Anti-choice ad: Don't abort the president!
This ad from CatholicVote (a project of the Fidelis Center) is the tackiest, most offensive thing I've seen in a while. And I come across a lot of tacky shit.
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oh my goodness, will these people ever stop?
I'm pregnant right now with #2, and I'm so happy and excited. one thing I've noticed about being pregnant for me is that while my base-line feeing is always pro-choice, I feel so much more intensely pro-choice when I am pregnant.
what about every babie's right to being wanted and being in a loving home? as far as I can tell, Obama was a surpirse, but not unwanted and very much loved. and for the love of God, will those people stop beating up on single moms?
I definitely became way more passionately pro-choice when I was pregnant. Partly because I had a miserable pregnancy that I would never wish on anyone who wasn't getting a blessing out of it, but partly because I loved that little bundle of cells so intensely and wanted him so much that it was heartbreaking to think of people going through it who didn't feel the same.
This ad is offensive on a lot of levels, but I'd like to petition to remove the words "broken home" from usage. Seriously. My biological parents divorced when I was two, but I'm pretty sure my home was a lot more broken before the divorce than after. I highly doubt that, surrounded by a loving family who supported him, our president ever felt his home was broken.
"...I loved that little bundle of cells so intensely and wanted him so much that it was heartbreaking to think of people going through it who didn't feel the same."
Thus this person's worth was determined by how much you loved him. This is not logically valid.
I think the only logical argument for abortion is that all people have the right to do what they wish with their own bodies.
I think all people also have a right to life, but that does not mean you can demand another person's body to sustain your own life. Thus, women can abort a child in their own body.
All this other stuff about how "wanted" or "loved" the child is implies that a person's value or right to live is dependent on what value another person places on their existence.
I see what you're saying, and I agree--bodily autonomy is the reason why I'm pro-choice as well--but how an individual feels about that bundle of cells inside of them does influence their choice. So I think it's a valid part of the issue.
Except he wasn't a person yet. He's a person now and the way I feel about him has no bearing on his right to be a person. But back then, he was a bundle of cells using my nutrients and sapping my energy. We're saying the same thing. No one should have to have a parasite if they don't want the parasite. I loved my parasite, and thus I wanted to keep it. But being pregnant, and feeling how closely connected my body was to the fetus made me much more passionate about defending the right of other women to make other decisions.
I was always pro choice, but having had a child I am even more so. Being pregnant made me understand in a way I never had before, that this blob of cells and was completely a PART of me, or a parasite IN me, and was not its own person until it was independent of me.
I just don't see what's so hard about that, or why all mothers aren't prochoice.
"what about every babie's [sic] right to being wanted and being in a loving home?"
This makes no logical sense. A person has a right to something, but if it can't be provided that person is killed so as not to deny them their rights?
The fundamental flaw in your logic is that a fetus is not a person. A person is not being killed, they're simply not being brought into existence.
The fundamental flaw in your argument is you believe in lies. So I suppose you'd say that all those mothers who've given birth 3 months early and their child survives... oh I mean "fetus", didn't have an actual baby until... um when?
Don't avoid giving "fetuses" humanity just because you need to justify abortions. You ARE killing a human, like it or not.
And the fundamental flaw in your argument is....
you're confusing definitions.
When it's inside the womb, it's a fetus. When it's outside the womb, it's a baby. A fetus doesn't have some objective cut-off point on when it's considered a child while inside the womb, but it's considered a child outside the womb. Doesn't matter if people have premature babies.
They didn't have an actual baby until it had developed enough to survive independently of its mother's body. Now, it's true--modern technology is blurring the line. I might even be willing to say that a fetus capable of surviving via machines could be termed a person, although I'd have to give more thought to the question and do more research. However, even a person does not have the right to live as a parasite in another person's body.
Tell that to those who've had a miscarriage. "Well, you can't be TOO upset, I mean it wasn't a person yet. It just never came into existence."
Yeah, I've had two. And they were shattering and horrible and unfair. But you know what? They were unfair for me because I'm a grown woman who was ready to start a family and couldn't. The cells that were flushed down a toilet don't miss the lives they might have had. They aren't missing out on anything. They weren't people yet. I can, and did, grieve for not getting the child I wanted so badly. I had every right to mourn, and I did mourn for the people they might have been. But that doesn't mean those cells were people. They were just cells that didn't work out.
