Pro-life Feminists

[RedKnight]

I'm a Socialist Feminist. Though I myself would largely be considered to be pro-choice, not all feminists agree with the practise of abortion. Here is an organisation of feminists whom are pro-life. http://www.feministsforlife.org/ So those whom have stated that the pro-life position is incompatible with feminism are wrong. Abortion should be a bio-ethical issue, not socio-political.

[Dros]

That is a contradiction in terms. Feminists support a woman's right to chose and have control over her body. To me, that is central to supporting women's liberation.

[bezdomni]

The idea of a "pro-life feminist" is as absurd as a "black white nationalist".

Abortion is absolutely a social issue...when women are not allowed and encouraged to abort unwanted pregnancies, then they are being used as productive tools. Anybody who adopts a "pro-life" perspective is defacto pro-slavery, regardless of all the pseudo-feminist rhetoric they dress it up in.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

"Feminists who are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy deserve unplanned joy."

:rolleyes:

[Mujer Libre]

"Feminists who are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy deserve unplanned joy."

:rolleyes:

I look forward to Tragic Clown's reply to this patronising piece of mythology. "Motherhood is the greatest miracle ever, even if a woman didn't want it in the first place.

Isn't it obvious that this organisation is bullshit- I mean, their "face" is Patricia Heaton, from that awful, awful sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Liberal "feminist" bullshit at best, and conservatism dressed up as feminism at worst- very different from actual socialist and communist feminism.

As others have said, you can't support the full emancipation of women without supporting bodily autonomy.

[bombeverything]

:D

Check out their answer to the question "does Feminists for Life want to criminalize women for having abortions?"

"FFL has never advocated prosecuting women seeking abortion, although we believe that women are capable of following the law". What exactly are they saying here? Yes or no?! If they are pro-life then they are anti-choice.

This site is disturbing.

[RedAnarchist]

I'm a Socialist Feminist. Though I myself would largely be considered to be pro-choice, not all feminists agree with the practise of abortion. Here is an organisation of feminists whom are pro-life. http://www.feministsforlife.org/ So those whom have stated that the pro-life position is incompatible with feminism are wrong. Abortion should be a bio-ethical issue, not socio-political.

There's not much worse than someone who probably knows full well that the dorr is unlocked but won't leave the room. If they don't want to have an abortion, fine, but the last thing any woman should be doing is trying to stop other women from having a choice about their bodies.

[Dros]

The idea of a "pro-life feminist" is as absurd as a "black white nationalist".

Sadly, there are quite a few of the latter! :D:rolleyes::cool:

[spartan]

There's not much worse than someone who probably knows full well that the dorr is unlocked but won't leave the room. If they don't want to have an abortion, fine, but the last thing any woman should be doing is trying to stop other women from having a choice about their bodies.

Sums up my beliefs on this matter perfectly.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

I'm a Socialist Feminist. Though I myself would largely be considered to be pro-choice, not all feminists agree with the practise of abortion. Here is an organisation of feminists whom are pro-life. http://www.feministsforlife.org/ So those whom have stated that the pro-life position is incompatible with feminism are wrong. Abortion should be a bio-ethical issue, not socio-political.

I wouldn't put much stock in this. It could easily be one of those right-wing funded front groups designed to confuse people and make it seem like the right isn't just made up of reactionary men. A few months back I read in the RCP's newspaper an article about David Horowitz's Islamofascism awareness week- and there was some phony group of Feminists supporting this well funded pundit(former-Trot, they all seem to be don't they?). They were claiming, without really substantiating their claims, that feminist groups on campus are hypocritical in not condemning Islam's record on women's rights. Of course I'm sure if you were to actually talk to those real feminists, they would have plenty to say on the subject. Not to mention that while there is legitimate criticism on Islam's record regarding that issue(very legitimate in fact), the "West" which Horowitz supports actually practices literal human slavery, in the form of the sex-slave trade from Eastern Europe. So while the woman is a respected but dominated mother in the Islamic world, she is literally a product to be sold as entertainment in the capitalist West.

[jake williams]

I was going to make a comment about how all these women/people should've had abortions, lest they rub their shit into their kids' heads, but for now I won't go there.

For now I just want to comment on the fact that the word "feminist", like so many others, basically doesn't mean anything, in that it's so flexible, can be and is used to mean so many things, that you really can't use it to get any specific idea across.

