"Fatherhood" & Control over the Female Body (was re: Yoshie'ssacred

[Michael Hoover]

> 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.
> (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.)
> Carrol

Abortion is an eternal return (maybe that should be infernal return)
topic for these e-lists so debate may subside but only for awhile.  
Reminds of a dog returning to its own vomit.  Perhaps people should 
just compose a message that they can periodically post.  Maybe I'll
use below:    

As Yoshie mentioned on pen-l, _Roe_ was a compromise - one in which 
Blackmun's majority opinion attempted to balance a woman's right to 
control her reproduction with the state's *alleged* interest in 
limiting access to abortion.  Anti-abortionists accused Blackmun (who 
received numerous death threats for the remainder of his life) and the 
Supremes of creating 'abortion on demand' by enabling a woman to control 
her pregnancy for 3 months before allowing the state to impose limits.  
But Blackmun and Court even restricted a woman's access to abortion 
during the first trimester by proclaiming until viability, 'the abortion 
decision in all its aspects is inherently, and primarily, a medical 
decison, and basic responsibility for it must rest with the physician.'  
By superimposing a legal grid on contiuum of pregnancy and casting a 
constitutional right in medical terms, Supremes located decision-making 
responsibility in the doctor rather than in the woman.

Court's conservative approach in _Roe_ notwithstanding, anti-abortionists
introduced almost 200 state legislative bills within 2 years, over 60 were
enacted into law in 32 states.  For a time, a 'pro-choice' majority on the 
Court found most of these laws restricted a woman's right to privacy 
established in _Roe_, but many of its decisions were multi-part rulings 
that accepted state definitions of viability, allowed states to prescribe 
how many doctors must be present at post-viability abortions (beyond 
setting initial licensing standards, states usually entrust regulation of 
procedures and practices to medical profession - how many state require X 
number of doctors be present at a tonsillectomy?), approved parental 
consent, upheld certain second trimester hospital regulations, and allowed 
prohibitions on government funding.

In other words, the pre-_Webster_ decision Court accepted the principle of 
inequality of abortion rights. _Webster_ potentially paves way for the 
state to subordinate a woman's right of procreational privacy to a 
'compelling interest' in the fetus and under this interpretation, a state 
could criminalize abortion.  Also, _Wesbter_ conceivably could be used to 
outlaw contraceptive devices that 'kill' fertilized eggs by threatening 
implantation after conception.  

Flo Kennedy had it correct 30 years ago: if men could get pregnant,
abortion would be sacred (I don't recall if she had any comments about
sperm being sacred).  Rarely in the still-male dominant (cyber)space of
lists like this one, for example, is male vasectomy (a minor procedure
that is easily reversible) mentioned.

While Shulamith Firestone's techno-feminism was fraught with certain dangers,
maybe her suggestion that advances in medical science could make it possible
for men to carry a fetus in implanted wombs and possibly eventually lactate
should be reconsidered.  Males could have the 'right to choose' pregnancy
rather than promote a conservative pro-family perspective that drives
women back into the home.     

For what it's worth, I've been working with FLOC folks for almost twenty
years.  Michael Hoover