I'm sorry for your loss, and I'm sorry I brought up the topic in such a callous way.
What exactly does an outside person's feelings have to do with the fetus?
Like Avogadro said, grief over a miscarriage has little to do with the fetus itself. The fetus doesn't know that it's dead, it never knew anything in the first place. The mother's grief has to do with how she felt about it and what she wanted for it.
ironic because if they had their way, he wouldn't be president.
I've been seeing a ton of antiabortion ads lately and the most annoying line so far: "now we can see that your baby looks a lot like you just weeks after conception" ugh.
Somehow I don't think that's Obama's sonogram.
Ha ha--exactly. And if it WERE, there would be legal ramifications, I'm sure--worse than them just lying to us about it.
I wonder if the Obama camp has any legal recourse, or if it would be a big political storm they'll avoid.
Really not into the whole "broken home" language.
I wonder how they would respond to an ad saying that someone like Charles Manson was almost aborted, but his parents were persuaded to go through with the pregnancy? I'm sure there is some mass murderer out there whose mother considered abortion.
But, that would be just as tacky and horrible as this ad. May every fetus they save be gay/feminist/atheist/all of the above!
So I commented my argument on youtube, and I got called an idiot (gee, people know how to argue!) and also got accused of thinking that in order to stop bad people from living, we should abort everyone. I told the person how they proved my point, because "don't abort any fetus because they might be good" was along the lines of "abort every fetus because they might be bad!"
They may be the opposite, but are the exact same type of argument. At least that's how I see it. I wonder if anyone will convince me otherwise...
yep, i thought of the same thing. for every fetus who might become barrack obama, there's another who could become george bush, or hitler! so just leave it up to the mother to decide whether and how she can raise a child!
You know this tired old argument, "you could abort the next Mozart!"? Wouldn't it be great to join some abortion clinic protesters and stand beside one holding a placard like that, and hold up your own placard that said, "YOU COULD ABORT THE NEXT CLINIC BOMBER!" (of course, in reality that would be a bad idea since it'd just create more havok for the patients and staff, but it's a fun fantasy)
Manson's mother once traded him for a pitcher of beer. But you know, getting an abortion would have been cruel...
This is from World Net Daily, so I can't vouch for it, but the story goes that Saddam Hussein's mother considered abortion and was talked out of it:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31342
That is so tasteless. Like in all ads about abortion, I think the fetus is just another example of a disembodied part of a woman used for advertising. It totally ignores the fact that, at the end of the day, the fetus is INSIDE OF A WOMAN.
The violin music makes me want to puke, too, as the intensity of the music is giving way to the "shocking" conclusion of the ad. I hate the way conservatives use art, in a weird, sad effort to make their hateful shit somehow "classy" or "edgy."
Yeah! It's so sickening how conservatives take advantage of art, especially because no artist is ever right-leaning. Only unbigoted, broad-minded liberals have the capacity to produce creative, novel ideas, or beautiful pieces of music or art.
Um, I don't like when art is ever misused to push a political agenda. For the record, I don't think a creative work can have both a distinct political agenda and artistic purity, but what do I know. I stand by my comments and believe the most common ways that social conservatives misuse art is in an effort to make their message edgy or progressive, when really it's oppressive and traditional.
Art, according to the definition I have arrived at, is meant to communicate common human truths, so, no, actually, if you're truly bigoted I don't think you have the capacity to make real art. Maybe some nice decoration or really interesting propaganda, but art? Nope. Art isn't everything creative, or everything we think is beautiful just because we want it to be. I don't care if I'm coming across as elitist, that's what I believe.
OK, fair enough, that's how you define art. But I might point out that's it's rather limiting to say categorically that a bigoted person cannot communicate common human truths. Hatred and/or dismissal of women as well as all sorts of minority/"other" groups has been, throughout history and up until fairly recently historically speaking, normalised and condoned in the mainstream. Therefore, it's pretty safe to assume that the majority of artists in history held one prejudice or another, and just because we cannot unambiguously show that a person was free of all and any prejudice does not mean we cannot value their contributions to, yes, an understanding of human truths. Well, maybe you can, but I'm unwilling to just rule out point-blank so much beautiful, thoughtful, creative work. This is way too OT to continue much further, but... Just some food for thought.
