You wrote (a):
>It seems this debate has run its course. Perhaps it would be useful,
>however, to recollect what for non-misognynists is the starting point
>of discussion -- that is the strategies and tactics to be followed by
>the left to eliminate all legal, social, and ideological barriers to
>women's access to abortion. Steve's posts might be worthwhile
>to examine over on m-fem as a specimen of the sort of thing that
>makes an independent women's movement necessary, but it
>hardly seems worthwhile to reply to them.
and (b)
>A subordinate question introduced early on in the discussion
>was how a principled position on abortion might affect
>coalitions. That debate, as is the case (I think) with all attempts
>to discuss coalition politics in cyberspace) was abortive < :--)>
>because in fact coalition politics can not be discussed in the
>abstract (and in a media necessarily separated from practice
>issues can only be discussed in the abstract). In practice almost
>all of the endless quibbles and fears brought up on a maillist
>simply disappear. About 3/4 of the people I have worked
>with politically here in Bloomington the last 30 years have been
>religious -- some even protestant (white and black) fundamentalists.
>I have never made any secret of my atheism or my approval of
>abortion, and it has *never* been a hindrance to coalition work.
>It is not that I have somehow successfully "solved" some difficult
>"problem" of coalition work: it is that the problems one can
>dream up in the abstract do not even come up to be solved
>in practice. (The leadership of FLOC may be right-to-life --
>but I doubt they will refuse the support of those who differ --
>and no one asks FLOC to enter pro-abortion coalitions.)
I agree on both (a) and (b). Perhaps m-fem is a better forum in which to examine the relation between moralism and misogyny. On the point (b), I add that I have been involved in FLOC rallies and protests (esp. Mt. Olive Pickle boycott), and I have never encountered any problem of coalition-making caused by different views on abortion rights either.
Yoshie