Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
How to Really Defend Planned Parenthood
How to Really Defend Planned ParenthoodWHY does the pro-choice movement so often find itself in a defensive crouch?
I cringed as I watched Planned Parenthoods president, Cecile Richards, apologize in a YouTube video last month for the lack of compassion in two doctors language at supposed business lunches arranged and secretly recorded by the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress.
Not because she wasnt eloquent, but because of what her words said about the impossibly narrow path abortion providers now are forced to walk. After all, have you ever heard an apology from a crisis pregnancy center for masquerading as an abortion clinic? What about the women in Texas who lost access to gynecological care when the state defunded Planned Parenthood and did not, as promised, adequately replace its services? Has anyone said sorry about that?
<snip>
There are two reasons abortion rights activists have been boxed in. One is that weve been reactive rather than proactive. To deflect immediate attacks, we fall in with messaging that unconsciously encodes the vision of the other side. Abortion opponents say women seek abortions in haste and confusion. Pro-choicers reply: Abortion is the most difficult, agonizing decision a woman ever makes. Opponents say: Women have abortions because they have irresponsible sex. We say: rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormalities, life-risking pregnancies.
These responses arent false exactly. Some women are genuinely ambivalent; some pregnancies are particularly dangerous. But they leave out a large majority of women seeking abortions, who had sex willingly, made a decision to end the pregnancy and faced no special threatening medical conditions.
We need to say that women have sex, have abortions, are at peace with the decision and move on with their lives. We need to say that is their right, and, moreover, its good for everyone that they have this right: The whole society benefits when motherhood is voluntary. When we gloss over these truths we unintentionally promote the very stigma were trying to combat. What, you didnt agonize? You forgot your pill? You just didnt want to have a baby now? You should be ashamed of yourself.
The second reason were stuck in a defensive mode is that too many pro-choice people are way too quiet. According to the Guttmacher Institute, nearly one in three women will have had at least one abortion by the time she reaches menopause. I suspect most of those women had someone who helped them, too a husband or boyfriend, a friend, a parent. Where are those people? The couple who decided two kids were enough, the grad student who didnt want to be tied for life to an ex-boyfriend, the woman barely getting by on a fast-food job? Why dont we hear more from them?
Its not that they think they did something wrong: A recent study published in the journal PLOS One finds that more than 95 percent of women felt the abortion was the right decision, both immediately after the procedure and three years later. Theyve been shamed into silence by stigma. Abortion opponents are delighted to fill that silence with testimony from their own ranks: the tiny minority of women who say theyre plagued by regret, rape victims glad they chose to continue their pregnancies, women who rejected their doctors advice to end a pregnancy and look at these adorable baby pictures! everything turned out fine.
Make no mistake: Those voices are heard in high places. In his 2007 Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy specifically mentioned the unexceptionable likelihood that a woman might come to regret her choice. That women need to be protected from decisions they might feel bad about later not that there was any evidence supporting this notion is now a legal precedent.
It is understandable that women who have ended pregnancies just wanted to move on. Why should they define themselves publicly by one private decision, perhaps made long ago? Ill tell you why: because the pro-choice movement cannot flourish if the mass of women it serves that one in three look on as if the struggle has nothing to do with them. Without the voices and support of millions of ordinary women behind them, providers and advocates can be too easily dismissed as ideologues out of touch with the American people.
Women arent the only ones who need to speak up. Where are the men grateful not to be forced into fatherhood? Where are the doctors who object to the way anti-abortion lawmakers are interfering with the practice of medicine?
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/how-to-really-defend-planned-parenthood.html
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
2 replies, 1220 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (15)
ReplyReply to this post
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
How to Really Defend Planned Parenthood (Original Post)
Novara
Aug 2015
OP
fasttense
(17,301 posts)1. And many women are afraid to speak up because anti-abortion
Supporters are murderers. They help murderers and encourage them. They bomb clinics and hunt down clinic employees like animals. This tends to shut up the opposition.
Praek3
(149 posts)2. SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE FOR EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN
This is my perfect plan to defend Planned Parenthood health clinics:
We abort all forms of private and/or for-profit health care insurance.
We give life to a mature, cohesive and inclusive national health care system, where everyone contributes and participates, and become an adult nation like the rest of the first world countries.
In fact, since this is the good ol' USA, I'd bet we could come up with an excellent new system!
As the nation's overall health seems to be in decline, profiteering from illness has long passed as a reasonable pursuit.