"Um, I don't like when art is ever misused to push a political agenda."
Then what kind of art do you like? Isn't it oppressive to say you can't make a political statement is art? I am an artist and much of my work is very political. I certainly wouldn't consider it a "misuse" of art.
What about feminist art? What about the Guerrilla Girls? Should art only be political when you agree with it?
I can assure you that I think this ad was both repulsive and offensive, and I don't necessarily consider this specific piece "art," but to say that art cannot push a political agenda is completely wrong. Throughout history, there have been many artists with both progressive and conservative views. Either way, it doesn't mean their art is any less valid, and I don't think you should give a definitive statement about what art is.
Guerilla Girls?
My love looks like an ape!
"Um, I don't like when art is ever misused to push a political agenda."
Then what kind of art do you like? Isn't it oppressive to say you can't make a political statement in art? I am an artist and much of my work is very political. I certainly wouldn't consider it a "misuse" of art.
What about feminist art? What about the Guerrilla Girls? Should art only be political when you agree with it?
I can assure you that I think this ad was both repulsive and offensive, and I don't necessarily consider this specific piece "art," but to say that art cannot push a political agenda is completely wrong. Throughout history, there have been many artists with both progressive and conservative views. Either way, it doesn't mean their art is any less valid, and I don't think you should give a definitive statement about what art is.
Pretty sure there was no "art" in that clip. You think with all the money of the Roman Catholic Church, they could pay a media company enough to ignore the problems with a message to at least craft something more visually pleasing.
To Jennifer and Raspberrying, the art she was referring to was the piece of classical music, not the ad itself.
In reference to the music, that statement makes so much more sense (though I still believe that art in and of itself CAN be political, if that is the intention).
I'm unfamiliar with the piece of music so I don't know if it was created specifically for the video, but it's indeed sad that by pairing it with this video, it becomes synonymous with the awful message they are trying to convey.
The fact that this piece is intentionally stirring is highly manipulative.
Advertisers often appropriate music to fit their message - its something we see constantly in the media (sadly, many artists are willing to part with their morals in order to make some money).
I find this disturbing because Obama is pro-choice, not Catholic, and I was never aware that Obama's mother ever seriously considered aborting him.
They are trying to align themselves with a popular president and hoping to fool idiots into believing that HE agrees with THEM. Next thing you know, they'll be using Helen Gurley Brown in ads for abstinence.
I THINK THIS AD IS TACKY AND REPULSIVE. HOW DARE THEY USE OUR PRESIDENT (WHO BELIEVES IN THE WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE) AS A POSTER CHILD FOR THEIR OWN AGENDA? AND HOW DARE THEY USE HIS BROKEN CHILDHOOD AS A PLOY TO SWAY VOTERS? SHAME ON THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. PERHAPS THEIR ENERGY WOULD BE BETTER SPENT COMBATING THE MOLESTATION OF CHILDREN WITHIN THEIR OWN COMMUNITY BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO CHANGE OUR VIEWS. IF THEY WANT TO HAVE A SAY IN THE GOVERNMENT AND IF THEY WANT TO PLAY A ROLE IN POLITICS THEN THEY SHOULD BE TAXED BECAUSE PAYING TAXES IS WHAT GIVES ME THE RIGHT TO STAND HERE AND DISH OUT MY OPINION.
STAY OUT OF POLITICS OR PAY UP, ITS AS SIMPLE AS THAT!!!
I did not like this comment ('s use of ALL CAPS. Please stop yelling).
Them: "How would YOU like to be aborted?"
Me: "What? Now? Good luck with that shit!"
I've always hated that line of reasoning "What if your mother had aborted you?"
I haven't had the chance to yet, but next time I hear it in real life I'm going to explain to the person that I wouldn't have been born if my mother hadn't had an abortion.
