>>> Alex LoCascio <alexlocascio at juno.com> 02/06 10:32 PM >>>
At the risk of sounding ridiculous, I think asking "mindless" questions
is necessary in order to provide a foundation for understanding. Who
knows, maybe I should junk the Socratic method, but I think asking
things at the most basic level facilitates learning. Maybe I come of as
a jackass, but if I learn something, it's worth it.
_______
Charles: For the record, I would like to say that in my response to your question, I did not say anything derogatory about you or your queston ( I know there were several responses). I don't have a problem with that question or your further questions.
When I responded, I mentioned rights and abilities. The dimension of abilities, enabling women economically , and now in safety from anti-abortion terrorists, is a step beyond bourgeois "right". Bourgeois right is removal of the prohibition against abortion. Socialist enablement goes further and addresses material power to have an abortion.
Perhaps the women's issues writers in the group Solidarity have articles on this.
Charles Brown
__________
>Let's put it this way. A working class (or fraction of a class) that
does not
>defend the unhassled right of women to abortion (with no moral nagging)
is a
>pretty damn worthless working class and will never be able to confront
>capital.
No disagreement there, but really, how often is the issue of abortion framed in class-conscious terms? I'm not one of those Mao/Avakian cultists that thinks feminism is bourgeois and counterrevolutionary, but I do think abortion is discussed mainly in bourgeois libertarian terms of "rights."
A while back in The Nation, Cockburn took the human rights groups to task for not adequately addressing the political context of "rights" talk. And now I see that Verso has got a new book out basically dealing with this. So I guess what I was asking in my previous post was: how are Marxists expanding the terms of the abortion debate so that it isn't framed in narrow bourgeois libertarian terms of "rights?" Has anyone written anything on this?
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