Return of the Pro-Life Feminist



<3 Sarah!

Did you know that feminists used to be pro-life? Prominent names like Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Mary Wollstonecraft were all pro-life. Abortion used to be viewed as a tool men used to abuse women. 'Cause it's sex without consequences. If you can get your girlfriend to abort every time she gets pregnant, there's no reason to not abuse her if you can always erase your mistake.

From Dictionary.com:
Feminism: the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

Somewhere along the legitimate path to equal rights, we got the notion that "equal rights" means "same results". But it doesn't. There will always be a greater percentage of men in Congress than women. Why? Because there are more men running for Congress. Why? Because men and women are different.

Shocker, I know.

I'm a bit of a tomboy. I like to be "tough" and typically am more comfortable around a bunch of guys--whether we're playing hacky-sac, talking politics, or watching football (which I actually don't like, but whatever)--than I am around a bunch of girls. I want to have a career and, once I'm kicked out of my shell, I like to lead. (I struggled for a long time with the concept of men taking biblical leadership, but that's a topic for another time.) I am, at first glance, the stereotypical example of the modern-day feminist. Except for my horrific beliefs that women shouldn't be allowed to dismember their own children (le ghasp). And that I actually like it (or, more accurately my heart melts) whenever a gentleman opens the door for me, whether he's a burly truck driver (true story) or a four-year-old boy (also true). And that I will not kiss any male except my brother and father before my wedding day (suppression, suppression!!). And that I do want to get married and not use birth control and have kids (some perhaps by adoption) and homeschool them (horror, destruction, meyhem, overpopulation, brainwashing!!!).  

Okay, so I'm not the stereotypical example of a modern-day feminist.

I should be, though. Women and men should (mostly--there are some messy exceptions) be given the same options. But being given the option doesn't mean you are capable of following that option. A woman can choose the option of graduate school without having kids--unless she gets pregnant. Once you've screwed up your own option, you can't hurt someone else to get it back. That should be illegal.

Don't confine people to stereotypes, but don't expect the stereotypes to not exist in the majority. There's a reason the stereotype became the stereotype.

We tell men all the time to "man up". You were made to lead. Now stand up and LEAD. Why don't we tell the women to "woman up"? You were made to nurture. Now stand up and NURTURE.

I leave you now with one of my new favorite comedians, Brad Stine.

Onething

Why am I sharing this? I don't know. This inspires me, and the song that comes after the scripture reading is awesome. (Did you catch the reference to abortion?) Gotta love the International House of Prayer!

Sometimes God Opens Doors...

...and sometimes He picks you up and tosses you through the door almost before it's open.

I got wind of the "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" movement yesterday. Rallies protesting the HHS mandate are going to be held in cities across the nation on March 23. I looked at the locations on the website and discovered the one nearest me would be held an hour and a half away.

Shoot.

I emailed the link to my mom anyway. She answered back this morning with, "Why don't you organize one for [my city]? Do Hard Things."

Well then. Okay. I sent a tentative email to the people in charge asking what organizing a rally would take, as I've never had any experience in that area. They emailed me back quickly, informing me that another lady had just emailed them asking the same thing, for the same city!

Coincidence? I prefer to think of it as Divine Intervention.

Thankfully, this woman has more experience than I do. Long story short, we now have a permit, a flyer, a Facebook page, and I've sent recruiting emails to approximately a billion people (okay, not really. But to every acquaintence/homeschooler I have so far in NC...which is actually quite a few). As if that wasn't exciting enough, she told me about a pro-life student group on Facebook for my area. YES. I have been starved for such a group! Since moving from Kansas, I'd lost all of the connections I had with pro-life people. But even in Kansas I didn't have an activist student group.

When did I find out about this movement? Yesterday.

Today, I am the youth coordinator (un-officially/according to myself :)) co-organizer (officially) of a genuine protest rally for my city as part of a national movement. And a member of a pro-life student activist group.

I. Am. PSYCHED.

You know, I kinda wish God'd throw me through open doors a little more often.

Hitler Would Be Proud

It would have been hard to miss the storm over President Obama's birth control mandate. You know, the new law that will begin forcing employers to cover contraception costs in their employees' health insurance. So if you didn't miss it, and you don't want to hear my rantings, please just read the following paragraph.