She was 18 and if she had had the baby, she has said she would have kept it instead of putting it up for adoption. Since I don't believe in 'fate' or anything like that, if she had had that baby, then she would not have met my father a few years later (I do not think she would have been in a bar with the same friends on the same night in order to meet my dad). Thus, my sister and I would have never been born.
The answer to that question is simple. "I wouldn't feel anything--because I simply wouldn't exist. It would make no difference to me, really." And if they're going to jump onto their Predestination soapbox, I usually take that opportunity to use their arguments against them. If everything is known and determined beforehand, the fetuses aborted HAD no destiny in store, since G-d knew the women would terminate those pregnancies.
My mother's abortion (at 18 years of age) also allowed for my own birth, miki. In fact, given the outrageous and abusive behavior of her first husband, it allowed her to save her own life by divorcing him.
For years a good friend of mine felt guilty that his birth had ruined his mother’s life at 18. Because he was born in 1970, he felt that his mom didn’t have a choice. As it turns out, she was in New York State, which had legal abortion at the time. This means that she choose to have him, despite her option to end the pregnancy. He feels so much better to know that his mother had a choice.
If anyone says “what if your mother had aborted you?” to me, I’d tell them that story. I would want to know that my mother wanted me.
I hate it too. It makes me wonder if they are under the delusion that no pregnancy is planned. I always respond to that as "Seeing as I was a planned child, abortion wasn't ever a possibility."
see, she wanted me (and she never regret having me), but thanks to me her life became much more tough (i am very annoying child, health ad behaviour wise) and now she always feel burdened (directly because of my dad,indirectly because of me).
in short, if she choosed to aborted me, i will be so happy that i would pee my pants.
*cheers*
Whoa, easy on the caps, Jennifer.
This is pretty self-evident, but the "consider the AMAZING potential" take on "life" is not only silly because the coin flips both ways, but because it contradicts another major cause of the Catholic and evangelical churches, abstinence. If you're going to argue that abortion is bad because the foetus might turn out to be an important person, you can't retain credibility for your logic without concluding that we should just have pro-creative sex 24/7, because, well - Imagine the Potential! All those amazing people you could be creating right now!
OK OK, I guess you could tell yourself you were still credible by doing the whole "potential potential vs. REAL potential" thing - embryos are already alive, blah blah, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
sperm and eggs are alive, too ;)
So I guess the genocide of African Americans is ok as long as it is in the womb? The abortion of African American babies is disproportionate to other races. And it seems by your logic it is more "compassionate" to kill the baby then to let him or her live.
Very strange logic indeed and a logic that can be applied to people outside the womb as well. Since the only real difference that changes is the location of the person, there is no qualitative change on a metaphysical or epistemological level.
You're really conflating a whole lot of issues here. Did you stop to think that maybe our socioeconomic structure in this country disproportionately negatively affects African-American women? The right for a mother who might be in a difficult situation to be able to choose whether or not to have a child seems much more credibly compassionate than to force a mother who may not be fully equipped with the support system she needs to have a child whose life will be affected by those circumstances.
You might want to reconsider all of the circumstances involved in bringing a life into the world and how that effects the lives of those already here.
If you're truly concerned about the rate of abortion in the African American community, I suggest you donate money to Planned Parenthood which helps teach and provide means of contraception particularly to those in poorer socioeconomic states. I took a quick look at your blog and didn't find any indication that you would be supportive of such measures, so your "concern" seems questionable.
I am truly concerned about this and my wife and I started looking into adopting or helping others with the financial costs of adopting. I am focusing on that as a way to make an impact. I think adoption laws and costs need to be streamlined to make it quicker and less expensive to adopt. Thank you for checking out my blog, while not my intention of posting here. You are welcome to leave comments there if you like.
Gosh, let me tell you, I will never get sick of hearing men telling women what they should do with their bodies, ever.
I am truly concerned about this and my wife and I started looking into adopting or helping others with the financial costs of adopting. I am focusing on that as a way to make an impact. I think adoption laws and costs need to be streamlined to make it quicker and less expensive to adopt. Thank you for checking out my blog, while not my intention of posting here. You are welcome to leave comments there if you like.
That's a gross simplification. 37% of abortions are had by African American women, while 34% are sought by non Latina whites (Guttmacher).
