Dwayne Monroe wrote:
> Have "we" really forgotten?
>
> Is no one working on behalf of women with children?
I'm sure there is. I just don't know who. They don't get a lot of airplay.
> Are there no
> people working to improve sex education? Is no one trying to improve
> access to and understanding of contraception?
>
Long live planned parenthood and so on. But eliminating pregnancy
doesn't solve the problem. It just shoves it to the side. If women must
always choose between being mothers and being anything else, eliminating
pregnancy only means that women get to have a life only to the extent
that this life is like the life of a man.
> Aren't there people tirelessly laboring to reduce abortion by focusing
> on the above and who, while believing in the idea that women have a
> right to terminate pregnancy, see it as a last resort, as a failure of
> what should be an informed use of planning, as a consequence of the
> lack of information and freedom?
>
There have been a lot of people on this list who have argued 1) that
abortion is something to be proud of and that 2) having an abortion is
like removing a hangnail and no big thing. One doesn't remove a hangnail
as a last resort; one just cuts it off.
> Very often, I'm frustrated by your responses on gender-related topics.
> You seem to be unaware of the variety of work going on and the
> history and current state of thinking. Also, there's a huge boys
> against girls against boys subtext which I find off putting.
>
> If you review the back and forth arguments re: abortion - the ones
> happening out there in the wider world - you'll note that men on the
> con side (of whom there are many) aren't seeking to escape parenthood
> via abortion like heavies in a 1950s melodrama but, on the contrary,
> elevate motherhood to a status only a hair's breadth shy of
> hagiography but at the expense of practically any other thing a woman
> might do.
>
Let's just say that on a personal plane, the behavior of men with
regards to pregnancy and children has been hugely disappointing.
Joanna