I recall the incident. Before it was banned from the march, I had not previously heard of the group, and assumed it was simply a group of pro-life women. But it seems they are serious feminists who are seeking to harmonize their feminist convictions with their pro-life views.
The reviewer, Sandford, is described as a senior editor at Penguin Random House. One of the virtues of her review is that she seems pretty conversant on the various streams and "waves" of feminism, and evaluates the film on those terms, rather than, say, from the point of view of the Catholic tradition on the sanctity of life. Sandford notes that New Wave Feminists eschews religiously-rooted arguments, and seeks to engage feminists on their own terms to make their case that one can be both feminist and pro-life.
This engagement apparently consists of three major claims:
- Abortion is violence, and feminism should espouse non-violence
- Abortion puts women's health at risk
- Abortion "allows men to dodge responsibility"
Both the mother and unborn child are human beings with lives of equal value, but their relationship is unique in that they cannot have equal say. The voiceless must be defended, but where does that defense end? Who decides if the mother can take her depression medication or have that glass of wine or partake in that activity that is slightly risky but probably fine? Is she impinging on the rights of her child if she makes a decision that is best for her in the long term but also suboptimal for the child?It sounds like an interesting group, and an interesting film. Have any of you seen it?
So how does one proceed? Recriminalization? Addressing the economic roots for some abortions? Easy access to birth control, male and female sterilization? FFL at least addresses the unique biological intertwining of two beings. But that makes it so much complex to sort out ethically as the review states. Also, the decisions involve others. If a women decides to keep a Downs child, and there are siblings, those siblings may eventually be responsible for the care of that person, including extra mefical needs, I believe. The choice is being made for the siblings, as well. Do they have a say? Also, with our country presently in Pottersville mode, don't count on help from the state.
ReplyDeleteI don't think recriminalization is the answer, or even that it is possible in the long term. I am thinking of Prohibition. Some very passionate people got it passed, but it didn't last long. There wasn't a consensus. There isn't in this situation either. I'm not saying the situations are equivalent. but there are parellels.
DeleteI have said before that I am a seamless garment pro-lifer. So yes, address the economic roots. And the violence roots. And the roots of people being alone, swaying in the wind. I was struck by this quote from the review, “...it’s hard to give that compassionate care to someone growing inside you when they feel they haven’t received that for themselves.”
It seems that at FFL boils down to an appeal to conscience, in a non-sectarian way. Even atheists have a conscience. We have to accept that people, including women, have freedom of agency, even freedom to do bad things. I think FFL is attempting to give them reasons not to do them.
About the Down's Syndrome children, I believe that in adulthood they would be eligible for SSI and Medicaid, the same as other handicapped people, so that the siblings wouldn't be responsible for their total care. Of course any vulnerable person needs family members to act as advocates, and to look after their welfare.
Delete"I was struck by this quote from the review, “...it’s hard to give that compassionate care to someone growing inside you when they feel they haven’t received that for themselves.”"
DeleteI'm sure that's true about caregiving after the baby is born, too.
Sorry, what is FFL? Feminists for Life?
DeleteYeah, Jim. I'm too lazy to spell it out. FTL is faster than light.
DeleteYes, I meant Feminists for Life. I was being lazy and didn't spell it out.
DeleteThe problem here is that the opposing sides, while denying it, are each privileging one form of life. The pro-choicers privilege the live mother whom we can see and identify with. The pro-lifers privilege the unborn. Whom they call innocent. (If a tumor attacks a woman's body we don't call that innocent and we fight it. It's a good idea to insist on innocence, but is the embryo really innocent if it becomes a real and present danger to the mother's life?)
ReplyDeleteOnce a person decides for one side -- living mother -- or the other -- living unborn -- the argument proceeds by examples. But, as Mona Charon neatly noted recently, the plural of anecdote is not data.
I don't know how you can logically decide which tine of the fork to grab. It's easier to see the problem (and, in my mind, to solve it) if you note the parallels to the international refugee crisis. Some choose the people who are already here (whether "here" is Italy or Laredo) and others (currently Spain in the case of Aquarius) point out that refugees are also human beings with the same human rights as the people in Italy or Laredo. "It is our duty to help avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and offer a safe port to these people, to comply with our human rights obligations," said the Spanish foreign minister. Try telling that to the new Italian government (produced with foreign aid from Russian netfiddlers). Or try telling it to the Trump administration.
I bring up refugees as one example of how two human lives can be innocently in conflict. But the world is full of such cases. A person can take a side and prove its correctness by anecdote, but such proof ain't necessarily so.
One of my takeaways from Sandford's review - this is my reading between the lines, not something that Sandford actually states - is that, to really engage in a serious discussion of feminist issues, it's pretty much required to have formally studies women's issues. Read books on feminist theories and issues, or take Women's Studies courses, or both. As I suppose that many women, and probably nearly all men, haven't put in that work, the result is that what passes for discourse on feminist issues in the US is on this unequal footing, where adherents of various feminist issues have this common background to provide a basis for conversation, but the rest of us (arguably the majority of the electorate) don't, so we're all sort of sidelined from the discussion.
ReplyDeleteI re-read the article, and I don't really see this, and I'm curious about why you think that there is some highly academic "common background" that "the majority of the electorate" doesn't have.
DeleteIt's common for many people to wave away "feminism" as some kind of Ivory Tower issue that "regular women" aren't really concerned with.
While I do know a few women in the academy who take very doctrinaire positions about women's issues, I can say the same for Fundamentalist housewives of my acquaintance. Both insufferable, just not sayin' the same things ...