So sure, you could come up with a definition of "feminist" that includes anti-abortion or anti-choice views (there's a subtle difference). Though it may be that a couple of your "views" happen, in practice, to contradict each other, that's not exactly a unique example in human history - people have views or beliefs which contradict each other all the time.

[RGacky3]

ITS A BIO-ETHICAL MATTER!!!

Not a Socio-Political one.

The question is if a fetus can be considered a human, that is a bio-ethical question.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

I was going to make a comment about how all these women/people should've had abortions, lest they rub their shit into their kids' heads, but for now I won't go there.

For now I just want to comment on the fact that the word "feminist", like so many others, basically doesn't mean anything, in that it's so flexible, can be and is used to mean so many things, that you really can't use it to get any specific idea across.

So sure, you could come up with a definition of "feminist" that includes anti-abortion or anti-choice views (there's a subtle difference). Though it may be that a couple of your "views" happen, in practice, to contradict each other, that's not exactly a unique example in human history - people have views or beliefs which contradict each other all the time.

Feminist certainly is a buzzword. I remember throughout my right-wing days(that's the way I was raised) pundits of every right-wing shade would speak and write as if America is dominated by these evil man-hating feminists. I still see a lot of foreigners who want to come to Russia because they say that "Western women are feminists"(ironically the Russian women they end up with are usually the gold-digging whores).

Then one day, long after I moved fully to the left(as in Communist, not simply socially left wing as I was for a long time), I was in this ongoing argument with some hard-righter who kept trying to tell me that "feminism" was driving down birthrates and such. I recalled, and told him that, throughout my entire life, roughly 23 years in the US, I had never met such a "feminist" as has so often been described face to face. Granted, I didn't go to college where I might have met some of those radical identity politics types that are basically marginal, but still you think in 23 years someone who lived all over the US would have met at least one of these feminists.

It's just another right-wing bogeyman, like illegal aliens or "liberal professors".

[Dros]

ITS A BIO-ETHICAL MATTER!!!

Not a Socio-Political one.

The question is if a fetus can be considered a human, that is a bio-ethical question.

No. The question is whether or not we give women basic liberty to do what they want with there own bodies.

[Mujer Libre]

ITS A BIO-ETHICAL MATTER!!!

Not a Socio-Political one.

The question is if a fetus can be considered a human, that is a bio-ethical question.
I'm writing a thesis right now about why bioethics is politicised and should be thought of as such. Simply put, if you divorce bioethics from politics those ethics can be easily subverted, such as by the psychiatrists at Guantanamo Bay who participate in the creation of torture programs "for the greater good," and feel ethically justified in doing so. The framing of the abortion issue as one of 'whether the foetus is human or not' sidesteps the actual issue, the one that affects real lives, the one that affects society and the experiences of thousands of women- that is 'should women be able to exercise control over their own bodies.'

Also, by ignoring the socio-political implications of ethics, injustices can be perpetrated and reperpetuated, as in the case of abortion, where viewing abortion solely as a bioethical issue leads one to ignore the ongoing oppression of women. Bioethics is useful up to a point, but it is abstract and tends to view what we, as radical leftists, view as non-negotiable (e.g. liberty) as competing considerations against other principles (like non-harm, beneficence etc). This means that in certain situations, where a bioethical framework alone is used, stripping people of their autonomy can be justified- which is exactly what you're trying to do with abortion, while ignoring the systematic background of sexism that this occurs on.

To me that is profoundly unjust and reactionary.

[RedKnight]

Sadly, there are quite a few of the latter! :D:rolleyes::cool:
Since I can hijack my own thread, here is a black neo-confederate. http://www.southernheritage411.com/ http://www.southernheritage411.com/hkedgerton/hkeg/images/hkeg25.jpg

[kromando33]

Since I can hijack my own thread, here is a black neo-confederate. http://www.southernheritage411.com/ http://www.southernheritage411.com/hkedgerton/hkeg/images/hkeg25.jpg
Oh God, talk about exploitation:(.... Can anyone say 'Useful Jew'?

[kromando33]

ITS A BIO-ETHICAL MATTER!!!

Not a Socio-Political one.

The question is if a fetus can be considered a human, that is a bio-ethical question.
Wow, removing such an issue from the Marxist analysis based on material conditions, and instead discussing it based on meta-psychical 'ethics', is a profoundly reactionary position.