Are you factoring in the percent of population in the total number of abortions. I think if you do that, then African American babies are something like 5 times more likely to aborted that white babies.
If you look at the relative birth rate, though, it's about the same for black women and white women - a little higher for black women, in fact, IIRC. So it doesn't seem as though the issue is that black women are prevented from having wanted children; rather, it seems more likely that black women are prevented from accessing effective contraception at the same rate, and thus have more unplanned pregnancies than white women.
And if and where it is the case that black women are having fewer children than they would otherwise like to, it's not as though the availability of abortion is the reason why that is. If a woman is aborting a wanted pregnancy, it's most likely because she feels she cannot afford or devote care to a(nother) child. The solution is to provide better support to women with children, not to decide that we know better than they do whether right now is a good time to have a kid.
Take it up with the Court of Epistemology. I hear it's located in Antarctica, several kilometers under the ice.
Um, BlueCollarPhilosopher, whose logic are you talking about? Mine? Because if so, I'm not sure where you find the idea that abortion is compassionate, which you say is my "logic". I was talking not about pro-life ideas as a whole, but about the specific line of argument about "potential life". If you rail about how every foetus/embryo has "potential" and ipso facto value, then you cannot rightly draw the line at only conception. If you are intent on drawing this line, then don't use "potential" as your argument.
If it was someone else you were responding to, please explain how you extracted genocide of-African-Americans-by-African-Americans (yeah, power to the people!) from their argument. I think you might have to rely on something a little stronger than "they have lots of abortions" to call genocide.
By the way, I am mightily impressed that you know how to discern qualitative changes on a metaphysical and epistemological level - no wonder you're a philosopher! But pray, do enlighten us knuckle-dragging pro-choicers on your method?
...qualitative changes *in a foetus*...
Um, BlueCollarPhilosopher, whose logic are you talking about? Mine? Because if so, I'm not sure where you find the idea that abortion is compassionate, which you say is my "logic".
Maybe I miss replied to a comment. But is seems the view is the being "wanted" is foundational to one, and this can the unborn, having value. So if one is not wanted, then one does not have value. And so it is more compassionate to kill the unwanted so they do not suffer through life.
I was talking not about pro-life ideas as a whole, but about the specific line of argument about "potential life". If you rail about how every foetus/embryo has "potential" and ipso facto value, then you cannot rightly draw the line at only conception. If you are intent on drawing this line, then don't use "potential" as your argument.
Fair enough. I don't agree with the pre-conception view if that is what you are alluding to. After conception it is a different story, what is potential is really actual, only not realized. Like when you are asleep, you are not fully conscious, but have the potential to be so. Same with the unborn, all the potential for adulthood, self awareness are there just not realized. If someone kills a person in their sleep we don't say that they were really not a person at the time.
By the way, I am mightily impressed that you know how to discern qualitative changes on a metaphysical and epistemological level - no wonder you're a philosopher! But pray, do enlighten us knuckle-dragging pro-choicers on your method?
I'm highly gratified and humbled at your compliment :-) Not sure what you mean by my method though.
You have no idea what she meant, do you?
The "location" you refer to is A WOMAN'S BODY. I'd say there's a very big difference between a born person and a fetus who's dependent on a specific individual's body for life support.
The logic can't be applied to born people.
It sickens me that conservatives, who otherwise don't give a shit about the plight of POCs, are so willing to co-opt the language of the civil-rights movement in order to advance their anti-woman agenda.
The "location" you refer to is A WOMAN'S BODY. I'd say there's a very big difference between a born person and a fetus who's dependent on a specific individual's body for life support.
The logic can't be applied to born people.
It sickens me that conservatives, who otherwise don't give a shit about the plight of POCs, are so willing to co-opt the language of the civil-rights movement in order to advance their anti-woman agenda.
The "location" you refer to is A WOMAN'S BODY. I'd say there's a very big difference between a born person and a fetus who's dependent on a specific individual's body for life support.
The logic can't be applied to born people.
It sickens me that conservatives, who otherwise don't give a shit about the plight of POCs, are so willing to co-opt the language of the civil-rights movement in order to advance their anti-woman agenda.
