How abortion proponents view the current abortion landscape
Pro-abortion authors Robin Marty and Jessica Mason Pieklo have co-authored a fascinating new book, Crow After Roe.
Marty is senior political reporter for RH Reality Check, and Pieklo is a senior legal analyst there. Over the past year or so I’ve developed a collegial relationship with Robin. Even as we both stand our ground, it’s refreshing to discuss and debate sans animus.
Robin was kind enough to give me a copy of her book, which I have been reading with interest. Even though Robin writes from a biased perspective, which she freely acknowledges, she writes intelligently, another refreshing difference from the typical pro-abortion fare I usually read.
Crow After Roe is written from a standpoint of alarm but offers solutions. “[T]he book will shock and move you to action,” notes Feministing founder Jessica Valenti on the back cover. “Most importantly, though, Crow After Roe gives you hope and a roadmap for what we can do to change the current anti-woman tide.”
It is precisely those two points that interested me. Why are abortion proponents alarmed? And how do they envision the way out of their perceived predicament?
The book title refers to Jim Crow laws, created by southern whites after blacks were freed from slavery, which allowed oppression and segregation to continue. The authors believe pro-life laws serve the same purpose of oppressing poor and minority abortion-vulnerable mothers.
Further, Crow After Roe makes the case – with which pro-lifers will readily agree – that, of late, certain pieces of our proposed legislation have been written with the goal of triggering the overturn of Roe v. Wade. To that end the book “examines 11 states… that since 2010 have each passed a different anti-abortion or anti-women’s health law explicitly written to provoke a repeal of Roe….” (It was fascinating reading the names of many people I know on those pages.)
In her forward to the book, former Planned Parenthood CEO Gloria Feldt writes:
[T]he anti-choice right has leveled a volume and variety of attacks never before seen in this nation….
But we can stop them if we change our tactics and bring the struggle for reproductive justice out of the “women’s issues” ghetto focusing only on abortion….
We must also face the fact that privacy is not and has never been a strong enough legal justification for reproductive rights. Therefore, it is essential to bolster jurisprudence affirming women’s civil rights to make their own childbearing choices, and to pass laws such as the Freedom of Choice Act….
The latter seems like a long haul, when even a liberal state like New York just failed to pass an increasingly rare pro-abortion bill, and, as Feldt noted, Obama bailed on FOCA.
Another solution suggested by Robin and Jessica is to borrow from a surprising pro-life page:
According to… Feldt… what is needed is a strong, energetic core, not unlike a feminist version of the “personhood movement” that has been popping up in a variety of states. “Just as the personhood efforts are not coming from the mainstream anti-chice groups,” she says, “I’d love to see a band of feisty young feminists out there leading the charge on this, saying, ‘Excuse me, we are persons and we want our personhood guaranteed.'”
The problem, there, of course, is the abortion movement claimed these “feisty young feminists” weren’t persons before they were persons and killed a huge chunk of them off.
On Robin and Jessica’s “to do” list:
- Repeal the Hyde Amendment, which bans government funding of most Medicaid abortions
- Increase the number of abortion providers by ensuring all med students have abortion training and allowing nondoctors to commit abortions
- Make contraception “easily accessible and affordable,” which they think Obamacare goes a long way toward ensuring (although they’re leery of all the lawsuits)
- Toss pro-life Democrat politicians from the tent
- Elect more pro-abortion women
- Get more liberal judges appointed to the courts
Those are all proactive steps. “However,” they write, “the most immediate step is to stop anti-abortion and anti-contraception bills from becoming law in the first place.”
To that end the authors think a spark was lit in Virginia last year when abortion advocates rallied against an ultrasound bill:
[I]f there is a silver lining to the anti-contraception, anti-abortion, anti-women laws that have been passed or enforced since 2010, it is that they have created the beginnings of a powerful activist backlash.
Despite the Virginia bill’s eventual passage, “[t]he fight over the bill… took its toll,” they write, saying support for ultrasound legislation and pro-life politicians in that state dropped.
Robin and Jessica maintain that even if a bill passes, vocal opposition can weaken it, which may also serve a dual purpose of “fracturing… anti-choice community” support.
Nevertheless, the authors admit their first order of business is to stop our onslaught. (Coincidentally, the Washington Times reported today that only midway through 2013 we have already tied the second-highest number of pro-life bills passed in a year, which was only last year, and 2011 holds the record.)
In other words, they can never get to their “to do” list while playing defense. As I wrote the other day, abortion proponents now find themselves racing from brushfire to brushfire, many of which they are unable to put out. They think pro-lifers have galvanized them; I hearken back to Proverbs 24:16, i.e., it won’t last.
Is it anti-life for me to admit I smell blood in the water – and like it?
I do recommend reading Crow After Roe as good recognizance.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
First, whoa whoa whoa there bessy. A *feminist* version of the personhood movement? I’m pretty sure the “feisty young feminists” she’s looking for exist…. they’re just pro-life. See, they’re just saying “Excuse me, *our babies* are persons and we want *their* personhood guaranteed.” Hate to break it to her, but many (not all) pro-lifers are more feminist than those on the abortion side. We want to spare women the trauma of choosing an abortion. We want all women to have options – just not the option to, y’know, take her baby’s life. But since when is that a viable option for any member of the human race? Answer: It’s not. And I can speak for a lot of my generation in saying that we’re a little tired of the old school “feminism” that lies to us and says we can “have it all.” No one can. I’d love to see more women doing great things. But the old version of feminism is antiquated and frankly, has become hijacked by the pro-abortion group. If they’re so worried about women, let’s fix the economy first. Let’s get employers and insurance companies to offer better maternity options (the current ones suck). How bout that?