From a Marxist perspective everything is socio-economic, and everything must be judged (not on spiritual or religious influence as you are doing), but on a materialist basis. Therefore to the Marxist we must see the material causes to an issue, and therein find material answers.

[spartan]

Since I can hijack my own thread, here is a black neo-confederate. http://www.southernheritage411.com/ http://www.southernheritage411.com/hkedgerton/hkeg/images/hkeg25.jpg

I once saw a picture of a black man who was a member of the Nazi party, but i cant find it.

Apparently the story behind it was that this black man was the driver for a bunch of WW1 German African front veterans, who were also members of the Nazi party, so he decided to join as well.

[The Feral Underclass]

What makes being pro-life organisation significant is their active attempt to criminalise abortion and thus make it illegal for women to have terminations, in essence restricting their right to choose.

If you just have the opinion that abortion is personally wrong as far as your concerned, but do not want to restrict the rights of women (which I'm assuming a pro-life feminist is advocating) then having an organisation seems a bit weird.

[RGacky3]

No. The question is whether or not we give women basic liberty to do what they want with there own bodies.

The argument has always been (apart from the religious argument) about if a Fetus is or is'nt a human, not whether a woman has the right to do what she wants with her body. If the Fetus is or is'nt a human is the first question, and that question is a Bio-Ethical one.


Wow, removing such an issue from the Marxist analysis based on material conditions, and instead discussing it based on meta-psychical 'ethics', is a profoundly reactionary position.

From a Marxist perspective everything is socio-economic, and everything must be judged (not on spiritual or religious influence as you are doing), but on a materialist basis. Therefore to the Marxist we must see the material causes to an issue, and therein find material answers.

The Question of if a Fetus is or is'nt a Human is not something that can be answered with Marxist analysis, Marxist analysis is'nt a panacea for all questions.

I'm not judging anything from a spiritual or religious perspective. I'm judging it for what it is, a ethical logic question.

I know I'm degressing, but Marxistists denouncing all ethics, all human Morality destroy their whole point of existing, because Communism is based on the simply idea that all Humans have the same worth and right to life and all its potential, and that is a 100% Ethical Idea, simply the Idea that anything at all can be important other than yourself is an Ethical idea.

[spartan]

The argument has always been (apart from the religious argument) about if a Fetus is or is'nt a human, not whether a woman has the right to do what she wants with her body. If the Fetus is or is'nt a human is the first question, and that question is a Bio-Ethical one.

So you think that women (Who carry the fetus for nine months until giving birth) shouldnt have any choice in what they want to decide!

After all the fetus is in (And here is the important word here) their body.

Who exactly are you planning on enforcing your authoritarian sexist beliefs regarding women and their being forced to have babies that they might not want?

[BurnTheOliveTree]

I think that the two views are mutually exclusive. You can't support women's rights with one hand and want to subjugate them to the will of something that doesn't exist yet with the other. Well, you can, but you stink of hypocrisy. It's like a gay rights activist saying that gay couples shouldn't marry, or shouldn't adopt. It's just weird - You support freedom, but only some of the time?

-Alex

[Mujer Libre]

The argument has always been (apart from the religious argument) about if a Fetus is or is'nt a human, not whether a woman has the right to do what she wants with her body. If the Fetus is or is'nt a human is the first question, and that question is a Bio-Ethical one.
No, it's not. That question is a semantic minefield laid by people who want to prevent abortion. "We have difficulty defining 'human' and 'fully human' in the first place- good luck making abortion look ethically unambiguous!"

Perhaps a more apt question is whether foetuses are valid members of society. Hmm... No.

Also, nobody has addressed my points on the failures of a solely bioethical model for understanding issues like this, that are inherently politicized.

[TC]

I'm a Socialist Feminist.

No, you're not. In the real world rather than in the male chauvinist entitlement fantasy you've concocted, "socialist feminism" has a real definition and whether someone is or isn't one has nothing to do with whether or not they identify as such and everything to do with their actual politics.


Though I myself would largely be considered to be pro-choice, not all feminists agree with the practise of abortion.

All feminists, by definition, agree with women's liberation, which by definition, entails liberation from state or patriarchal control over women's reproductive systems.

This is just what feminism is, if you disagree you're not a feminist whether you're Naomi Wolf whose managed to convince thousands of social conservatives that she's a "feminist", or just a geeky reactionary boy like yourself.


