I've been alarmed with the total rollback of reproductive rights. I live in Missouri where the only remaining abortion clinic is fighting to stay open against administrative harassment. Anti-choicers are brazen now considering outright bans and outlawing abortion after a time earlier than women could know they're pregnant. The Republican legislatures and governors have enacted onerous regulations on abortion providers under the fiction of protecting women's health. Missouri being the worst, it demands women have a putative necessary pelvic exam.
Republicans claim they're dedicated to freedom, that's the goal of a crippled limited government. Yet, their cynical, statutory use of government bully-methods speaks louder. Though it does make sense. In their minds government is always negative, always bad. Therefore, the only way to limit this terrible entity is to put “good people” in charge. By no coincidence, these good people happen to be themselves. With abortion, the government might abuse women, ruin their livelihoods, ruin their health, and cause death. Yet, says the GOP, you shouldn't be worried because good people are in charge.
As terrible as the razing of reproductive rights is, I believe the power-drunk Republicans are overplaying their hands with impetuous zeal. We can take solace in the fact that the situation is neither stable nor settled. GOP recklessness could swing the legality of abortion (and birth control) the other way. But what happened here? A woman's right to choose abortion or birth had been solidly established. How did reproductive rights come to this?
I believe, and I might get bitter comments about this, that the persistence and cultish brute diligence of the anti-choicers beat us. So did their election turnout. I'm not complimenting them: those qualities are only virtuous when the cause isn't depraved. Yet, I think the pro-choice side was out-womaned, outmanned and out-hustled. (It’s incredible how many anti-choice activists are women.)
How? In my opinion, the principal reason why pro-choicers have been in a 46-year retreat: they avoided confronting and tearing down the messages the anti-choice side used. Anti-choicer propaganda rallied and unified them, while pro-choice side stayed very logical and appealed to women's self-interest, and pretty much avoided confronting its opponent’s messages. Those messages had the ring of religion and pro-choicers, and liberals in general, want people to keep their beliefs.
I've watched this struggle for decades and experienced it in my own life. I was raised in a very Catholic family, in a Catholic neighborhood, in a Catholic city. The Catholic Church was the first activated anti-choice organization. I saw the beginnings of the anti-choice movement under the auspices of “Pro-Life” with the support of the Catholic Church. Sometime in late 1973, my aunt showed me pamphlets she had received from her church. She was outraged. The pamphlets were a call to all Catholics to fight abortion. The pictures in the fliers are now so familiar: extremely gory images of abortions along with horror-story descriptions of what each procedure did to the “babies.”
Those pictures bothered me, but not for the reason they were meant to. For one, I knew by then any surgery looked sickening. For another, I knew the entity in the womb was not the equivalent to a born baby. I was only 14-years-old and not a good student. I was going to all boy high school and didn't have enough contact with females. Yet, I realized these.
Also, crucially, I had watched two episodes of Maude starring Bea Arthur. Maude's Dilemma part 1 & 2, where Maude pondered over and eventually got an abortion. That show primed me for skepticism against anti-choice propaganda.
So when I saw the tagline, “Life begins at conception,” I knew the anti-choicers were attempting to manipulate people. Though it was a compelling message, I wondered how the pro-choice side justified abortion against that claim. My aunt urged to join the anti-choice side, but the feeling I was being played (not by her, but by the pamphleteers) made me reticent about it.
Decades later, I have a lot more education, done a lot more thinking on the subject, and had some practice arguing it within my Catholic family (of origin), who are master arguers. I've also had a lot more practice writing and expressing my views. During that time, my hesitation about joining the purported, holy “Pro-Life” movement turned into resolute opposition. I became Pro-Choice.
However, I saw the Pro-Choice side get clobbered in the message war. Let's take two of main phrases employed by the anti-choice movement to recruit and motivate its cadres: 1) “Life begins at conception,” and 2) “Unborn baby.”
In propaganda, it's important to keep the message simple, appeal to emotions, and repeat, repeat, repeat. Anti-choicers have followed this. Pro-choicers have done their best to counter it, but Reproductive Rights isn’t a subject that lends itself to simplification if you’re keeping it honest. To tell the truth, I can't remember one Pro-choice lead line or blurb.
“Life begins at conception”: Factually, this is nonsense. The zygote is alive before, during and after conception, and even the lesser educated shouldn't expect anything else. This lie allowed the anti-choicers to call themselves “Pro-life,” and talk about their side as believers in the “sacredness of life.” This snaps right into Christian doctrine of several creeds and makes their cause feel holy. In fact, it is the stuff of cults.
If you try to correct and explain that they're mistaken, you have to get complicated, using words like “zygote” and “gametes.” I know, I've done it, and when I made my point, they refused to see it. If you can't make the point to their satisfaction, then they see you as against life, or as they like to say “innocent life.” And you're Satan unmasked in their eyes.
If they play this old card, it's best to say “this has nothing to do with life, or the definition of life or the sacredness of life. Unless you want to argue we ought to save and nurture tumors, abortion isn't about the question of life or when it begins.”
The term, “unborn baby” is an easier one to deal with, because the declaration is so stupid. I've been pointing out that if a fetus is an “unborn baby,” all born people are actually “undead corpses.” You just need to point out that logic, and their claim collapses. When one of them pointed out that a premature infant could survive, I said, yes, with enough resources, effort, equipment, and medical bills greater than the GDP of some nations, they can turn a fetus into a baby. (There's also a saying among doctors: “Cletus the Fetus.” CTF is a birth so premature that there's no chance it will survive. Yet, the parents will insist on expensive and heroic measure be taken to save it.)
However, If you let these two phrases stand, it reshapes perception and make the mother an enemy of innocent life, and presents the issue as the struggle between a selfish woman and an innocent baby. Once women are perceived to be in that light, they can't win.
So, it's important to attack and undercut the other side's message. Don't let them argue cheat points. They use propaganda, i.e. the kind of pseudo-religious double-talk heard from cult leaders. Indeed, Randall Terry reminds me more of a cult guru than anything else.
We need new tactics, but I think we're going to turn this battle. Women who have never seen or imagined life under Republican anti-choice rule will get an uncut dose. Men will experience it, not as directly, but they will. We could expect pro-choice numbers to swell.
That's my prediction, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy at any step. Democrats election numbers need to be kept activated. In fact, we have to activate the entire liberal electorate. We can't afford a loss or an ambiguous win in 2020. I get the feeling that people are exhausted physically, mentally, and financially after the 2018 election. Understandable. Even so, we must find our second wind in this next one. With enough numbers, we can overcome the GOP, which is old and shrinking demographic. They know this, which is why they’re digging trenches, with the help of Russian allies.
Friday, May 31, 2019||11:17:45 AM