Can a feminist be pro-life?

[rug]

Written by: geoconger on February 17, 2012.

Can a feminist be pro-life? Can a feminist be a Christian?

Here’s another. Can an atheist be pro-life. Or, is the pro-life movement merely a stalking horse for the Christian right?

While some of this field has been plowed by Christopher Hitchens — a professed atheist, Hitchens answered the question of whether an atheist can be pro-life in an article he wrote for Vanity Fair (The answer is yes. He was an atheist and opposed abortion.) — it is new to Australia. And the debate over who is a feminist is a live one.

These questions were at the heart of a media furore in Australia last month following the publication in the Sydney Morning Herald of a profile of pro-life activist, Melinda Tankard Reist. MTR — as she has come to be called on twitter and other social media sites — is the author of Big Porn Inc, a study warning of the pernicious cultural and social effects of pornography.

http://www.getreligion.org/2012/02/can-a-feminist-be-pro-life/

[laconicsax]

1. Pro-life is antithetical to feminism.

Being pro-life means believing that women shouldn't have the right to make decisions concerning their bodies.

[rug]

3. I'll take that as you haven't read the article.

Because that is surely not a universal opinion.

[laconicsax]

12. So I should change my opinion because not everyone agrees?

I think that capital punishment is horrific. Should I change my opinion because "that is surely not a universal opinion?"
I think that there should be full equality for LGBTQ persons. Should I change my opinion because "that is surely not a universal opinion?"

[rug]

13. No, but you should recognize the difference between opinion and dogma.

[laconicsax]

15. Says the person who's confusing my opinion with dogma. n/t

[darkstar3]

17. You expected any less?

Dogma plays a pretty big role in the life of someone heavily invested in defending it. It doesn't surprise me that such defenders would start seeing it everywhere.

[laconicsax]

19. Now, now. Be nice.

[rug]

30. As it does with bigots who are heavily invested in their bigotry.

[darkstar3]

34. If you really believe that, then you have a very strange view of what "dogma" means.

But don't let that stand in the way of you outing yourself.

[rug]

43. And you have a very selective view of bigotry.

Better put on a coat. It's cold outside.

[darkstar3]

47. That's because I don't throw the word around enough to make it meaningless.

It's also because I recognize what an organization that is sexist and homophobic at its core really is.

[rug]

48. You throw it around quite selectively.

And refrain quite selectively.

Fortunately there are objective measures.

[darkstar3]

50. Oh look, more baseless accusation.

I wonder, if I really cared to do it, how far I could drag this subthread out by keeping you from getting the last word?

[rug]

51. Sure it's baseless.

I must be imagining things.

[rug]

29. I must have missed the equivocation.

[laconicsax]

33. Did you think I was maybe expressing someone else's opinion?

[rug]

44. Sadly, that declarative statement was yours only.

Typed with all the force uf unerring certitude.

[laconicsax]

49. I have strong opinions an a number of topics.

It's ok to admit that you mistook the strength of my convictions for something else.

[rug]

52. Strength of opinion does not equate to the rectitude of the opinion.

I'm sure there must be a term for that fallacy. I must check my college notebooks for that course I took.

[laconicsax]

53. I think it's called religious faith. n/t

[sabbat hunter]

2. yes she can

because she can be personally against abortion/pro-life but doesn't want to impose her views on others. (I know women like this)

[no_hypocrisy]

23. + 1

[Warren Stupidity]

65. nope, that is a definitional argument that alters the common meaning

of "pro-life"- a political movement seeking to criminalize reproductive choices including abortion and more recently contraception. Using the common meaning a feminist cannot support this.

[southernyankeebelle]

4. I don't like the term "pro-life". It should be pro-choice or anti-choice. We need to take that

away from the conversation. Choice is choice. You can choose to have an abortion or you can choose not to have one. A feminist can be what she wants to be. Really when you think about feminism I don't really think they really care about the women at the lower end of the pay scale. I think it was more for the college ladies after they graduated and went to work. I feel that is what I saw.