The outrage over the mandate erupted because it ignored any conscience rights of religious institutions, such as Catholic hospitals, who don't want to be forced to provide contraception. After the pressure was put on the Obama administration, they "revised" the mandate, so that instead of the employers paying for the contraception, the insurance companies are forced to provide it for free. Except this doesn't fix anything. Because the employers are still paying for the insurance. They are still paying for their employees' access to contraception. THIS FIXES NOTHING. Don't be fooled by this false revision. Keep the pressure on Washington. You can sign a petition here. (If the petition gets 25,000 signatures by March 12, then Washington has to give an official response!)

The main problem with this mandate is that it violates the first amendment right to freedom of religion. You can't order people to give away carrots to anybody who wants them if carrots violate your religion. This doesn't just go for "religious institutions" either. This goes for all employers who don't like birth control.

Naturally, there is a limit to religious freedom. If, for example, your religion requires you to sacrifice virgins to your god every year, you have to be stopped. Or if your religion requires you to not perform a life-saving heart transplant...too bad. But contraception is not life-saving or necessary. It is not a right. There is no reason to force people to give contraception to others. There's no reason to prevent people from getting contraception either, as long as it isn't an abortifacient. I don't like contraception myself, but I don't mind if you use your privilege to access and use it, so long as it doesn't impede another's right not to provide it or another's right to live.

If, in a very rare (and perhaps bizarre) circumstance, some contraception or abortion is necessary to save someone's life, then their right to life is trumped by another's right to not provide these now life-saving services, as the normal intent for both contraception and abortion (preventing having babies and killing babies) have changed into "preventing dying".

Even if this didn't impede first amendment rights, this doesn't even make sense economically. Forcing insurance companies to provide "free" contraception just makes the price of the insurance in total go up. The employers still have to pay for the insurance, so the employers are spending more on their employees' insurance, which tightens financial strain on the workplace, which, eventually, coupled with other things, leads to laid-off employees. Government mandates forcing themselves into the free market system always have bad results.

Then, President Obama had the gall to say that the birth control was "free" because it costs less than the babies that would result, therefore saving us money. WHAT?!? Since when were human lives worth only as much as the money they require?! Is abortion next, then? What about disabled people? I mean, hey, if it saves us money, why not go around killing people that cost more than they provide? That's called eugenics, and sounds quite a bit like Hitler's euthanasia program. And if it contradicts your religion to provide euthenasia for expensive less-than-worthy people, too bad, because we have a right to kill people over whom we have control.

Refuting Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion" (Part 9)

Judith Jarvis Thomson

Click here to read part 1.
Click here to read part 2.
Click here to read part 3.
Click here to read part 4.
Click here to read part 5.
Click here to read part 6.
Click here to read part 7.
Click here to read part 8.

This is the continuation of my dissection of the "ultimate pro-abortion argument". If we can prove this argument wrong, we can prove any pro-abortion argument wrong. This is the last segment in this series. My comments are (in parentheses and underlined).

In this section, Ms. Thomson sums up her previous arguments which, since I have refuted them in previous sections, are still invalid.

Judith Jarvis Thomson: A Defense of Abortion

From Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 1, no. 1 (Fall 1971).

(Reprinted in "Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Medical Ethics," 5^th ed., ed. Ronald Munson (Belmont; Wadsworth 1996). pp 69-80
...

8.

My argument will be found unsatisfactory on two counts by many of those who want to regard abortion as morally permissible. First, while I do argue that abortion is not impermissible, I do not argue that it is always permissible. There may well be cases in which carrying the child to term requires only Minimally Decent Samaritanism of the mother, and this is a standard we must not fall below. (But where is that mark? I think that you're a Minimally Decent Samaritan when you don't kill your unborn children for convenience. You can't just point to your own version of Minimally Decent Samaritanism and declare that's the right thing. If something directly hurts someone else (like abortion, born murders, rape, robbery, beatings, sexual abuse, etc.) then it's wrong. Period.) I am inclined to think it a merit of my account precisely that it does not give a general yes or a general no. It allows for and supports our sense that, for example, a sick and desperately frightened fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, pregnant due to rape, may of course choose abortion, and that any law which rules this out is an insane law. (No it's not. A law outlawing murder is not insane in any circumstances.) And it also allows for and supports our sense that in other cases resort to abortion is even positively indecent. It would be indecent in the woman to request an abortion, and indecent in a doctor to perform it, if she is in her seventh month, and wants the abortion just to avoid the nuisance of postponing a trip abroad. (It would be just as indecent to perform an abortion on the terrified, raped fourteen year old girl, because in both cirtumstances the result is a dead baby.) The very fact that the arguments I have been drawing attention to treat all cases of abortion, or even all cases of abortion in which the mother's life is not at stake, as morally on a par ought to have made them suspect at the outset.