Jean - I don't know if it is "highly academic", but as Sandford describes it, it seems that these pro-life feminists are pitching their arguments in a way that is designed to strike a chord with other well-read feminists. Here is Sandford:
Delete"Putting aside questions of its effect on the soul (though at least two of the women are religious, they believe the arguments against abortion are accessible to secular audiences), they argue that abortion is bad for women in three specific ways, echoing arguments of some of feminism’s biggest names."
And then Sandford goes on to note echoes with two names whom I'm assuming are big in feminism (Adrienne Rich, Andrea Dworkin).
If that is these women's strategy, I think it's probably a good one - probably considerably more effective than someone like me, who is not immersed in the literature, mansplaining about how a baby in the womb is a human being who happens to be at a very early stage of development. (I don't think that's a bad argument, either, but it comes from a different tradition of thought, and one that at least some feminists have not been immersed in.)
I don't know to what extent FFL is employing a "strategy," a word that seems to imply that their primary reason for being is to stop abortion.
DeleteFFL, ISTM, is a group of women looking to share their experiences and open a productive dialogue with other feminists. Their "strategy" seems to be to expand current notions of feminism by discussing their experiences and reminding fellow feminists that the women's movement has always included thinkers who concluded that abortion was not in women's interests.
They want to know why their opposition to abortion is considered beyond the pale by other feminists.
This is not a theological discussion, but a humanitarian and philosophical one grounded in a discussion about promoting women's well-being. FFL is not a bunch of real smart pro-life gals out to beat the godless baby-killing feminists at their own game.
Now I am guilty of Jeansplaining, a term my brother coined and that the men in my family have latched onto with great enthusiasm. The swine. :-)
Here's the little snippet that gave me chills:
ReplyDelete"[Christina Marie Bennett's] mother was in a gown at the hospital waiting for an abortion when a janitor encouraged her to keep the baby. She did, despite the doctor telling her she needed to go through with the abortion."
God bless that janitor. The power of speaking up!
As everyone here I knows, I don't draw lines in the sand about abortion.
ReplyDeleteGenerally I think it's morally wrong, but I also see some infrequent situations in which I, personally, believe abortion is morally neutral.
For example, men and women with my type of cancer must be on an oral chemo that leads to severe birth defects. Or they can take the new (and incredibly expensive) chemo that does not cross placental lines, but does cause hideous side effects and psychotic episodes. If they can afford it. And if they can find a doc willing to prescribe it.
These types of situations are not analogous to having a glass of red wine for fun occasionally. These are meds that people need every day for the rest of their lives.
It is news to me (and likely many women in the Armed Forces) that feminists must be non-violent. Abortion in the first few weeks of pregnancy is rarely dangerous. And helping men live up to their responsibilities must start far earlier than the age at which they can get somebody pregnant.
All that said, I think it is a huge mistake for pro-life women to be marginalized, shamed, or otherwise viewed with hostility by the feminist movement.
If women can't accept differences of opinion on any number of issues, then we really are the emotional and thin-skinned weaker sex that some men think we are.
I realize my views are not Catholic on this issue, and that's one reason I got out of the communion line.
I worked on a military facility. A priest would come in and say mass on holydays. One of my colleagues, an Episcopalian, attended mass and got into the communion line. As he reached out for the host, I whispered to my supervisor, "Shame I left my ah-ooh-gah horn at home."
DeleteJean, I'm guessing there's quite a few people still in the Communion line who hold views similar to yours.
Delete"Generally I think it's morally wrong, but I also see some infrequent situations in which I, personally, believe abortion is morally neutral."
DeleteHow I wish that this point of view could be the basis for some sort of political consensus.
There will never be any national consensus on this issue because there are too many people on both ends of the spectrum acting like 6 year olds with their hands over their ears yelling, La la la I can't hear you.
DeleteI think that the "consensus" is working itself out, painfully and acrimoniously, in the many state laws that restrict abortion and get tested in the courts. What is evolving is a patchwork of ever-changing abortion restrictions that varies by state and that satisfies no one.
At the moment, the brain-dead Democrats are enjoying the benefits of having women influenced by women's studies (whether they studied them or not) jumping into politics to oppose the groper-in-chief and all his pomps. Whether you can restore brain activity to a political party with (whatever else it is) what is ultimately a personal decision remains to be seen. I doubt it. But because abortion (whatever else it is) is a personal issue,it should never have been allowed (by both sides) to become a partisan platform plank.
ReplyDeleteThis snip from the C'weal review is worth pondering:
ReplyDelete" ... 'choice' is often offered with a nudge and the hint that a woman gets what’s coming to her if she doesn’t make the choice to end a pregnancy."
In what ways do we punish women who give birth to imperfect, inconvenient, or unwanted babies?
The answers are endless.
However, I don't think all abortions can be reduced to coercive acts by a misogynistic and racist society, which the pro-life feminist argument suggests.
"However, I don't think all abortions can be reduced to coercive acts by a misogynistic and racist society, which the pro-life feminist argument suggests."
DeleteIn general, I also am skeptical of "it's all our faults" arguments.
I do think there can be practical nudging, winking and coercion from the mom's personal support system: the boyfriend or husband, her own mom, her doctor, and so on.
Yes, of course. Also parents. Times are changing, but we are still far from the time when parents throw a party when 15-year-old Suzie comes home with the happy news that she and Kyle are expecting a baby.
DeleteThis article is still available online:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gallup.com/poll/117154/Catholics-Similar-Mainstream-Abortion-Stem-Cells.aspx
As is this:
Deletehttps://www.ncronline.org/books/2017/08/catholic-dissonance-abortion
Just posted:
Deletehttps://international.la-croix.com/news/could-the-church-take-a-risk/7810
Could the church take a risk? Thinking about abortion after Ireland