[rug]

5. That's a more accurate frameing of the issue.

[southernyankeebelle]

7. I think so and we need to start using those terms. Don't you think?

[rug]

8. I do.

The ethics of abortion and the right to choose one, or not, are distinct issues. Conflating the two leads to political and religious demagoguery.

[laconicsax]

20. *framing

[KaryninMiami]

14. Thank you- this is something I try to remind people about constantly.

Pro life is one of those GOP catch phrases like tax and spend democrats. Unfortunately it's become a part of today's vernacular. Everyone is "pro life" - what's the option- being "pro-death"? It's about choice-pro choice or anti choice as per your post. Period.

[southernyankeebelle]

27. It makes sense and we should keep using it and correcting people. Maybe it takes one person a time.

[Riftaxe]

21. It Should be pro-abortion and anti-abortion

Instead of screwing around with propagandistic terms.

I am pro-abortion, and really have no need to hide behind nebulous terms meant to divert people from the subject at hand.

[Why Syzygy]

22. This is the only valid approach

I completely agree with this. I am pro-life and pro-choice. I made my choices. Everyone else should be free to make theirs.
Abortion is a medical procedure. It in between a woman, her doctor and anyone else she chooses to include.
I oppose war; which is a killing machine, and the death penalty, which is murder by state.

Feminism is about equality. Reproductive freedom is just one plank of the platform. It isn't the whole show.

[southernyankeebelle]

28. Exactly right. If we all express the pro and anti choice maybe it will sink in. We all must do it

even if it is one person at a time.

[tech_smythe]

6. Homosexuals can be conservative republicans

so yes, yes she can.
being "pro life" by it's very definition means not wanting to kill.
I don;t see how a feminist could be naturally against it.

as long as it is HER CHOICE the argument makes complete sense.
She is CHOOSING to keep any pregnancy she has, doesn't support the death penalty, etc.

Also, being pro-choice doesn't mean someone isn't pro-life as well. these are not naturally diametrically opposed views, honest!

I'm pro-choice. I don't believe in the death penalty as it's currently used. I also don't care for the idea of abortion having to be used... I also believe in a much healthier outlook on sex and education than we have in this country.

I think any termination of a pregnancy needs to be well considered (and i'm not even suggesting they aren't. it's a horrible position to be in) However the greater good of the mother/couple needs to be considered. people already alive need to be considered first.

is the baby going to be severely brain damaged, and thus never really live a complete life?

Being pro-life doesn't automatically mean you turn off your brain... it just happens to work that way for a lot of people.

personally, I see a pro-life feminist as someone who has a metric ton of soul searching to do in their life, balancing the two difficult philosophies in their life. I'm sure there are some very clever feminists out there who can do this to great effect.

that said. I am certainly not one of them. Sometimes I like a bit of simplicity in my life.
While I think it's possible, IMHO, it's more trouble than it's worth, and I think the right circumstance could drive said person completely insane.

so can it happen? yes

[darkstar3]

9. People compartmentalize, and also suffer from cognitive dissonance,

and they do both quite often. So the answer is yes.

[rug]

10. And some can harmonize seeming contradiction.

[2ndAmForComputers]

16. And others can use euphemisms.

[rug]

31. And others use passive aggressiveness as a means of communication.

[2ndAmForComputers]

32. Damn right they do.

[rug]

45. The third person plural doesn't really fit.

[2ndAmForComputers]

55. Hm, you're right, it doesn't.

[vixengrl]

11. I have real problems with the whole question--

First off--what is feminism? The simple answer to that should be "a subscriber to the radical idea that women are people." If women are to be treated as people--they are obviously entitled to their own opinions. They have agency and should be supported in issues of self-determination. If a woman was firmly committed to the idea that her committment to life meant that her pregnancies not be ended--she is absolutely right to make choices concerning her body--but beyond that?