So those whom have stated that the pro-life position is incompatible with feminism are wrong.I could make a website titled "gay-jewish-communists-for-hitler.com" but that wouldn't make support for the nazi holocaust compatible with gay rights, judiasm or communism, it would just mean that someone registered an absurdist URL.

Just because some forced pregnancy advocates have decided to try to co-opt the word "feminist" by incorrectly applying it to themselves in an attempt to manipulate the terms of debate by stealing the language of their opponents, only shows how far reactionaries need to go to try to remain politically relevant, not that there is such a thing as a 'pro-life feminism' anymore than there is a 'pro-state anarchism.'

The idea of "pro choice feminists" is similar really to Christian groups that try to pray-out-the-gay insisting that trying to compel people to have only marital heterosexual sex isn't "anti-gay", because they love the sinner (ie gay people), hate the sin (same-sex sex)... Its profoundly patronizing, the idea that you can support a demographic group without supporting its members autonomous, individual wills to determine their own lives.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/misc/progress.gif
Abortion should be a bio-ethical issue, not socio-political.

If its your biology thats at issue its necessarily a socio-political issue to you. We're talking about real people's bodies, not genetically modified crops.

You could reduce every human concern to a 'bio-ethical issue' if you denied the personhood of the affected individuals. Why not say that torture or slavery are just a 'bio-ethical' issues? Because they happen to men too?



The idea of a "pro-life feminist" is as absurd as a "black white nationalist".


Really its more absurd. "Pro-life" women are as stupid as black white nationalists, but you'd have to be a "black-power white nationalist" to be as absurd.



"Feminists who are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy deserve unplanned joy.""Feminists who are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy deserve unplanned joy."

:rolleyes:
I look forward to Tragic Clown's reply to this patronising piece of mythology. "Motherhood is the greatest miracle ever, even if a woman didn't want it in the first place.

Well, they probably have to tell themselves that pregnancy and motherhood are "joys" over and over and over again because it takes a lot of self-deception to swallow something like that. Even women who get pregnant on purpose don't think that pregnancy is a "joy" (although clearly some have drunk enough of the patriarchal kool-aid to rationalize their choices that way).

The idea that mothers do "the most important job in the world" (http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=%22the+most+important+job+in+the+world%22&meta=&btnG=Google+Search) (a phrase with more than 30,000 google hits) is so far beyond common sense that you wonder if anti-choicers think they need to use the "Big Lie" propaganda technique to get anyone to want to provide company for their misery.

The mystical elevation of motherhood as the "the most important job a woman (http://www.google.co.uk/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=%22most+important+job+a+woman%22&meta=&btnG=Google+Search) can do" is the classic patriarchal conflation of women and mothers (and mothers with domestic, housebound caretaker servants). Elevating motherhood is just a way of reducing women to their anatomy, treating women not as people but merely as tools for production. The implication of the propaganda is that unlike men, women's lives are essentially meaningless regardless of what they do and how they feel about them if they don't reproduce; that their worth is valued only in terms of reproduction and not on their own terms.

Its only not a political issue if you already accept the premise that women aren't people.


Liberal "feminist" bullshit at best, and conservatism dressed up as feminism at worst- very different from actual socialist and communist feminism.


How do you mean at best; you can't be a liberal and anti-choice either since liberalism is defined by support for equal rights under the law and civil (but not economic) liberty and equality.

These people are to the right of the bourgeois establishment's centre.


As others have said, you can't support the full emancipation of women without supporting bodily autonomy.

Even a statement like that is too mild...you can't support the full emancipation of women without supporting socialism (as most women are workers); but you can't even support the most basic, partial emancipation of women without supporting bodily autonomy...

...because ultimately to criminalize abortion effectively means jailing or threatening to jail people with unwanted pregnancies if they're at risk of getting an abortion, at least for the duration of their pregnancies.

I mean, nurses and midwives strap uncooperative women to hospital beds when they volunteered to give birth, think what they'd practically have to do if abortion were illegal.



"FFL has never advocated prosecuting women seeking abortion, although we believe that women are capable of following the law". What exactly are they saying here? Yes or no?! If they are pro-life then they are anti-choice.


It seems like they imagine somehow that if abortion was banned they wouldn't need to prosecute anyone because women would be capable of following the law (you know, cause abortion, unlike forced childbirth, 'hurts women' :rolleyes:)...which has been proven to be so obviously false historically.


