I’ll admit I’ve been quiet on the whole Morgentaler receiving the order of Canada here on the blog, but rest assured it was because I was fending off some media I really didn’t want to deal with, and fighting back on some websites for my pro-choice positions that are attacking me for a new reason as of late…..my culture.
Oh yes. It’s true.
A good one I was sent recently as to why I shouldn’t support abortion rights goes a little something like this:
“(Because we’d be borrowing) from our sordid history of legally defining Jews, blacks, women and aboriginals as non-persons by defining the fetus as such. Astonishingly this approach is supported by Jews (Morgentaler, a holocaust survivor), blacks (Barack Obama), women (Hilary Clinton), and aboriginals (Jessica Yee, Chair, Aboriginal Realities, Aboriginal Choices, and Toronto Action Committee, Canadians for Choice) who ought to know better.”
Wtf?
I usually let stuff like this go since this is certainly not the first website that exists against the work I do, and I’m not going to even give this person the time of my day, but I thought I’d share it with all y’all.
Since it’s that much more offensive when someone is calling out my culture to denounce why I believe people should decide what’s best for their own bodies.
I guess if they actually knew anything my culture, they’d know that we’ve had the notion of reproductive rights way before the word “pro-choice”.
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six comments
Okay, my initial observation is this:
Morgentaler
Barack Obama
Hilary Clinton
Jessica Yee
That seems like a pretty fine and influential list to be on to me! Despite the idiocy of this overall sentiment of "ought to know better," I wanted to congratulate you for being an important enough figure in the field of choice to make this list!
All of that aside, I have to say the notion that "women should define a fetus as a person because they were once not defined as a person" is hilariously flawed logic. "Don't you remember what it was like to have no rights? Well there's not that many to go around, so take less so your fetus can have more!"
I've said it before and I'll say it again - thankfully positions like John's are in the minority.
Posted by Stacey May
July 25, 2008, 9:32 AM
Jessica: I have no idea what your culture is. I am assuming, from your reaction to my post, that it is either Jewish, Afro-Canadian, or First Nations. Now please understand that I was not calling out your culture any more than I was calling out my own (whatever it is).
What I said was that I would expect that people whose history is one of gross discrimination and abuse would be even more sensitive than us "privileged old white guys" to the issue of non-personhood. If you took my remarks to be otherwise, I fully apologize.
But I am still concerned about the comment of your reader Stacey May: I have to say the notion that "women should define a fetus as a person because they were once not defined as a person" is hilariously flawed logic. "Don't you remember what it was like to have no rights? Well there's not that many to go around, so take less so your fetus can have more!"
I'm pretty sure that I was not advocating fewer rights for anyone. If you were to take the time to read my posts, you will not find one that calls for putting abortion back in the criminal code.
What I have called for, again and again, from both the pro-choice and pro-life communities is to stop concentrating on the fetus as the focal point of women's rights, and start concentrating on women in their context.
I am told by both sides that women don't get abortions for frivolous reasons. Rather, the decision is taken to solve a problem (some kind of discrimination, abuse, fear of loss, etc.) or to placate someone else (a hardhearted employer, abusive boyfriend, family pressure, etc.). In the long run, abortion solves none of these issues. But neither does an insistence that a baby be allowed to be born.
Your commenter Stacey May exhibits that same lack of insight when she suggests that limiting abortion is to limit rights, as if abortion is the litmus test of whether a person is pro-woman or not. To me, that is flawed logic (although not hilarious, but actually rather tragic). As long as people continue to strain at that particular gnat, they will continue to swallow camels.
So please do your followers and admirers a favour. Find common ground with everyone who believes in women's rights and long-term solutions to women's issues. Don't refuse to work toward good results for women by refusing to interact with those who disagree with one of the means of achieving success. Don't act as if abortion is some wonderful solution that rises above all others. It's a lousy solution, as many women who have had abortions will attest.
There are people who clearly admire you very much. Obviously you have something to give. Give them more than they got, for all our sakes.
Thank you very much.
Posted by John Sutherland
July 28, 2008, 2:05 PM
Hi John
First of all, I find it far-fetched to think you didn't know what my culture was. You literally said "this approach is supported by Aboriginals (Jessica Yee....)". As in putting my name and then my culture right beside each other. So am I to assume in this way you didn't know or make reference to the fact that I am of Aboriginal ancestry?
Be careful where you tread when you throw in culture John, because my culture does believe that women have rights over their own bodies as to when they want to bring children into this world. This has been in existence way before the clinical divide of pro and anti choice. The fact that you didn't know this before making a statement referencing this same culture makes your arguement even less valid. Not to mention disrespectful.
Second of all, that "reader" Stacey-May who is our beloved publisher here at SHAMELESS, made some very fair points because to restrict people making decisions about what they want to do with their own bodies (aka abortion, family planning, sexuality, practicing their culture) IS to give them less rights. Rights that they absolutely deserve, which Indigenous cultures around the world have believed in for centuries whether you want to admit that or not. Abortion has always been part of that equation.
So I'm not willing to go down the road of whether or not abortion is the best solution for people and their situations because frankly, that's none of my business. I know for damn sure that it is and isn't for different people, but that's how humanity works in every capacity and let me remind you that those are THEIR vaginas that we don't need to be making judgements on or pretending like we know what's best for them.
As someone who works on the front lines of reproductive and sexual healthcare every day across North America, I will continue to fight so that we all have choices, options, and rights. And it just so happens that the most marginalized among us do remember what it's like to have them taken away, so maybe that's why I fight even harder.
Posted by Jessica Yee
July 29, 2008, 1:40 AM
Any reason why you didn't publish my last comment? Surely not censorship!!!
John
Posted by John Sutherland
July 29, 2008, 3:52 PM
John: we don't allow personal attacks on our bloggers at Shameless. If we find a comment speaks personally about a writer (as yours did), we will put that comment in moderation.
Your comments should be about the topic of the post, not its writer or other commenters. While I am sure our web editor can speak to exactly why you were placed in moderation, from my initial reading I can guess that this is the reason your comment was removed.
Posted by Stacey May
July 29, 2008, 4:22 PM
My heavens. Personal attacks on bloggers. I can't imagine what I said. I apologized to you for not figuring out who you were until after I had sent the comment. I suggested, given your reference to culture, that I couldn't be sure just because you were aboriginal that I would automatically know your culture, just as you wouldn't know mine from my name and ancestry. Then I suggested that people who espouse the standard pro-choice line, as you do, are too complacent with their decision that abortion is the final word in dealing with crisis pregnancies, and that if you could put aside your disapprobation of pro-lifers (such as you displayed against me in your blog) and accept that we simply pursue other ways of achieving women's rights that we could work together, which I would prefer to do.
If any of that was a personal attack, I certainly withdraw the comment. But I don't think there was anything there that would have been more attacking than what I received. Your publisher called my comments hilarioulsy flawed logic, for instance. I don't think I came close to that with you.
Posted by John Sutherland
July 29, 2008, 5:31 PM
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