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Have a read of this essay on abortion. It's very good indeed.
*
I fully expect many people on my flist to disagree with me, very loudly indeed - for one thing, I would describe myself as a pro choicer, yet here I am slating the entire movement. Also, I have little patience for pro lifers whose argument is that the foetus is a human, as 1) I don't agree, and 2) what does that make the woman, chopped liver?
Anyway, what the below is NOT about:
1. Should abortion be legal? That would be a big YES from me.
2. Should there be some restrictions on abortion? I have no idea. I'm not talking about that.
3. Women who never want children. Some of the arguments are based on the assumption that, given the choice, a woman will choose to have a child at some point in her life, and there are specific reasons why it will not happen now. This is broadly consistent with existing statistcs that indicate that most women having an abortion go on to have children later on in life. I am thus not saying that all women want children - I am talking about cases where a woman would want a child yet has an abortion anyway. I think that cases where a woman never wants to have a child and has an abortion is conceptually different, so thus I have excluded them from my comments below.
What I am talking about is the concept in a very abstract way, as it relates to a choice made by someone who later in life makes the contrary choice - i.e. a woman who has an abortion then, later on, has a baby. Thus, the focus is on what makes pregnancy and childrearing an untenanble concept at a certain point in life - but not at others.
Furthermore, I don't view abortion as killing, as view it as an abortion - a pre-emptive end to a potential life. You might disagree. These, however, are my assumptions for the below.
*
My comments to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
livredor are as follows:
"There are some circumstances where abortion is the least worst of several bad options.
It's weird. My friends and I - all avowed feminists - were trying to express this very thing. The closest thing we could come up with is: "abortion is a right you should never have to exercise". It's not quite there, but it's on its way.
I'm probably adding a whole other hornets' nest to the issue here, but my thoughts on abortion are roughly aligned alongside my thoughts on euthanasia: the loss of life is always tragic and it should never, ever be sterilised to the point where it is not acknowledged. However, it is imperative that no one is compelled into a state where they are denied certain choices about their bodies. I'm coming at this from a war-crimes perspective - my understanding of the issue comes not from the more common US Roe v Wade but from the Rwandan and Yugoslavian tribunals; from the rape-camps and the forced pregnancies and the 'breeding out' of 'undesirable blood' - so it probably colours my opinion a great deal.
I do believe that the act of abortion is a battle across the woman's body, where opposing discourses - the discourse of 'pro choice' and the counter discourse of 'pro life' (in the UK - vice versa in the US) - clash. Both of these, however, are exercising the same force across the woman's body and are thus both patriarchal discourses. (I realise that a lot of people have an almost pathological aversion to Foucault, but bear with me.) This can be seen most vividly on the body of a raped woman: she is caught between the discourses of normality and morality, both demanding that the rape had never happened and that she deal with the consequences 'ethically'. What neither of these discourses do is acknowledge the change of pregnancy without prescribing a course for the woman to follow.
In other words:
A woman who wants to have the baby will not have an abortion. Therefore, only women who do not want to have the baby for some reason will have one. I'm arguing that this reason is generated by the clash between the discourse of normality - make things the way they were, because you are not paid enough to afford a child (the male-female wage gap is ever-widening in the UK, and how will you raise a child in the US if you're paid minimum wage there?), or because you would have to give up your career, or because you would have to spend your life caring for the child, or because your parents would reject you, or any other reason that means a woman has strayed from what is socially acceptable. No 'accidental' pregnancy where the mother is not rich and independent and capable of taking care of the child with or without the father can be viewed as 'acceptable' by any of the societies I have come into contact with.
On the other hand, we have the 'moral' argument, which argues that you pay for your screw-ups and if you got pregnant, it's your fault. This, too, lays the onus upon the mother. There is no group of pro-lifers out there chasing down fathers who walked out on their pregnant girlfriends, or volunteering at the child support agencies. It is the woman's body, not the man's, who pays for the transgression of surrendering her 'virtue'.
Thus, the products of these transgressions must be killed, or accepted: but it is up to the woman to bear the burden of responsibility. Even when she is having the abortion because she cannot afford the child, it is still somehow 'her fault'. However, the fact that she is having the abortion simply means that one discourse has won over the other - not that the patriarchal discourse has been broken down. Abortion is not resistence to patriarchy, it is patriarchy manifesting in another form.
Resistence to patriarchy would not be seen in something so medicalised or regulated. Just like the regulation of insanity and homosexuality, the rules are simply the dominant discourse absorbing the aberrations into itself, catalogueing them, and then locking them up in little boxes. In the Victorian era, the only places for insanity were the hospitals and the insane asylums. Now, the places for these pro choicers are the abortion clinics, where a government doctor will assess whether you are allowed the procedure according to the rules that someone else, removed from the siuation, has set up. You will be catalogued and recorded whatever you choose - another specimen to study.
I would argue that the only true resistence to patriarchy is universally available, universally infallible birth control that is not dependent on a specific partner taking it. Maybe a situation where both partners take the pill? *ponders* Although the test-marketing for the male birth control pill is interesting all by itself and has some worrying implications, so lets leave that to one side for the moment.
Erm. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I agree with you. Only with more words. :-)"
*
ETA: Also, the state of childcare and society actually paying for the children it requires women to produce and raise? Don't get me started.
*
monanotlisa? You have to read that book I was telling you about, about feminist jurisprudence regarding prostitution and abortion and pregnancy. It's fabulous.