In so far as I am also a woman and therefore a person, I would want her to afford me the same courtesy of respecting my agency over my body, and my judgment over what happens with it and within it, including how I dispose of an unwanted pregnancy happening to my body. If she can dispute my assertion of personhood, she casts doubt on her own. Am I only not a person should I happen to be pregnant? Am I conditionally a person? Or am I absolutely a person? If I am not a person with agency because of some mechanism related to my femaleness--the accident of my sex, such as pregnancy--then the person who has judged me incapable of making a decision about my body "because I made the wrong one" with respects to the gestating unfinished business inside of me has failed the feminism test--really--I can't choose? My body is someone else's to determine? I am a puppet, a doll, a servant? Then my personhood is denied on account of my femaleness--

You get nothing! I bid you good day! You can't have your feminist cred and eat mine, too.

I reject the idea of fetus personhood utterly--it's unsupportable. The earliest surviving preganancies are waht? 21 weeks and some days? Over 90% of abortions are before that? I can not accept the idea that something not viable, not living, except for reliance on a female body, has a claim upon that person's self-determination. If I deny that fetal claim on my decision--I would deny the claim of some "pro-life" female on my decision all the more--we being so much less "attached".

(I am not having an argument on this thread--everything I had to say on this subject is right here. In case there are any replies re: what ifs and yeah buts. Honestly--a woman's body is all she has and is her business--end of story.)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. I can see some gray in this one too

I know some modern Quakers. Truly pro life. That means no wars, no death penalty, and therapeutic abortions only. They are also serious feminists at the grass roots level. While I disagree with their stand on abortion, they have a tremendous amount of integrity and my respect.

So the correct answer to your question would be, "It depends".

[2pooped2pop]

24. yes

I think a feminist may be against abortion as long as it's her decision and not the "all white males club "making that decision.

I don't think atheism has anything to do with this decision. People of all walks can be against abortion.

The right just brings up God, gays & guns for every election. You'd think the useful idiots would catch on, but they never seem to.

Can you be Christian and be pro choice? Yes. Gods more concerned with those who have life, and how you treat them, than those who are still splitting cells.

I would use anti-abortion rather than pro life. We all know that the republicans who are anti abortion are anything but pro life.

And the pro choice people are anything but anti-life.

[Silent3]

26. Of course, and not just in the DU-safe formulation...

...of being personally against abortion, but not wanting to interfere with other women's choices.

While I certainly don't hold this opinion myself, if, for whatever reason, a person decides to value human life in every form starting from a fertilized egg up until the moment of birth as fully equal in value to a person who has been born, I can see where a pro-life/anti-choice position would follow. No matter how much, as a feminist, a pro-life feminist valued equal treatment of women and women's control over their own bodies, the value of an unborn human life would have to exceed those concerns if that life is considered to be as worthy of protection as post-birth human life.

It would not even be impossible to be a feminist who is against abortion even when the life of the mother is at risk. It's not uncommon in many moral dilemmas for people to be much more comfortable with accepting harm caused by inaction over harm caused by deliberate action (as in some variants of the trolley problem). The moral choice here is between the mother's loss of life caused by not doing anything to interfere with a pregancy and loss of the unborn child's life by actively killing the unborn child. There is also the fact that moral choice is often one between possible loss of the mother's life and definite loss of the unborn child's life.

If you move the point at which you start to value an unborn human life as equal (or nearly so) to born human life past conception, but still during the time of pregnancy, you arrive at a range of positions on the issue of abortion which a fair number of feminists and liberal are comfortable with, accepting or actively supporting restrictions on late-term abortions, such as requiring them to be medically necessary.

[darkstar3]

35. I don't agree with your premise, because

at the end of the day, anyone (male or female) who advocates for the removal of women's agency is axiomatically not a feminist.

And furthermore I think it's impossible for a feminist to actually believe the "life begins at conception" shit.

[Silent3]

37. I don't see how that's "axiomatic"...

...since there's no single, agreed-upon definition of "feminist".

The simplest definition of feminism would be equal rights for men and women. If no one has the right to take a human life, being female would give one no more or less right to do so, even if only women face the dilemma of that life being contained within their own bodies.