There's not much worse than someone who probably knows full well that the dorr is unlocked but won't leave the room.

:confused: what???


I wouldn't put much stock in this. It could easily be one of those right-wing funded front groups designed to confuse people and make it seem like the right isn't just made up of reactionary men.

Well, thats pretty obviously what it is.


Not to mention that while there is legitimate criticism on Islam's record regarding that issue(very legitimate in fact), the "West" which Horowitz supports actually practices literal human slavery, in the form of the sex-slave trade from Eastern Europe. So while the woman is a respected but dominated mother in the Islamic world, she is literally a product to be sold as entertainment in the capitalist West.

...or a more relevant difference is that less than .00001% of women are actual slaves in the capitalist West, 100% of women are slaves in Saudi Arabia.


I was going to make a comment about how all these women/people should've had abortions, lest they rub their shit into their kids' heads, but for now I won't go there.

Why not, imagine how much it must suck to be the daughter of a pro-(fetal) life "feminist."



For now I just want to comment on the fact that the word "feminist", like so many others, basically doesn't mean anything, in that it's so flexible, can be and is used to mean so many things, that you really can't use it to get any specific idea across.


No, feminism is the ideology of women's liberation from patriarchal social relations; it has a specific and accepted definition. The fact that some people try to make feminism into a meaningless label doesn't mean it is one.


ITS A BIO-ETHICAL MATTER!!!

Not a Socio-Political one.

Would the matter of whether or not your organs should be harvested live for a more important person be a bio-ethical matter or a socio-political one.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

You can tell something is up when they make such a big deal about abortion. Why do they care so much? In a socialist society, you probably wouldn't even have to have many abortions because birth control would be free and easily obtainable, and sex education would be done right. Abortion would probably only be sought as a last resort when all that fails. Many more women will most likely have the babies in a society where people raise children in common.

@Tragiclown: It is unfair to make that comparison between sex slaves and Saudi women. The fact is that many of them are treated far better than any prostitute or sex slave, even if they don't actually have any rights. And of course Saudi Arabia is a major importer of Eastern European sex slaves, so the men take out their various mental problems on them unfortunately.

[RedAnarchist]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Red_Anarchist
There's not much worse than someone who probably knows full well that the dorr is unlocked but won't leave the room.

:confused: what???

What I mean is that these anti-choice feminists want to lock the door again, to turn back history and progress and take women back to a time when it was even worse for women than it is now.

[Dean]

I'm a Socialist Feminist. Though I myself would largely be considered to be pro-choice, not all feminists agree with the practise of abortion. Here is an organisation of feminists whom are pro-life. http://www.feministsforlife.org/ So those whom have stated that the pro-life position is incompatible with feminism are wrong.
I agree, to a certain extent. Feminists can have positions which are traditionally anti-feminist, however that doesn't mean that they aren't being inconsistant.


Abortion should be a bio-ethical issue, not socio-political.
It should be both. Yes, it matters in regards to the biological issues, but it also is an issue of human rights - here, specifically woman's rights.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

The argument has always been (apart from the religious argument) about if a Fetus is or isn't a human
I'm sorry, but that's a completely pointless argument that will never get anywhere, and if we allow it to dominate the debate around abortion then we will be locked in stalemate for all eternity.

Biologically, a fetus has human DNA - in the same way your kidneys have human DNA, though no one suggests that kidneys should be treated as separate human beings with rights protected by law.

So what you're really asking is not whether a fetus is human - which it is, biologically speaking - but whether a fetus is a separate human being from the mother or whether the fetus is part of the mother in the same way your kidneys are part of you. That is not a scientific biological question, but a philosophical question about what it means to be a person and a separate human being. It is a question that can never be given a clear, satisfying answer. Therefore it is a rather pointless question.

A much more useful line of thinking is to accept that a fetus may or may not be a separate human being depending on your definition, and then proceed to ask whether someone who is clearly a separate human being (the mother) should be forced to suffer in order to enable the biological development of an entity that may or may not be a separate human being.

Imagine the following scenario: There is a locked room somewhere, and you know that it might contain a human being or it might contain a lump of goo - but you don't know the odds for either of these two possibilities. You are presented with a choice. If you agree to go through with nine months of suffering that culminate with a traumatic and excruciatingly painful experience, the room will be unlocked. If you do not agree, the room and its contents will be destroyed. What do you choose? More to the point, should the state force you to choose to agree with the suffering?