Abortion Wars, Health Care Wars, Volleyball Battles

Carole Joffe on the stigmatization of abortion. Also, anti-choicers attack Bob Casey for supporting health and life, and should pregnant high school athletes be allowed to play?

 

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Links in this episode:

Stupak translated

Operation Rescue unleashes on Bob Casey

Pregnant athlete benched

Scott Lively blames gays for serial killing, genocide

Dispatches From The Abortion Wars

 

 

On this episode of Reality Cast, Carole Joffe will be talking about how the stigma against abortion creates real problems for women and for providers.  Also, Operation Rescue shows how anti-life they really are, and looking at the question of whether or not pregnant teenagers should be allowed to play sports.

 

The National Women's Law Center has definitely picked up on the fact that right wing anti-choicers sure do love to speak in code, and so they put together a video translating some of Bart Stupak's comments to explain what he really means.

 

• stupak *

 

The fight is far from over.  Pick up the phone and call your representative and tell them to do whatever they can to keep abortion restrictions out of the final bill.

 

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I usually have nothing but sympathy for people that Operation Rescue decides to make targets.  Operation Rescue and other confrontational anti-choice organizations enjoy hostility for its own sake, and mainly use abortion as an excuse to act belligerent on whoever their leaders tell them is an acceptable target.  But I have mixed feelings about this video where Operation Rescue decided to unleash on Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat who is anti-abortion but pro-health care.

 

• abortion 1 *

 

Of course, what this guy is yelling is complete nonsense.  Like most anti-choice fanatics, the confrontation and the glow of being a mean person under the guise of self-righteousness is the only thing that matters.  Facts are irrelevant.  I have no idea what he's even trying to refer to, since the U.S. hasn't funded abortion services overseas in god only knows how long.  Of course, we are talking about Operation Rescue; they probably think condoms are abortion.  I'm sure they're convinced Casey isn't nearly enough of a sex-phobic misogynist.  The press release Randall Terry sent out with this video was heavy with language intended to make people who are grossed out by sex freak out; he suggested that Casey is "seducing" audiences with boilerplate politician speeches.

 

I really don't like seeing anyone ambushed by a bunch of dishonest kooks, even though Bob Casey is a maddening anti-choice politician.  And yet, I hoped that this confrontation was education for Casey and his supporters.  See, I think a lot of anti-abortion folks with otherwise liberal leanings are under the mistaken impression that the anti-choice movement is composed of sincere people who are truly concerned about life.  But you can just hear their screeching to see the flaws in that hope.

 

• abortion 2 *

 

Who the hell knows what they're screeching about?  Terry's press release obscures it, probably because he's scared to give his followers too much information, or maybe because he just made all this up.  But whatever it is, the reason that Operation Rescue has made Casey a target is that they don't like that he supports measures that will save human lives, especially health care reform. Though from their screeching, it also appears they are opposed to any health care spending overseas that would save lives.  For people who claim they're "pro-life", they sure are hellbent on making sure that the maximum number of people in this world die from lack of basic health care.  Though of course, they have a special love of attacking basic health care to save women's lives---nothing gets them more riled up than the possibility that our government might spend money that results in fewer women dying around the world due to preventable reproductive health problems and unsafe childbirth. 

 

Luckily, despite the screeching opposition to doing anything that might improve the lives of women and children here and abroad, there seems to be more political momentum in that direction.  As I'm sure you know, Hillary Clinton gave a wonderful speech about the importance of these issues worldwide at the International Conference on Population and Development. 

 

• abortion 3 *

 

Now, of course, the reality of this is undeniable to all thinking people, that contraception, abortion, and general health care anti-choicers object to are life-saving.  Life is preserved if women are able to control when they give birth. Life is preserved if women and girls are educated and can make more money to lift them out of poverty.  Duh.  So let's hope folks like Bob Casey realize that when anti-choicers object to measures to improve women's lives and health, they are against life.  No matter what they call themselves.

 

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insert interview

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This next bit is based on an interesting story in light of the discussion about how abortion is stigmatized, because, as Carole said, that stigma is rooted in hostility to sex.  How do I know?  Because if you don't get an abortion in some cases, that's just as stigmatized. 

 

• volleyball 1 *

 

If we leave out the issues of misogyny and hostility towards human sexuality, then it seems the answer is straightforward: Is it dangerous?  The notion that pregnant women are withering flowers is something that's lost a lot of ground in recent years.  I can't see that it's more dangerous for a pregnant woman to play volleyball than any woman.  Volleyball carries the high risk of breaking a leg or an arm, after all, and so if you think a miscarriage is somehow a greater risk than that, it's because you're othering the pregnant woman or insinuating that the fetus matters more than the health of all teenage girls. 

 

In this case, I'd say that the school's official policy of requiring a doctor's note is enough of a hurdle to cross.  Pregnancy should be no more or no less an issue than any other medical condition.  The girl in question achieved that standard.

 

• volleyball 2 *

 

At this point, unless you're trying to stigmatize the young woman for having a sexuality or having a female body, that should be the end of it, right?  Especially since in this conservative part of the country, she probably would have gotten even more abuse if she was known to have an abortion, leaving her with no choices at all.  But of course, this was not the end of the story, and the fact that this is about sexual shaming becomes way more obvious.

 

• volleyball 3 *

 

The comments at ABC really reinforce the fact that pregnancy is, whether you have the baby or not, basically an opportunity for the public and authorities to shame women for both being female and being sexual.  Third comment in, someone in all caps says, "THERE ARE TEENS IN HIGH SCHOOL THAT DO NOT HAVE SEX. You live with the consequences of your actions." I would like to point out that no young man who gets a young woman pregnant is eligible for this level of faux concern over his health that translates into open shaming and exclusion. And it's always funny to me how people who say things like this ignore the fact that humanity has invented effective contraception, and if people like them didn't go out of their way to keep kids from getting to it, this wouldn't be a problem.

 

Another commenter said, "Seriously, what are the parents thinking or are they thinking at all? Grow up little girl..."  What do they mean by "grow up"?  Does growing up for a woman mean having to choose between being sexual and getting to be part of a larger community?  Does growing up mean that you have to give in to the idea that being a mother means the end of having any parts of your life that are for yourself?

 

And one final comment from the religious peanut gallery: "Entitled brats like this chick aggravate the bejeebers out of me. She brings up God and faith as an excuse for not getting an abortion (was she on break from being a "good Christian" when she was having pre-marital sex? How very convenient)"  And to bring it all around, the point was never about "life", but about sex.  And abortion is offensive to the right because it gives women an opportunity to keep their private lives private, away from the prying eyes of judgmental prigs.

 

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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, worse than you thought edition.  Last week, I reported on how anti-gay activist Scott Lively was being cagily supportive of Uganda's proposal to punish homosexuality with severe prison sentences and maybe even the death sentence.  Now more video of the presentation he did at the Ugandan conference that kicked all this off has come out.  This is him talking about gay men:

 

• lively *

 

The fact that he brings up the Rwandan genocide in Uganda, which border Rwanda, shows how, far from being the innocents they pretend they are, the anti-gay activists are in fact deliberately engaging the most unimaginable slanders in order to drum up hate against gay people.

 

 

 

Follow Amanda Marcotte on Twitter, @amandamarcotte