Of course, I don't myself ascribe that much value to a mere blob of cells or a single fertilized egg, and I consider it strange to do so, which makes it easy for me to give a woman's control of her own body much higher importance. All I'm saying is that I can see understand a way to put anti-abortion and feminist beliefs together, given a different set of values than my own.

[darkstar3]

38. Actually, no, the simplest definition of feminism

would be equal agency for men and women. It's a small change to your sentence but you'll find a world of difference within it.

[Silent3]

39. Unless you have a different definition of "agency"...

...in mind than I do, I don't see how agency can be equal when biology isn't. Rights are within our ability to equalize, agency not so much.

For the moment, however, try to do what I'm trying to do and step outside of your own value system. Imagine that somehow, someway you value a fertilized human embryo as much as any living out-of-the-womb person.

Where would that lead you on abortion that would be consistent with how you feel about other circumstances where human life should be protected?

[darkstar3]

40. Biology doesn't enter into it.

I'm rather surprised to read that you think it does. Agency is simply the capacity of a person to make their own independent choices. The root of feminisim is agency, not rights.

[Silent3]

41. The law doesn't regulate capacities, it regulates rights

"Pro-life" and pro-choice are positions on what the law should be regarding abortion. Those laws don't directly effect anyone's capacities, they affect consequences of actions, what one is or is not punished for doing.

If you're trying to say that abortion being illegal places a greater burden on the lives of women than the lives of men -- yes, I get that, of course I get that. But if you really believe that a fertilized human egg deserves equal protection to a born human being (which again, I'll emphasize that I don't, not by far) it is not incompatible with a consistent form of feminism to place the value of human life over trying to equalize outcomes for personal freedom.

I don't think you're making sufficient effort to internalize the hypothetical premise here to understand where it leads.

[darkstar3]

46. I'm not accepting your hypothetical premise at all, because you can't play devil's advocate

until you understand what it is you're saying.

I have 3 very separate things to say here. Please read them all.

===
The law, in the case of abortion, regulates what decisions are available for women. It's that simple. It takes away options, thereby stripping women of the capacity to make their own individual decisions. Your claim that it will somehow punish them for making the "wrong" choice is just plain wrong. When abortion is made illegal, doctors who perform abortions will no longer be available. That means that the option to have a (safe) abortion will be unavailable, and the agency of women is diminished.

Anti-abortion laws of any kind decrease the agency of women. That's it. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
===

===
As for your hypothetical...

I'm already fully aware of what I'll call, for lack of a better term, "the murder/procedure divide". As you may have read elsewhere, I was once a fundamentalist Christian, and I suspect that I once internalized far more of this view than you'll ever do for the sake of playing devil's advocate. But it doesn't matter. The simple facts are

1.We can't call it murder under our current laws.
2. I have yet to meet a person online or IRL who actually believed in the "life begins at conception" view and wasn't a religious individual.
3. A secular society needs more than a religious reason to enact a law.

So I see no reason to entertain their views on even a hypothetical basis.
===

===
It strikes me as exceedingly strange that we sit here as two men having this discussion, one of us playing devil's advocate. I think a feminist blogger I'm rather fond of said it best:

There are the occasions that men—intellectual men, clever men, engaged men—insist on playing devil's advocate, desirous of a debate on some aspect of feminist theory or reproductive rights or some other subject generally filed under the heading: Women's Issues. These intellectual, clever, engaged men want to endlessly probe my argument for weaknesses, want to wrestle over details, want to argue just for fun—and they wonder, these intellectual, clever, engaged men, why my voice keeps raising and why my face is flushed and why, after an hour of fighting my corner, hot tears burn the corners of my eyes. Why do you have to take this stuff so personally? ask the intellectual, clever, and engaged men, who have never considered that the content of the abstract exercise that's so much fun for them is the stuff of my life.

Taken from: http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/08/terrible-bargain-we-have-regretfully.html

===

[Silent3]

54. If that's how you're going to use the word "agency"

Last edited Mon Feb 20, 2012, 11:14 AM - Edit history (1)

...then the law routinely reduces "agency" to prevent or reduce the occurrence of unsanctioned activities. A person who considers abortion to be murder isn't and shouldn't (not if that's what they really believe, as a separate issue from whether they should believe that in the first place) care that laws against abortion disproportionately effect women any more than they're going to worry that laws against rape disproportionately affect men.

