One way is to out the double standard: Why is the focus never on the 'guilty character' of voluntary male sex? Guys need to honestly think of times they didn't use birth control--did you intend to rear the child possibly resulting from that particular sex act? (And that one, and that one...) And if you're distressed about the limited options for male contraceptives (I am), demand better.
I've been in groups of women comparing experiences around birth control--in one case planning a protest of our school infirmary not providing the morning after pill--and we found that women are (for obvious reasons) more conscientious, responsible, careful, and determined about birth control than our male partners. Sort of breaks through the myth about female irresponsibility causing pregnancy.
>Here it is unlikeky that rational argument will make any differewnce.
>We need at the minimumj a rhetorical strategy that will help people come
>to see and experience female sexuality as innocent and delightful, not
>dirty and sinful.
Or dirty and delightful, but at least not necessarily resulting in childbirth.
Here's a pretty minimal rhetorical strategy: a friend, after hearing some anti-abortion guy go on about those irresponsible women and how they should have to live with the consequences of their 'actions' replied, "So, then, what you're saying is, children are a punishment?"
>That will not affect the intellectual logic of the abortion debate. Even
>innocent pleasures do not weigh much against killing innocent people. So
>we will still need to answer the first problem. But it would help undermine
>the political support for antiabortion positions by changing the motivation
>many people have to support more or less extreme antichoice positions.
>jks
I don't think women are being punished for having sex, any more than workers are being punished for neglecting to have a trust fund, there's this little issue that some pretty powerful people want the products of our labor. I think some significant faction of the elite is not unhappy with unmarried teenagers having sex, getting pregnant, & having kids, especially if those later join the army. If you listen carefully to anti-abortion leaders, you'll find many oppose birth control even within marriage, when we're *supposed* to be fucking. One such who spoke at UF a few years ago lost most of his college-age audience by saying he opposed the use of condoms--it wasn't part of his normal rap, he was asked the question directly.
As for improbably attached violinists, I would get an abortion if pregnant tomorrow but if I were to wake up attached to a full-grown violinist, I'd chalk it up to medical disasters, which do happen, and stay hooked up for the duration because after all, this person has parents, friends, loved ones, a life, and I could do worse than save a life for just 9 months of work. (I'm assuming the malpractice settlement would at least pay my medical bills and upkeep during this time--something I would not be guaranteed if pregnant. I'm also assuming I wouldn't be financially, physically and emotionally responsible for the violinist for the next 16-20 years.) This allegory may be useful to investigate something, but it depoliticizes the phenomenon of pregnancy by making it into an unrepeatable individual case--the point is that women need the right to strike (contraceptives, reproductive knowledge, cooperative men, abortion). Without the right to strike, we're hardly able to improve the conditions of our lives and work, we suffer diminishment of our status as a group, and the lives of those we're primarily responsible for suffer as well. I'm not sure arguing from emancipation gets at all the philosophical questions recently raised, but it is fairly popular among women.
Miles:
>Rather than trying to change people's
>minds via argumentation, we should try to reinforce social relations
>that maintain abortion as a safe, legal activity. Just as a
>change in material reality in the South--integration of schools--
>led to a change in consciousness, so that about 90% of whites in
>the South now think integrated schools are appropriate, I think
>attitudes about abortion will follow from material practice. We
>don't need to provide rigorous ethical arguments that
>abortion is justifiable; we need to engage in political activity
>to expand abortion services in our society.
I'd say this is an accurate description of the last 50 years on abortion in the U.S. The rigorous ethical arguments by doctors and experts did nearly nothing for 20 years, until the women's liberation movement came along and had the gall to *protest* the chickenshit reforms the doctors and social workers were still trying to pass (like, you could get it if you already had 3 kids, or if you were certifiably nuts). Turned out the problem wasn't a shortage of good ethical arguments. Now, the problem is not lack of support by the majority, it's the vigorous attempts to limit abortion by a powerful minority. However, a majority anti-abortion Supreme Court has not made abortion illegal; opponents resort to death-squad treatment for doctors; the Democratic party, not known for discipline, actually tries to maintain its image as the party of abortion rights (as DP mentioned in the service of another point)--these are all signs of the strength of feminism on the abortion issue. Because of this strength, direct political attacks on abortion have diminished, and the ruling conservative anti-abortion strategy since 1992 has been to make abortions less available de facto, hoping that this gnawing away will not be noticed by the public at large. This has been somewhat successful. In the U.S. the abortion rate has gone down and the birth rate has gone up--though the 90s economy and more widespread use of the morning-after pill are certainly factors.
Jacob Conrad:
>P.S. And while we're at it, how about throwing a dose of good old-fashioned
>left-wing anti-clericalism into the mix as well.
Amen.
Jenny Brown