Misogyny: The Real Root of Opposition to Late Abortion

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/04/05/misogyny-real-root-opposition-late-abortion


Now that Scott Roeder has been handed a life sentence with parole only possible in 50 years, it’s time to look at the effect his act of terrorism has had on the anti-choice movement. You’d think people who claim to be “pro-life” would be so ashamed of terrorist acts that they’d do anything to distance themselves from them. But instead, Roeder’s murder of Dr. George Tiller, the preeminent late abortion provider in the nation, seems to have emboldened anti-choicers to double down on the harassment of other late abortion providers. Not only have anti-choice protesters moved on to targeted Dr. Carhart for abuse and threats, but as Lynn Harris noted, legislators in Kansas and Nebraska seem to be emboldened by this act of terrorism to put further restrictions on late abortions.

-snip-

“We’re ‘pro-life’!” The official anti-choice argument is that they’re not against women, they’re just "for life." But if that’s true, then abortion becomes more understandable if someone’s life is threatened by the pregnancy, or the fetus has defects incompatible with life. In other words, if you’re “pro-life,” late abortions that are all, by law, medically indicated would ostensibly be more defensible than an early abortion done because the woman simply does not want to become a mother.

To be intellectually consistent with both the argument that a fertilized egg is the same as a baby and that this is about life---and not about controlling and punishing female sexuality---the anti-choice movement should work to secure the right of women to obtain medically necessary late abortions. Instead, they work to restrict them even more, and during the recent health care debate, fought hard to make sure women had to pay for abortions out-of-pocket, even those getting abortions that save their lives or to end pregnancies where there’s no real hope of producing a live baby.

-snip-

The anti-choice approach on late abortions is consistent with one viewpoint: the misogynist one. Let’s assume for a moment that the motivation behind anti-choice activism is not a love of life or a belief that a fertilized egg is the same thing as a baby. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, they’re motivated by a belief that the main role of women in this world is to be baby machines, and that women should mindlessly reproduce even if it kills them. Is this viewpoint consistent with the focus on late abortion?

-snip-

Considering that the most intellectually consistent reason for anti-choice obsession with the relatively rare procedure of late abortion is misogyny, the willingness to draw energy from terrorist actions like Scott Roeder’s murder of Dr. Tiller makes more sense. Could it be that fundamentalist Christian terrorists have more in common with fundamentalist Muslim terrorists than we usually like to admit? Could both kinds of terrorisms stem from an ideology that glorifies a violent patriarchy and sees female independence as a threat? The only major difference I see between the two is that right wing politicians in the U.S. seem eager to give Christian fundamentalist terrorists exactly what they demand.
------------------------------


in the world of reality life begins with the first breath a newborn takes and life ends with the last breath a human takes.

misogyny is the home of the religiously insane of any and all religions on earth.

and some people think killing a fetus prior to delivery is wrong because they think a fetus is a human being. Many seem to agree since America spends a disproportionate amount of their health care spending on treating fetus's prior to delivery or keeping premies alive - why should we treat them if they are not human beings?

Late term abortions need to be legal in many instances but lets not pretend about the controversy. Rationale people can disagree on issues and on what constitutes a human.

Maybe I need more coffee....

You state that "Many agree... America spends a disproportionate amount of their health care spending on treating fetus's (sic) prior to delivery...." But I'm not at all sure that's a fact.

Do you have a link for that?

That question aside, I absolutely agree that most Americans stupidly believe the fetus is almost fully developed by the time most late term abortions are performed and that fuels their opposition. But their ignorance about why late term abortions are performed (health of the mother, certainty of fetal death in utero or on delivery) is no excuse for their misogyny.

I mean, it's kind of hard-wired into us: the more something looks identifiably human the more natural sympathy towards it is, and fetuses look more and more identifiably human as they develop.

As I understand Roe, SCOTUS ruled a woman's right to privacy do not completely outweigh the state's interest in protecting a fetus late in development (this seems to get into the question of viability, which I personally think is the wrong question, but it's where the law as I understand it is).

One thing that really, really irks me is people who are for banning abortion "except in cases of rape": if it's actually "about" the life of the fetus, then it doesn't matter what crime that fetus's father committed; the willingness of many to make that exception tells me it's actually "about" the perceived morality of the woman.

but academically the facts remain that late term abortions are virtually always performed because that fetus is 1. already dead or 2. going to die upon birth. Which leads one to the inevitable conclusion that it's only about misogyny for the " anti-choice" side since they are so eager to inflict that upon women.

