Abortion and Magical Thinking

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/article/174665/abortion-and-magical-thinking


A cross stands in front of the White House as pro-life demonstrators gather on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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It takes a special kind of willful ignorance to oppose legal abortion these days. In fact,
being disconnected from reality has become the most definitive characteristic of the anti-choice movement. Pregnancy from rape? The body can “shut that whole thing down.” Birth control? Just another kind of abortifacient. Then there are the made-up “post-abortion syndromes” and unsubstantiated links between abortion and breast cancer. But no kind of anti-choice rhetoric is more dangerous than the fantasy that making abortion illegal will not hurt women.

Like many other feminists, I spent a lot of time this past month sending out messages and petitions about Beatriz, a young mother in El Salvador who was fighting for a life-saving abortion. The 22-year-old has lupus, and the longer she remained pregnant, the greater became her chances of dying. (Making the decision even more clear-cut: her fetus had a severe birth defect that makes survival near-impossible.) Pro-choice groups across the globe condemned the rulings of the Salvadoran courts; more than 4,000 people have signed a petition asking Pope Francis to speak out on Beatriz’s behalf. After El Salvador’s Supreme Court ruled that her death wasn’t imminent enough to warrant an abortion, Beatriz was finally granted a 
C-section—a riskier “solution” that meant delivering her doomed fetus.

In the period when Beatriz’s fate was still undecided, I wrote on Twitter: “This is what pro-life looks like.” A woman tweeted back: “In El Salvador that may b the case but this is America & if truly life or death not all pro lifers would agree!” What struck me in particular was this woman’s certainty that what she “agreed” with had anything to do with the way laws are enforced. It’s magical thinking at its worst—but par for the course when it comes to legislating women’s bodies.



Read more: http://www.thenation.com/article/174665/abortion-and-magical-thinking#ixzz2Vif7JWh3

[awoke_in_2003]

1. "disconnected from reality"...

Isn't that a prerequisite for being religious?

[BrotherIvan]

2. We have let the anti-abortionists get the upper hand of the argument

They have convinced so many that abortion is killing a baby, with their photos of fake, bloody, full-grown babies, instead of showing what a a clump of cells actually is. Even pro-choice women feel huge guilt because in their minds, this is the image that comes up, leading many to regret their abortions as though they somehow murdered an actual baby. If there was more scientifically correct information out there to push back against the nonstop untruths the anti-choicers are making, perhaps people wouldn't be so on the fence about the issue. Because of a lack of real reproductive education, many people don't know that miscarriage and spontaneous abortion are quite common and far far outweigh the comparatively minimal number of medical abortions. And now they are being led to believe that abortion has so many false after-effects including making a woman sterile (the idea that you better have the baby now or you won't ever have the chance). I know it's so hard to fight back against the unhinged zealots, but I wish there was a way. I have seen many a wavering person change their mind after speaking with a woman who they consider "normal" or even a mother who tells her story of having an abortion and her reasoning behind it. Or women who have wanted to have the child but for medical reasons chose to abort. Once the truth is told, it is very simple to accept that abortion should be considered a purely medical procedure, without any morality tied to it whatsoever.

Just something I've been thinking about. I'm sure there are many people on here who are much more knowledgable on the issue.

[RainDog]

3. k&r n/t