sed Contra reader, Hugo Schwyzer.
Feministe, a blog whose quip is "Dismantle Globally, Rebuild Locally", has a post that plugs the bag. When I read the post she quotes, it nearly made me physically ill.
[NOTE: Planned Parenthood neither makes nor sells the handbag mentioned. Any implication of that was accidental. The PP merchandise was a convenient introduction, but I left out a transitional thought. I apologize for any confusion- Funky]
Funky Dung
Comments 8
That's like saying "Mommy, what does that white hood mean?"
"Well, honey, a long time ago, your ancestors had some very important
possessions that they needed in order to tend their crops. Some very bad men
from a different part of the country didn't want the farmers to use their
possessions because the men from elsewhere didn't respect the farmers' right
to own possessions; now the farmers couldn't feed their families. The
farmers who stood up for their rights had to wear white hoods to hide their
faces so that the men from elsewhere wouldn't put them in jail merely for
defending their rights."
"Mommy, will I ever have to wear a white hood to keep from going to jail
because someone took away what was mine?"
"Not if there are enough men in the world like those brave ones over there
burning that cross."
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Posted 27 Jul 2004 at 8:05 pm ¶Are pro-choicers really comparable to slave owners or the KKK?
Perhaps not the most fantastic metaphor, but I get your point, Goerge.
The mother responded in among the best ways possible one can explain the issue to a three-year-old while still maintaining her values. While the morality issue of the issue is up for debate, at least the mother started the discussion early with her daughter, and with honesty to boot.
Is that what makes you ill?
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Posted 28 Jul 2004 at 1:22 am ¶I find it apalling that the mother told her daughter a story that implies that doctors were denying care to ill women in need of treatment, thus portraying them as villains. Worse yet, she failed to inform her daughter that instead of asking precocious questions at age 3, she might have been at the business end of a coathanger had she been conceived at a different time, under less desireable circumstances.
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Posted 28 Jul 2004 at 4:11 am ¶Just to clarify, Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with the creation of this bag. I created the bag originally to raise funds for the March for Women's Lives and have since let buyers decide which pro-choice organization their donation goes toward.
To be purely factual, the mother should have told her daughter that the American Medical Association was fighting alongside many women to make abortion legal. Most doctor's were not villains, many of them were in favor of legalized abortion and still are.
And she should also have told her daughter that she should have no doubts that she came into this world a wanted and loved child. Since abortion is legal, she should never have a reason to doubt her mother. Unlike many people my age.
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Posted 28 Jul 2004 at 4:19 am ¶To be purely factual, the mother should have told her child that the issue was not whether or not the mothers felt "ill" but whether or not they were commissioning the death of a child by having an abortion. This has been my point all along: To claim that the dispute about abortion is ultimately about whether or not women should be able to remove things that make them ill is equivalent to holding that the 19th-century dispute about slavery was ultimately a dispute about property rights. This is where the mother was misleading her child. She was not offering an "age-appropriate" explanation about the motivation for dispute when she said that "Most doctor's didn't think that these women felt ill". The issue was never whether or not pregnancy was inconvenient, traumatizing, or physically taxing. The issue has been and will continue to be whether or not the living human fetus may be killed.
In response to Lauren's question, therefore, this is what made me feel ill: that the mother distorted the conflict over abortion by making it seem to be a matter of whether or not the women were acknowledged as having felt "ill".
I find no cause for saying that the woman handled this question "with honesty, to boot." There was no honesty in the mother's answer when she addressed the motivation for prohibiting abortion. The use of the coat-hanger was accurately described (removal), but neither the goal of removal, nor the nature of what was being removed, nor finally the reason why such removal was formerly prohibited and resisted were addressed. Rather, the mother substituted a different and inaccurate reason.
Why is this so important? It is so important because there is a fundamental question here, as fundamental as the question of whether Africans are free persons or disposable property.
If any person would support abortion, they must take one of two points:
(1) Either it is permissible to kill a living human being in the womb for the reason that it is unwanted, ill-timed, or malformed…
(2) …or it is not permissible.
Any answer saying "well, in certain circumstances, it's okay" must therefore claim that (1) is sometimes true. And if one claims that "we don't know whether it's a real person, so we should leave it up to the mother," then one is still saying that — if it _were_ a real person — (1) would be okay.
The moment one claims that (1) is true because the mother's rights (to convenience, happiness, whatever) outweigh those of the fetus' right to life, then I would like that person to furnish me with an explanation of why such an argument cannot be applied to a newborn baby within, say, the first 30 minutes after delivery.
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Posted 28 Jul 2004 at 4:49 am ¶I would like to add that I thank both Lauren and Cinnamon for their civility in this exchange. Both of you have been very polite and have kept focused on the matter at hand rather than expanding the debate into tangential territory. Thank you very much for that.
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Posted 28 Jul 2004 at 4:54 am ¶That comment might be useful here as well:
http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/000774.html
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Posted 28 Jul 2004 at 4:55 am ¶The fact is George, that many women who become pregnant unhappilly do feel ill. While it may be partly due to morning sickness, I'm sure a great deal of it is physical side-effects of mental or emotional distress. The women I've known have had a great deal of trouble eating, sleeping, thinking clearly, concentrating, even seeing clearly (in the physical sense.) All these are effects of emotional stress. The women I know who have had abortions have regretted that they had to make the decision, wished that they had made different decisions before getting pregnant, but they haven't regretted that they made the right decision.
The mother's answer is over-simplified, but she's talking to a 3-year-old, she has to be.
I think it is permissible for any woman who gets pregnant to decide what goes on in her womb. The main difference in our decision is whether or not the rights of the woman over her body outweigh the rights of the fetus to continue to term naturally. I think the rights of the woman outweigh the rights of the fetus, the potential for life. It's where our differences stand and I don't think either one of us will change our stance on that.
I also thank you for your civility in this discussion. "The pro-choice people are similar to KKK members" argument had me a bit worried, though.
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Posted 28 Jul 2004 at 10:59 pm ¶Post a Comment