Thing is the newborn baby is still dependent on the mother as the location has changed. And still need life support to survive. So you need a more substantive distinction otherwise the same logic can be applied to justify infanticide as abortion. Even Peter Singer, a Princeton professor, thinks you can apply the abortion logic to infanticide. I am not anti-woman, the farthest thing from it, just ask my wife.
Bluecollarphilosopher:
The "location" you refer to is A WOMAN'S BODY. I'd say there's a very big difference between a born person and a fetus who's dependent on a specific individual's body for life support.
The logic can't be applied to born people.
It sickens me that conservatives, who otherwise don't give a shit about the plight of POCs, are so willing to co-opt the language of the civil-rights movement in order to advance their anti-woman agenda.
this is up there with the email/spam thingee several years back about voting for hilter (the "vegetarian"/artist) or FDR (the alcoholic/womanizer). completely missing the point while trying to stir up some semblance of emotion.
This child's future is a broken home.
He will be abandoned by his father.
His single mother will sell him to a waitress for a pitcher of beer.
This child...
Will become...
Charles Manson.
Life!
Hey, "never say never to always"... :p
I'm not sure if it's fair to lump this into the anti-choice pile, even though it stems from the anti-choice movement. If abortion was an unassailable individual right, obtainable free and close to home for every woman, then an advert like this would be perfectly pedestrian for; it would be perceived as urging women to give the possibility of raising a child alone a good deal of thought.
In the context of the wider anti-choice movement it has more sinister undertones reminiscent of other devious and irrational arguments given in the name of controlling reproductive rights, but if all their advertising was this oblique I would be grateful.
If they would also get their tentacles out of politics, I would be ecstatic, but I think it's fair to say that the battle has to be fought on every front.
I find this commercial over-dramatic, & heavy-handed in the use of the violins. I dislike the term, 'broken home'. But I fail to see what is "tacky" about it.
How does Obama being pro-choice exempt him from being an example of someone whose life looked potentially crappy from certain angles?
I am offended by people who cry and pull out their hair about the teen pregnancy rate *just because* being a teen mom gives you a statistically worse chance of having certain good outcomes. They perpetuate the idea that teen pregnancy itself is the tragedy, when really,the lives of the family members could be tragic or not, depending on a lot of factors including the attitudes of the people involved ande what the community around them is doing to help.
Anyway, I am with Nik in that this ad attempts to argue that bad circumstances don't have to determine future success. I think that to trash it JUST because it is an anti-abortion group putting it out is reactionary.
No, the ad says that because shitty circumstances doesn't always result in shitty outcomes, women should have babies even when they know they're not ready and can't give their children the best life possible. Please don't give those assholes the benefit of the doubt. This message is coming from a group of people who don't believe women are allowed (or have the ability) to make their own family planning decisions. It's not coming from the Feel-Good Happy Time Optimists Association.
I am fairly sure the ad does not say all that stuff about women having babies when they shouldn't/ don't want to. It's seems like an encouragement to those who feel their circumstances are overwhelmingly bad. Why does a person in a bad situation have to be protected from the idea that it might turn out a lot better than she imagines?
You are assigning it dastardly significance because it comes from a pro-life group. You and many others are also stereotyping all pro-lifers as nasty controlling people with unthoughtful ideas who only care about fetuses and not women.
Perhaps you haven't met any pro-lifers who didn't fit this stereotype. But, I have. Many. And it really annoys me that an ad this innocuous should be reviled as 'just another example of how people want to control women's bodies.'
Can't a person who wants to help scared pregnant women ever be just that?
So you're saying a pro-life group can't possibly believe that women shouldn't have the legal right to plan their families? That's the whole point of their existence. There are thousands of people in D.C. right now protesting LEGAL ABORTION. I don't need to apply anything "dastardly" to those people. They do that wonderfully on their own.
To answer your question, the best way to help scared pregnant women (or any scared individual, for that matter) is to give them options and the freedom to do what they think is best for them and whoever else they choose to involve. Helping a person means meeting the person where they're at and encouraging them to think more about themselves and their needs. It's not about fulfilling your own needs to control people, because what you think is best and what the person you're helping thinks is best can be two very different things (I'm using "you" generally here). That's the main difference between pro-choicers and pro-lifers.