As for the current law and what we can and can't make laws about: While religion is the most common reason for believing that life begins at conception, it's not the only conceivable (pardon the pun) reason. Second, if you truly believe an act is murder, but the law doesn't call it murder, you're going to think that the problem is the way the law works, not your moral sense about murder.

If you lived in a society where it was deeply embedded in the legal framework that children were legally treated as property of their parents, with no rights, and parents could kill their children at will, would your quest to protect children from murder be at all stymied by someone telling you that current law doesn't accept your reasons for wanting to protect the children?

As for both of us being men, and that somehow disqualifying us (or somehow, just me) from engaging in a hypothetical discussion: There are all sorts of topics that none of us will ever have direct personal experience with, or have as much at stake with as other people, but that doesn't mean we can't have valid opinions on those subjects, just that we need to make our best effort to consider the experiences of those who are more involved that ourselves.

What's typically true anyway is that people with more at stake also have the same range of opinions as the people who don't, perhaps in different proportions. There are actual real-life non-hypothetical women who call themselves "pro-life feminists". If you're going to play the "you're a man, you can't understand" gambit with me, doesn't that apply to you just as much if you deny such women their understanding of abortion and feminism?

[darkstar3]

56. You just compared abortion and rape.

Fuck this. I am not interested in debating something that has serious real-life implications on a hypothetical level, and I am sure as hell not going to do it with someone so blind to feminist issues that they would write your first paragraph.

And to be clear, what bothers me is not the insult you wrote, but the blindness you show to it.

[Silent3]

57. What bullshit

That's the same kind of irrational guilt by word association BS you'd object to if a religious zealot pulled it on you, but you're doing it yourself here.

This whole thing is about trying to understand people with different opinions, and avoiding, as LeftishBrit put it, the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Yet you seem to have gotten into a state of mind where even entertaining different points of view offends you, as if you'd feel guilty of giving "credit" to something you don't approve of if you dared hold even hypothetically a piece of the anti-abortion viewpoint in your mind for a moment, and you're apparently angry at me as if I'm somehow suddenly the Evil Male Oppressor myself for daring to do so.

[darkstar3]

58. Do yourself a favor and close down the pity party.

The conversation was clearly over many posts ago when you started getting upset about me not internalizing your hypothetical. If you really want to whip out the "well I guess I'm just evil!" card now, go right ahead. But while you're walking away, ponder this: Don't you think it's possible that your post was ridiculously insulting and completely unworthy of a debate on feminist issues?

[Silent3]

59. I certainly think it's possible...

...that you're hypersensitive to what it takes to appear sufficiently sensitive. But no, I don't think it's at all unworthy of any issue to try to look at that issue even from the point of view of people you violently disagree with.

You strike me as someone who needs to show the strength of his commitment to feminist ideals with a tough-guy "don't even go there!" attitude toward anything that even hints of "wrong thinking".

I don't let that kind of attitude stand in the way of an exercise in trying to understand people I disagree with better. Apparently you'd rather just call a woman who calls herself a "pro-life feminist" a liar or a hypocrite, or perhaps just stupid and confused, and leave it there.

[darkstar3]

60. "hypersensitive"!

Please tell me you didn't just post that with a straight face in a discussion on feminism...wait...actually it would be funnier if you did.

[Silent3]

61. So you think it's a subject...

...where nothing but walking on eggshells will do?

[darkstar3]

62. No, I think everything that I posted in #46,

before you went off the deep end and showed that even though you want to play in your hypothetical world you have no ability to truly internalize the idea of "my body, my choice," not to mention the fact that you invoke gender roles when that is also a feminist issue.

I think everything I said in #46, and I think that no one can intelligently debate a feminist issue, especially abortion, from a hypothetical viewpoint. And I think that your post #59, where you call me hypersensitive and try to paint yourself as more open-minded simply because I refuse to accept your half-baked and badly flawed premise, is an example of sophomoric posturing that you would have slammed with gusto had it come from a different source.