Second, while I am arguing for the permissibility of abortion in some cases, I am not arguing for the right to secure the death of the unborn child. It is easy to confuse these two things in that up to a certain point in the life of the fetus it is not able to survive outside the mother's body; hence removing it from her body guarantees its death. But they are importantly different. I have argued that you are not morally required to spend nine months in bed, sustaining the life of that violinist, but to say this is by no means to say that if, when you unplug yourself, there is a miracle and he survives, you then have a right to turn round and slit his throat. You may detach yourself even if this costs him his life; you have no right to be guaranteed his death, by some other means, if unplugging yourself does not kill him. (Totally unrelated, as abortion when the fetuses do not survive are wrong. However, why not turn around and slit the baby's throat? There's nothing different between a 23-week-old fetus being killed in an abortion, and a 23-week-old fetus surviving an abortion and then having his neck slit. The result is the intentional slaughter of an innocent life. THERE. IS. NO. DIFFERENCE.) There are some people who will feel dissatisfied by this feature of my argument. A woman may be utterly devastated by the thought of a child, a bit of herself, put out for adoption and never seen or heard of again. (But, naturally, she'll be completely at ease if she makes sure her kid dies.) She may therefore want not merely that the child be detached from her, but more, that it die. Some opponents of abortion are inclined to regard this as beneath contempt--thereby showing insensitivity to what is surely a powerful source of despair. All the same, I agree that the desire for the child's death is not one which anybody may gratify, should it turn out to be possible to detach the child alive. (So remind me...why do you say abortion is okay?)

At this place, however, it should be remembered that we have only been pretending throughout that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. A very early abortion is surely not the killing of a person, and so is not dealt with by anything I have said here. (No it's not. There are very clear arguments for the personhood of the unborn, which I will probably delve into soon.)

Image found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.

Compare and Contrast

I've noticed a striking difference in the reactions of pro-"choice"ers for two different stories lately.

Senario 1:
Part I:
A family trying to force a teenage girl to abort.
Part II:
A mentally ill woman dead-set against abortion because of a previous abortion that left her traumatized, and a judge ruling that she should be forced to abort (because it's in her best interests).

Reaction of pro-"choice" Side to Senario 1:

(By the way, since you're probably worried about that teenage girl and that mentally ill woman, know that as far as I know the family has not yet been able to force the girl to abort, and the judge's decision was later revoked.)

Senario 2:
The Susan G. Komen foundation announces changes in policies that will give grants to organizations that directly help with breast cancer research and screenings, and thus inadvertantly cuts off 5% of a certain organization known as "Planned Parenthood"'s yearly profits (yes, PROFITS), since said organization does not do any breast cancer research and merely provides referals for mammograms and performs the "manual" breast exams (that I do on myself in the shower) and then charges for it (yeah, really non-profit and helpful to poor women, isn't it?).

Reaction of pro-"choice" side to Senario 2:

Nuuuuuuuu!!

And then:

Waaahh! Need emergency donations to replace Komen! (Ignore our fat annual surpluses.)

Do you smell that? Methinks 'tis the scent of hypocricy. It's funny. All the pro-aborts complained that Komen broke ties with Planned Parenthood because of political pressure from anti-choicers. But then Komen joined back up with Planned Parenthood a week later because of all the pressure from the pro-aborts. Which sounds more like giving in to political pressure: making a perfectly logical choice with off-the-radar complaints (since the mainstream media pretty much never covers the pro-life side, so as to convince everybody that we're a pro-abortion country), or reversing that perfectly logical choice when barraged with pro-abortion complaints, hacks, and downright nastiness? Which, naturally, was all covered extensively by the media (minus the hacks and nastiness).
By the way, here's what the media DIDN'T tell you: thousands of pro-lifers rallied behind Komen after this decision. Their donation income increased 100%. They recieved thousands of emails from pro-lifers thanking them for this decision (I was one of them) and encouraging comments on their Facebook page (I was also one of them).

Good grief.

(This is actually an optomistic post. I'm hoping that this wasn't a scheme by Planned Parenthood and Komen to increase both of their donations. They both made an incredible amount of money from this. Rather convenient, isn't it?)