I am sure there are plenty of pro-lifers who don't think much about their views, and who wouldn't actually lift a finger to help a pregnant woman in need. But, this is not a characteristic of pro-lifers, in my opinion. It's a characteristic of people in general: most people are too lazy and frightened to do the work of thinking carefully about important things and considering them from many sides. I have met plenty of people with so-called pro-life views who would abort in a hot second if they were pregnant. To me, this is a pro-choice person with unexamined views.
I guess I am saying this because you immediately responded by saying that pro-life people just want to stop people from planning their families. Which might be true of some, but mostly the ones I know want to deprive women of the legal right to kill children who happen to be unborn. That's how they see it. And,if that overlaps with control issues for some, and also gets mixed up with an aversion to birth control for others.... it's still not true that it's the only motivation they have.
My post was meant to challenge that stereotype, that all pro-lifers want to hurt women and don't give a crap. I have more experience disproving this than proving it. Maybe I am just lucky. Or maybe I run in more diverse circles than others. Lately, I am starting to think that is more the issue, because it is very easy for any of us to divide the world into "right thinking liberals like us..." and, "those other mouth breathers who hate people."
Erm, sorry; the end of that post should read,
"...because it is very easy for any of us to divide the world into "right thinking liberals like us..." and, "those other mouth breathers who hate people", when we don't have any meaningful interchanges with people of diverse viewpoints.
While I agree with your general argument, I don't think it applies to this specific ad. There are many well-meaning pro-life outreach programs for pregnant women who need help and support. I think that's wonderful. While I believe that abortion should be available on-demand, I fully acknowledge the fact that many women do not feel comfortable getting abortions. For those women, outreach programs giving them hope and help are great.
*But* programs reaching out to women should focus *on those women.* This ad did not even mention a woman, much less any concrete help it would offer her. Instead is focused solely on a disembodied fetus. The implication is that the fetus is the only important thing in this situation. The mother, her economic conditions, her emotional state- none of these things are important. I think that's a huge ideological difference from other ads I've seen.
If that's not clear, let me give you an example: http://www.gabrielproject.com/images/signhotline.jpg
(Caveat: I don't know anything about the organization, I just googled the image). The difference lies in the promise of real help for pregnant women, versus the simply assertion that a baby might grow up well without even so much as a reference to the mother.
To address your first point, I see what you are saying, but I still question the idea that anyone who targets a woman who is afraid and considering abortion and presents her with a hopeful message, is somehow doing wrong. Ok, I don't think this ad itself is very useful in terms of the political debate, but I can see very well why a woman who feels overwhelmed by the totality of her circumstances might find it inspiring. And, what the hell is wrong with that? Is that not a valid enough reason for her to choose not to abort, as her feeling out of control and overwhelmed was a reason to abort?
I am not cursing at you, and I don't think that this is necessarily your view, either, but I have seen a lot of judgmentalism from prochoice folks when it comes to poor/underaged women. I am not sure how to word it, wuite, and I haven't before. But, I see it in some posts here: yeah, well, most people DO have crap lives, so she shouldn't be assaulted with the ad trying to convince her that her life WON'T be crap.
Probably not very clear; I am tired.
And, thanks for linking The Gabriel Project! (An organization which originated in Catholic churches, I believe.) They do outreach of volunteers who offer assistance from babysitting to medical care to emotional support to financial aid to ...anything you can think of... to pregnant women who consider themselves in crisis. Actually, this is exactly what I am talking about when I say my experience with real, politically active prolifers is mostly with people who are also active in their communities, adopting children, helping women with their physical presence and real assistance with all aspects of pregnancy and birth.
As I said above, I know people who say they are against abortion but never think twice about what that means or how women might need help in order to avoid it.... the same way I know people who have completely unexamined political & philosophical views of other types, and some who want abortion to be available always and everywhere so that they don't ever have to be deliberate about their own bodies or sexuality.
It's human nature that some people will believe shit for all the wrong reasons, including that they are crazy and hateful. And some people will come to conclusions that are wrong with good intentions.