I normally enjoy reading your posts, but I have to tell you that I have a serious problem with the path you're walking here. Leaving aside for the moment that you pulled the "you're just closed-minded" bit that pisses us both off, you have to understand that you can't play devil's advocate on every issue. There are two reasons for this:

1. Some issues affect people at too fundamental a level to play around with intellectually. Gay rights is an example that I think we can both agree on without getting into other feminist issues.

2. If you're going to play devil's advocate on an issue, you have to own it. As I pointed out above, you haven't done that here. So even if #1 weren't an issue, you'd still be staring down a problem. You need to internalize the entire feminist ideal before you can layer the idea of a "pro-life feminist" on top of it.

If you want to play devil's advocate with me in the future, you need to make me buy the premise. In this case, I have two solid reasons why that's never gonna happen.

And now, I think this conversation is over. There's really nothing left for me to write, and there's nothing I want to read from you. I will see you again in another thread, where we may find ourselves once again on the same side of an issue.

[Silent3]

63. I understand the idea of "my body, my choice" perfectly well

But do you understand what it would mean to fully value (not just reflexively, not just because you're repeating talking points or dogma, not just because you were raised that way but never really thought about it) a fertilized egg as fully equal in value to a born human being?

It's not that I'm not skeptical about most of the people who claim to value this form of life. Given that a large number of so-called "pro-lifers" are pro-death penalty and hawkish when it comes to war, not to mention many putting a very low value on providing health care for everyone, their supposed reverence for life is highly questionable. I suspect such people of either actively wanting to control women, or simply not caring much about women's rights.

There are, however, real people with genuine and deep "pro-life" feelings. You seem very offended by the idea that I'm talking hypothetically about these things, but the only thing that's hypothetical here is entertaining for sake of argument a real-life position other than the one you hold. The position itself is not hypothetical.

Even if I think the reasoning for valuing a fertilized egg is poor, that doesn't mean I doubt that the belief can be held sincerely. I'm more inclined to trust in the sincerity of such people when they are also anti-war and anti-death penalty and actively interested in the welfare of people after they're born, not just when they're in the womb.

Among the people who have this kind of pro-life belief there are also a few who genuinely care about women's rights. Just because the combination of those two positions might be rare, and it runs into a big conflict on the issue of abortion, doesn't mean that the positions can't be reconciled in a way where concern for women's rights can still be called "feminism".

[cbayer]

36. Interesting article about this. The major question

seems to be whether she has been duplicitous in cloaking her underlying fundamentalist agenda with the persona of a feminist.

I can't really tell from the article whether she is pushing an anti-abortion agenda (as opposed to just expressing her personal opinion), but it sounds like she is. If that is the case, then I agree with others that she is not, by definition, a feminist... at least in regard to a woman's right to decide what to do or not to do.

[LeftishBrit]

42. Yes; otherwise we start getting into the 'No True Scots(wo)man' fallacy

People can be feminists but still have moral objections to abortion. However, it is much harder to see how a feminist could be opposed to contraception, as that seems to be very much based on a particular concept of gender roles.

Yes, certainly atheists can be anti-abortion. In fact, one of the most extreme political opponents of women's reproductive rights was the Romanian dictator Ceaucescu, who was an atheist and opposed birth control and abortion on nationalistic rather than religious grounds.

I have been using the expression 'anti-abortion' rather than 'pro-life' as most anti-abortion campaigners are not broadly 'pro-life' in the sense of opposing war, capital punishment, economic policies that increase infant mortality, etc. as well as abortion. I have known a couple of people who were (indeed they extended their pro-life attitudes to the animal world and were also vegetarians). But most commonly, the strongest anti-abortion campaigners these days seem to combine this with the anti-gay-rights cause, rather than anything else pro-life.

[Warren Stupidity]

64. "is the pro-life movement merely a stalking horse for the Christian right? "

yes. duh.

And no. to your question.