[lbo-talk] "I Had an Abortion"

[suzume at mx82.tiki.ne.jp]

On 31 juil. 04, at 08:23, Gary? wrote:

>> I have my differences with Yoshie, but that wasn't a piece of 
>> self-indulgent crap. Unless you think abortion is a trivial issue, 
>> which it isn't.

> No abortion is not trivial and I believe in a person's right to choose 
> but to have an abortion for no other reason than not wanting the child 
> is trivialising abortion and life to the extent of absurdity and 
> contempt.

This is ridiculous. I had a discussion with my mother a little while 
ago. She clearly told me that had the pill been legal at that time in 
France she would have taken it and neither I nor my younger sister 
would have been born. There are time when you don't want a child and 
when circumstances (cultural, medical, personal) make abortion the only 
choice: mum had to go through a number of illegal abortions after my 
older sister was born and my younger sister is actually the result of a 
failed one.

I feel very strongly that most male discourse in that field is 
extremely irrelevant. In fact when woman such as my mother have to face 
such choices it is very much because it is their male counterpart that 
"is trivialising abortion and life to the extent of absurdity and 
contempt". Not the opposite.

As for Yoshie's mail and the situation in Japan: even though abortion 
is legal, the pill has not been until very recently (99) after decades 
of debate and after viagra was approved (it took only a few months for 
viagra to be approved). Sexual education basically goes against 
"morals" etc etc. I suppose for liberal people the only choice is, like 
with Yoshie: abortion or keeping the child. Contraception still mainly 
depends on the male (using condoms or not). Besides, and you will find 
ample literature about that on the web, domestic sexual violence has 
only become an issue in the middle of the 90's when it was still 
considered by judges that a male had basically the right to rape his 
wife.

on the pill:
http://www.prochoiceforum.org.uk/comm13.asp

on dv and spousal rape:
http://www.feminist.com/news/news187.html
(the anti-dv law was passed in april 2001)

on rape in general:
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/27/dussich.html

So what is trivialized here to the extent of absurdity and contempt is 
way more that "abortion and life" it is women's bodies, women's lives 
and women's roles in society. Abortion is not a "person's" right to 
choose, it is a _woman's_ right to choose.

JC Helary