Amanda at Pandagon got her stinger out of joint at my comments about her rants against Feminists for Life. Now her sycophants have come to explain why the "choice" to kill one's offspring is so important that pointing out the selfish nature of their arguments is verboten.
I'm sure using their own quotes against them is frustrating. I mean, were I to say that I "don't like kids" and that that was a perfectly sound reason to have an abortion and then have someone show this as the face of the pro-choice movement, I would be a little angry as well. Especially since organizations like Planned Parenthood present an image of the average abortion patient as someone who is really not in any position to have a child. It's just the sort of hard luck story that most people will be compelled to agree with. Because most women who talk about their abortions actually show some sadness and remorse about what happened and why they did it.
But according to Amanda (and the various posters I've gotten), this isn't the case. In fact, they saw their abortions as something to be proud of:
amazon: I got pregnant at 19, thanks to a broken rubber. When I walked out of that clinic after my abortion, it was one of the most relieved, happy and proud - yes, proud - moments of my life. Was I happy, relieved or proud that I had gotten pregnant in the first place? Of course not. Was I happy, relieved and proud that I had managed to make a truly horrible situation have a reasonably positive ending? Fuck yes I was.
I will always be proud that I chose not to bring an unwanted child, which I was not prepared to raise, into the world. I’ve had plenty of anti-choice people tell me that I’m a sick bitch for feeling that way, and I really don’t care; however, I grow weary of hearing obstensibly pro-choice people tell me that my experience with abortion should be one that I look back at with shame or discomfort.
Now, according to Amanda, that I was a little surprised that women would be so calloused about abortion makes me pitiful. But nothing could be further from the truth. See, the women I've been with when they had their abortions, and the women I knew after they had them didn't consider it a reason to celebrate. So, maybe I've just not come in contact with women who think killing one's offspring is a high-fivin' event.
What was most amusing to me about Amanda's diatribe was how she got so many issues wrong. For example:
To be fair, anti-choicers are pretty consistent in their worldview, too—they believe that women are second to men, that women should be punished for having sex, and that pregnancy is god’s way of enforcing women’s second class status.
I had no idea that I thought this, let alone said it! And I'm pretty sure that most women who are pro-life don't think of women as "second class citizens" or that women should be "punished" for having sex.
Amanda, let's get something clear: sex leads to children. Always has. Does one become pregnant every time one has sex? No, but the chances of becoming pregnant are reduced considerably by not having sex. Got that? Sex leads to children. Don't act surprised if, when you have sex and can still bear children, that you might get pregnant once in a while.
The argument about "punishing women for sex" reminds me of law school when we discussed abortion laws. The professor finally resorted to explaining that abortion "equalized" the consequences of sex. Now, maybe to Amanda and the high five guys that sounds pretty good. But I must say that to most people, abortion doesn't "equalize" the consequences of sex because women still have to deal with the whole abortion thing. Men get up, zip their pants, and can leave.
After the nonsensical "abortion equalizes the consequences of sex" argument, Amanda spends some time trying to say that there are all these inconsistences with pro-life arguments.
Should a woman get to have sex without “consequences”? Should a woman be free to choose how many children she has? Should a woman who’s been raped be forced to bear her rapist’s child? Should a woman who has a pregnancy with complications be forced to ruin her health or lose her life? The answers are all fairly straightforward and simple when you believe a woman deserves basic human rights.
But the answers to those questions aren't, in fact, straightforward. In real life, sex has consequences and no amount of legislation (or denial of reality) changes that. And none of the laws discussed ever leave out exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Not to mention that the number of abortions done for those reasons is extremely small, so small as to be a red herring by comparison with, say, the women who say it's "not a good time for them." So neither of her other questions are reasonable, either. In short, she sets up a strawman with these arguments for the sake of accusing pro-lifers of being "inconsistent" and wanting women to be second class citizens.
But wait! There's more silliness!
The funniest part of this entire rant, for my purposes, is that Sharon claims that feminists both scramble to get abortions left and right while stating at the exact same time that we don’t mind the process of creating a baby. Which is it? To me, the stated eagerness to terminate pregnancies seems to contradict the stated adoration of being pregnant, which is of course the process that creates babies. Do we hate pregnancy or love it? Who knows, but the important part is to know that feminists are all the same and whether that means they love pregnancy or hate it, they are evil, wicked, man-hating beasts. Who are selfish.
Interestingly enough, I searched through my post to find where I said any of this. Of course, when I said that the people involved don't mind the process of creating a baby, I was talking about sex. Remember: sex is designed to create more people. Whether you think God created sex or it's just a natural, biological function, sex is designed to create more people. Nowhere did I say women created people to have more abortions, but then again, judging from the rest of Amanda's comments, I doubt she read much of what I wrote.
More mind-reading from Amanda:
Of course, there’s the outside chance that Sharon doesn’t understand biology and in her eagerness to imply that feminists are sluts, she mistakenly said conflated the process of creating a baby with Teh Sex. If so, it’s kind of cute that she can’t bring herself to say that a woman could actually want sex, just that we sluts don’t mind it like good women should. Regardless, this notion that sex and not pregnancy is the process that creates a baby makes me wonder if she’s quite aware of what an abortion even is, since it has to happen during that pregnancy phase, where Sharon seems to think that as soon as you light up that post-coital cigarette a bassinet pops up at the end of your bed and starts emitting baby wails, much like on "The Sims".
I find it interesting that Amanda, who supposedly is so knowledgable in the area, thinks that sex doesn't lead to pregnancy. Did she miss that part of biology class? Or was she so busy proudly discussing whether or not women are sluts that she missed the part about how babies are made? Surely she could have gotten the biology textbook where it discusses where babies come from and looked at the little pictures.
And then there was this bit of illogic:
Interestingly enough, by slamming the existence of feminism while defending FFL, she inadvertantly admitted that FFL is not feminist.
I suppose Amanda must not understand the meaning of words because slamming her variety of feminism in no way states that Feminists for Life aren't feminist. I suppose if you are narrow-minded enough to think that there's only one way for women to think about women, then maybe any divergence from the matriarchy would be some sort of repudiation for Amanda's position. But give that I don't believe that and said nothing that would cause a normal person to think that, I can only assume that this was more of Amanda stretching facts to fit her view of things.
In any event, I guess misquoting (hell, Amanda doesn't even bother quoting) someone who points out that this brand of feminism (and yes, there are different types of feminism, Amanda, not just the breast-beating, crotch-grabbing variety you ascribe to) is self-centered BS would make her a bit defensive. Compared to the roots of feminism, it's pretty damn shallow.
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