I also agree 100% with your point about rape. A person can only be consistently "pro-life" if they are also for forcing a woman to give birth to a child conceived via rape. I'd extend your point though that for anti-choicers there's just the one aspect - the perceived morality of the woman - as Ensho's excellent OP points out, it's also about misogyny as well.

But things went terribly, tragically wrong. The pregnant woman is devastated to learn of a terrible anomaly or condition rendering her fetus unable to live after birth or suffer pain in utero. I have heard these women's stories --- many of them prolife women and from all religious backgrounds -- they are heartbreaking.

The anti choice people want you to believe that women are having late term abortions due to their own "lifestyle" issues. That is a blatant lie. It insults the women and their families who must go through horrible ordeals not of their own making. Instead of having the privacy of their grief, they face the howling mob. Such regard for "human life" indeed!

It's always a tragic situation.

I'm sick of people on DU carrying water for anti-woman asshats.

I never really thought the "mind your own business" philosophy was very consistent since it always involves scolding other people.

Being a woman of childbearing age with a functional reproductive tract, anti-woman, anti-choice attitudes have the potential to impact my life and are thus very much my business.

That most of the people who are opposed to abortion (late term or otherwise) could give a shit about the prenatal care of the mother and what happens to the child 3 months later when it's born. There are areas in the US where infant mortality rivals 3rd world countries, yet you have GOPher fucksticks in congress that say they are both against abortion and SCHIP. Something doesn't reconcile there.

But the whole "we need a law to keep women who are 8 mos pregnant from suddenly deciding to have an abortion" meme is designed to make people think that it's a problem.

However, physicians say that women don't wait long after they find out they're pregnant to decide if they will or won't continue.

The controversy was deliberately created by PLs, and is not valid - but people seem to assume the worst about women, no matter how fallacious.

If someone wanted to create legislation against "people amputating perfectly healthy limbs" - legislation that could possibly make emergency workers at the scene of a disaster into criminals, people would think twice about this legislators' sanity. And if this legislator said that opposing this bill meant that you condone people demanding that surgeons cut off healthy limbs on a whim, you'd tell them to seek help.

You'd say that in the rare cases of someone demanding that a doctor do this, the doctor can deal with the person effectively, and follow medical ethics and procedures with no interference from lawmakers. And you don't want doctors & emergency workers having to consult lawyers before making urgent medical decisions.

However - we feel that this is somehow all very reasonable when it comes to women's reproductive health.

Of course, their definition of a nuclear event is anything that happens in or near nuclear power plants, so it's not like I expect a lot.

is the biggest and most obvious obstacle to any real progress anywhere.

the outcry against pedophile priests, and the outraged focus on molested boys says something about this to me.... abuse and violence against girls is far more widespread, yet there is barely a peep, it's always reduced to a matter of a lone perv, or a rejected beau. No questioning of male socialization and the normalization of the "stone-cold" tough guy image. No admission from any quarter that men are responsible for the abuse they commit.


Criminalize Abortion!! It won't stop abortions, but it sure will kill off those slutty women.

And poor women, traditionally our most loathed and shunned social group.

I'd add elderly women to that, though they're (ok, we're ) safe from the direct reach of pro-lifers pro-murderers.

And sadly it's getting worse.

Punch your neighbor in the face and it's 'assault.' Punch your wife/partner it's 'domestic' or 'intimate partner' violence.

Misogyny is codified into public policy.

:-(

"It's anti-woman!"

Those who have what's termed a "late-term abortion" have been through at least two opinions, sought out the few doctors who are still performing them in the USA, and obviously are carrying an already dead or severely compromised fetus. It's not a decision made on a whim. It's not a "lifestyle choice". It's nobody else's business but hers and her doctor's.

Considering the fact there are elected officials attempting to classify any miscarriage as an ABORTION, this is nothing more than misogyny: Any woman who has sex, for whatever reason, is to be slapped down, and slapped down hard. She is to be punished.

It is still amazing to me that any woman will sleep with a Republican, knowing their views on females and sex.

Spontaneous abortion is the correct term for what is commonly called a miscarriage. There's no need to legislate that, because that's what would be noted in the chart of a woman who sought medical attention for one. And that's where that information should stay, because like all medical information, it's nobody else's fucking business.

Same for induced abortions at any term.

The elected officials that Missy Vixen is referring aren't really concerned with vocabulary. They are trying to pass laws requiring any miscarriage to be reported to police and investigated, presumably to make sure the formerly pregnant woman didn't do anything, intentional or otherwise, to induce it.

Not only does this take their intrusion to breathtaking new heights, it's also pretty ignorant of basic biology. Very early miscarriages happen MUCH more frequently than most people realize, and are usually brushed off as a heavier-than-normal period by a woman who probably didn't even know she'd been pregnant.