[lbo-talk] Not just a medical procedure

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sat Mar 4 12:12:03 PST 2006


info at pulpculture.org wrote:
>
> 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'm not interested in "framing" for outreach; I'm interested in how the left poses the issue for itself. "Choice" implied and implies a polite approach to the powers that be to be nice. That is not very useful in developing solidarity. Choice is for sunshine soldiers and summer patriots. It provides a framework for all those, male or female, who wrap their "pro-choice" support in endless cotton-wool about how abortion in itself is "bad" and we should make it unnecessary and so forth. Breaking a hip is bad; having a plastic and steel replacement for it is not in the slightest bad, and it would be insane to wrap a demand for single-payer health insurance in rhetoric about needing also to cut down on icy sidewalks. The two issues are utterly unrelated. That is, there is no relationship between "preventing unwanted pregnancies" and "providing free abortion services on demand." The second is an absolutely unnegotiable demand, the former is all very fine in itself but does not enter into the struggle for abortion.

Carrol



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