Yup, he could have become the president, or, like gracie-bird said, he could have become a serial killer. Do they think he would have accomplished the same thing if his mother had wanted an abortion and not been able to have one? What would his life have been like if his mother had forever resented him? What would have happened if she'd had to go to a back alley abortionist and had died, either in an unsterilized and unsafe "operating room" or from later complications? Instead of just being out a president, we'd also be out a wonderfully inquisitive woman who earned a Ph.D. in anthropology and worked with developing countries (just reading from her Wiki.)
Oh, but I forgot. They don't care about women, they just care about fetuses.
(I also think this is particularly ironic because my staunchly anti-choice grandfather has said numerous times that he wishes Obama had been aborted.)
I am sick to death of this crap and can't believe they'd have the unmitigated gall to pull this crap out on the 1st day of Obama's presidency. But I think that sends a message in and of itself. These people are scared because they know that a change has come. I work with kids with disabilities and am a mother of two and I AM PRO CHOICE!
i think it's safe to say that Bill Bennett is not a member of "Catholic Vote", and wasn't consulted on this ad...
I don't think they had ultrasound technology back then.
Yeah, who's ultrasound was that? I wonder what they'll grow up to be. Maybe an altar boy. I have no idea if I spelled that correctly.
I wonder how many potential presidents we've all aborted? What doofs. This is just silly.
I also wonder what Obama has to say about this ad?
The fundamental problem in both your and Louise's logic is that you've both stated an axiom as if it were an argument. Louise says “a fetus is not a person”. You say the opposite. No wonder you haven't found any common ground — you started from contradictory positions.
This, in a nutshell, is why the abortion debate will never end.
And that was supposed to be a reply to this comment. Ugh.
Augh. I'm so tired of seeing pictures of ultrasounds and babies being used to push anti-choice measures. Can't a baby just ever be a baby and not a political tool?
People don't want to see the ultrasounds of babies because they don't want to be faced with the reality of what they are supporting.
A baby is not a "political tool"- it is a human being. People are against abortion not because they want to "hold back women", but because many people see this as destroying a separate human being.
It is what it is.
A human being does not simply become a human being just because it exited the womb. Although each child goes through different stages of development, the child remains the same child.
Is there anybody out there who is against providing women with complete and total information about what they are about to do?
Or should we call it simply an "abortion", usher her into the room, dismember and remove the child, all without adequately informing her of what she is doing?
I believe that when a woman is getting an abortion she should be shown a videotaped ultrasound of an abortion being performed- this is simply providing her with the complete information about what she is about to do.
This is simply providing women with all the facts.
I think abortion rates would definitely go down if women saw for themselves what really happens to the baby during abortion.
But apparently, as you said in your comment, you don't want women to truly see what they are doing- that way they will keep blindly supporting abortion without considering that there is very much a human element to this- the human life being dismembered.
Oh no! Somebody's going to hop in their time machine and head back to when Obama's mom was pregnant and force her to have an abortion!
Oh, no! Now somebody's gonna hop into their time machine and travel back to when Obama's mother was pregnant and force/convince her to have an abortion!
Sorry about the double post-and sorry for apologizing and taking up more space.
Roald Dahl (no feminist, to be sure) wrote a great short story, wherein a young mother who already had three babies that died is cradling her youngest, praying he will live. "Ohhhh little Adolf, please live, oh Lord show mercy unto him....!"
This is very close to what really happened.
This child had a broken home...this child's father abandoned him...blah blah blah blah blah...this child grew up to become the first African American president and...
REPEAL THE GLOBAL GAG RULE!!!!! :D
IN YOUR FACE, LOSERS!
I agree with saintcatherine. I don't like the message sent by some pro choicers that being pro life means that one is anti woman, and making it out to seem as if any woman who opposes abortion is a traitor to other women and embraces the patriarchy.
Moreover, my birth was unplanned and my birth mother took drugs. Despite this, she chose adoption and I live with a wonderful family. Now, all the arguments of my not knowing that I hadn't been born, had I been aborted, aside, I'm happy to be alive and I agree that pro life enterprises that attempt to help women, especially women who find themselves in difficult circumstances or find that their child will have some sort of disability, are doing a great service to women by presenting them with an alternative to abortion.