And another thing, I’m a little encourage to see the level of panic on their side, though I do take it with a grain of salt. Having worked for multiple interest group type settings, it is a common ploy to hype up the threat. It’s a motivating factor. If they presented it as “Oh, we’re doing okay. But if we can just push a *liiiiiiiittle* harder, all will be well,” it wouldn’t motivate their people.
But how telling is it that what they’re after now isn’t the right for a woman to have an abortion in the hard cases, but to have them all the time, for any reason, at any gestational age? The good news is that we’ve forced them to start showing their true colors – and it ain’t pretty. :D
Oh, and if they were really feminist, why don’t we start looking out for little girls who are raped and repeatedly dragged into the abortion clinic? Let’s change that. Let’s stop litttle girls from being raped and be attentive and supportive and ask questions and go after the sick pervs, not just offer the little girl more trauma and send her back to the arms of her attacker.
http://feministing.com/2013/07/09/chile-wont-let-pregnant-11-year-old-raped-by-her-mothers-boyfriend-have-an-abortion/
And let’s not freak women out about pregnancy. Yes, it’s hard. Taking care of a baby is hard. But we’re women, yo! We should be told by the so-called feminists that we can totally handle this baby thing. We need community, and support, yeah, but we can handle it. I’m tired of pro-aborts saying crap like “OH, you didn’t plan that baby. WELP looks like you can’t possibly handle any disruption in your life, you can’t learn to cope with unexpected life changes, so let’s just get you a quick and easy abortion….” (Which is a lie).
Sigh. Sorry. I forgot how much this stuff just pisses me off.
nothing about supporting single mothers and getting them out of poverty
nothing about holding accountable those who KILL WOMEN in ABORTION (and yes, WOMEN DO DIE in abortion – Christin Gilbert, Jennifer in Maryland(forget her last name) and many others. Though I doubt pro aborts consider Christin a “victim” because of her disability
Nothing about clean facilities
So, basically its more of the same: MORE abortion. More Abortion. More Abortion. Nothing about ELIMINATING the causes for abortion!
Re: #4 on Robin and Jessica’s to-do list; “Toss pro-life Democrat politicians from the tent”. Thought they’d pretty much already done that. My grandma must be rolling over in her grave. She was a staunch Democrat, and an even more staunch pro-lifer. I could totally be a New Deal Democrat like Grandma, but now they’ve made it plain that there’s no place for people like us. Not comfortable with the Repubs anymore either. Last two elections I’ve left the box for president blank because I couldn’t vote for either candidate. It’s getting to be a habit. (Before anybody lectures me about my vote or lack of it possibly being the one that changed the game, there is less than zero chance of my state’s puny amount of electoral votes going anything but Republican).
I know the following wasn’t meant to be funny, and, indeed, is quite sad – but my morbid sense of humour got the better of me.
“The problem, there, of course, is the abortion movement claimed these “feisty young feminists” weren’t persons before they were persons and killed a huge chunk of them off.”
There is one other problem with a bunch of feisty young feminists demanding that their personhood be guaranteed: it already is! D’oh!
Born women are already considered persons.
Liz, Liberty, amen! You tell em sistahs!
I hate that she doesn’t even acknowledge that the prolfie movement is primarily a movement BY women and OF women. It wasn’t what abortion does to babies that first made an activist out of me; it was the systematic and pervasive betrayal of women. Only that was enough to make me realize that women by and large do not WANT their babies killed but feel trapped.
Also why do they keep beating the contraception drum when it’s been shown to be a failure as a public health measure to reduce abortions?
And Liz nailed it: Everything the prochoice movement proposes is abortion, abortion, abortion. NOTHING about helping women address their real needs. Just vacuum them out like rental cars and pass them along to the next man.
A few months ago I saw a documentary film about Simon Wiesenthal (Freedom Is Not a Gift from Heaven). One of the most deeply disturbing scenes shows him in a historical building with a group of high school students. He explains that this is the very room where a group of highly educated intellectuals, the elite within the German government at that time, began the planning process for the “final solution”. Deciding who “deserved” to live or die, who was to be considered human or non-human, was merely a matter of expedient social-political policy for the people in that room.
This is what is so disturbing about the “pro-choice” movement: the god-like power its members claim belongs to them– disguised as a thirst for individual freedom– to decide who deserves to live and die, who deserves to be considered alive or not, who deserves to be viewed as human or not.
Yeah, like that allegedly pro-life turned pro choice chick on the other thread. When they came for the unborn, I didn’t care because I was already born. How many of these folks are useful idiots who go along because they aren’t being targeted, yet? They are just carrying the snake across the water to their own village.
Just vacuum them out like rental cars and pass them along to the next man.
Yup,
Creepy Leroy’s Abortion Clinic
You rape ’em. We scrape ’em.
“Increase the number of abortion providers by ensuring all med students have abortion training and allowing nondoctors to commit abortions”
Nothing like pushing for safe and legal abortion and ensuring women’s health by advocating for non doctors to perform a “medical procedure”.