*
I fully expect many people on my flist to disagree with me, very loudly indeed - for one thing, I would describe myself as a pro choicer, yet here I am slating the entire movement. Also, I have little patience for pro lifers whose argument is that the foetus is a human, as 1) I don't agree, and 2) what does that make the woman, chopped liver?
Anyway, what the below is NOT about:
1. Should abortion be legal? That would be a big YES from me.
2. Should there be some restrictions on abortion? I have no idea. I'm not talking about that.
3. Women who never want children. Some of the arguments are based on the assumption that, given the choice, a woman will choose to have a child at some point in her life, and there are specific reasons why it will not happen now. This is broadly consistent with existing statistcs that indicate that most women having an abortion go on to have children later on in life. I am thus not saying that all women want children - I am talking about cases where a woman would want a child yet has an abortion anyway. I think that cases where a woman never wants to have a child and has an abortion is conceptually different, so thus I have excluded them from my comments below.
What I am talking about is the concept in a very abstract way, as it relates to a choice made by someone who later in life makes the contrary choice - i.e. a woman who has an abortion then, later on, has a baby. Thus, the focus is on what makes pregnancy and childrearing an untenanble concept at a certain point in life - but not at others.
Furthermore, I don't view abortion as killing, as view it as an abortion - a pre-emptive end to a potential life. You might disagree. These, however, are my assumptions for the below.
*
My comments to
livredor are as follows:"There are some circumstances where abortion is the least worst of several bad options.
It's weird. My friends and I - all avowed feminists - were trying to express this very thing. The closest thing we could come up with is: "abortion is a right you should never have to exercise". It's not quite there, but it's on its way.
I'm probably adding a whole other hornets' nest to the issue here, but my thoughts on abortion are roughly aligned alongside my thoughts on euthanasia: the loss of life is always tragic and it should never, ever be sterilised to the point where it is not acknowledged. However, it is imperative that no one is compelled into a state where they are denied certain choices about their bodies. I'm coming at this from a war-crimes perspective - my understanding of the issue comes not from the more common US Roe v Wade but from the Rwandan and Yugoslavian tribunals; from the rape-camps and the forced pregnancies and the 'breeding out' of 'undesirable blood' - so it probably colours my opinion a great deal.
I do believe that the act of abortion is a battle across the woman's body, where opposing discourses - the discourse of 'pro choice' and the counter discourse of 'pro life' (in the UK - vice versa in the US) - clash. Both of these, however, are exercising the same force across the woman's body and are thus both patriarchal discourses. (I realise that a lot of people have an almost pathological aversion to Foucault, but bear with me.) This can be seen most vividly on the body of a raped woman: she is caught between the discourses of normality and morality, both demanding that the rape had never happened and that she deal with the consequences 'ethically'. What neither of these discourses do is acknowledge the change of pregnancy without prescribing a course for the woman to follow.
In other words:
A woman who wants to have the baby will not have an abortion. Therefore, only women who do not want to have the baby for some reason will have one. I'm arguing that this reason is generated by the clash between the discourse of normality - make things the way they were, because you are not paid enough to afford a child (the male-female wage gap is ever-widening in the UK, and how will you raise a child in the US if you're paid minimum wage there?), or because you would have to give up your career, or because you would have to spend your life caring for the child, or because your parents would reject you, or any other reason that means a woman has strayed from what is socially acceptable. No 'accidental' pregnancy where the mother is not rich and independent and capable of taking care of the child with or without the father can be viewed as 'acceptable' by any of the societies I have come into contact with.
On the other hand, we have the 'moral' argument, which argues that you pay for your screw-ups and if you got pregnant, it's your fault. This, too, lays the onus upon the mother. There is no group of pro-lifers out there chasing down fathers who walked out on their pregnant girlfriends, or volunteering at the child support agencies. It is the woman's body, not the man's, who pays for the transgression of surrendering her 'virtue'.
Thus, the products of these transgressions must be killed, or accepted: but it is up to the woman to bear the burden of responsibility. Even when she is having the abortion because she cannot afford the child, it is still somehow 'her fault'. However, the fact that she is having the abortion simply means that one discourse has won over the other - not that the patriarchal discourse has been broken down. Abortion is not resistence to patriarchy, it is patriarchy manifesting in another form.
Resistence to patriarchy would not be seen in something so medicalised or regulated. Just like the regulation of insanity and homosexuality, the rules are simply the dominant discourse absorbing the aberrations into itself, catalogueing them, and then locking them up in little boxes. In the Victorian era, the only places for insanity were the hospitals and the insane asylums. Now, the places for these pro choicers are the abortion clinics, where a government doctor will assess whether you are allowed the procedure according to the rules that someone else, removed from the siuation, has set up. You will be catalogued and recorded whatever you choose - another specimen to study.
I would argue that the only true resistence to patriarchy is universally available, universally infallible birth control that is not dependent on a specific partner taking it. Maybe a situation where both partners take the pill? *ponders* Although the test-marketing for the male birth control pill is interesting all by itself and has some worrying implications, so lets leave that to one side for the moment.
Erm. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I agree with you. Only with more words. :-)"
*
ETA: Also, the state of childcare and society actually paying for the children it requires women to produce and raise? Don't get me started.
*
monanotlisa? You have to read that book I was telling you about, about feminist jurisprudence regarding prostitution and abortion and pregnancy. It's fabulous.