>Doug Henwood wrote:
> > Never on demand, never totally
> > illegal.
>
>The "on demand" demand is the part of the argument that links it most
>strongly to women's liberation struggles -- i.e to making sexual
>relations for women as untrammeled as sexual relations for men. This is
>one of the reasons the "Choice" argument was so mistaken, by grounding
>the demand in bourgeois individualism rather than in personal needs and
>rights.
>
>One possibility for the future: formation of an organization around
>providing the morning-after pill to everyone who wants one. The program
>would have to be an illegal program, given the many constraints being
>put on that pill as well as abortion in general.
I don't think it matters how we presented anything. The fact remains that the people who've been pushing to turn the tide on this issue would have made this their goal no matter how we _framed_ the issue.
I wrote this essay ( http://blog.pulpculture.org/2006/02/23/narratives/ ) on why framing doesn't matter or, rather, what's wrong with it. I've said here before. it's not about framing. It's about a larger, far more meaningful narrative that puts the SINGLE ISSUE in terms of a larger story that makes sense to people.
And another suggestion: I kept tabs on who blogged for choice on Blog for Choice day awhile back. The number of men who did was minuscule. Probably less than five % were men and none of them included any of the ratfucking A-list of male bloggers.
Lefty men: it's time for you to do something too. It's not just women's issue. It's everyone's.
Look at this list. Someone posts about it and what happens: men fighting over bullshit that ended up having nothing to do with anything the thread had been about.
Talk about The Traffic in Women! (see Gayle Ruben)
Here's a thought and to paraphrase Dianna Abdallah, bla bla bla, fuckers! As women, we really ought to take over this space and shut you down and force you to endlessly deal with OUR issues, never letting up!
Shut the fuck up about which tactics are the right ones and write a check, write a letter, and just get off your asses and quit bellowing in a game of who can roar the loudest -- all under the pretense that you give a shit about abortion. How fucking hilarious it all was. Like I said: talk about The Traffic in Women!
As for how to proceed re Plan B, they are already starting to do this. Women, in concert with sympathetic medical professionals, are purchasing, with their $5 co-pay, emergency Plan B contraceptive doses and stocking up.
I posted about it already, but I'll put it in text. This is from a pamphlet distributed right after Roe.
The message? Abortion isn't a medical procedure. Which I think is perfect because, while saying precisely what you say, it doesn't say what you've said in the past, Abortion is nothing more than having an appendectomy.
Just avoids it altogether and it also makes abortion, not something bequeathed to because of some mysterious 'rights' bestowed by a Constitution, but rather, the message is that our rights are the result of political struggle.
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/abortion/abortion-p07-72.jpeg
Not Just a Medical Procedure:
[...]
It is not enough to have the legal "right" It is not enough to lower slightly the price of abortions to any other medical procedure. These successes must be a part of an ongoing struggle by women to ensure that this society changes to meet everyone's needs.
And there you have it. In 1973, a bunch of silly girls had a clue that a bunch of bellowing men can't get right even today.
*Also note how, even in 1973 (and before if you read the lit) women were paying attention to the needs of working class and, especially, disabled women and women of color, who didn't have a right to give birth. There it is, in a pamphlet, without reservations.
We can never forget this if we want to build a movement that fully embraces the NEEDS f all women, including the needs of those women who want to give birth. It's about our bodies and lives -- and it's about everyone because it's about creating a good society that meets our human needs and desires.
framing schnaming. Tactics schnactics.
K
Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org
