Weekend Q: Is the secret pro-life agenda really to control women?
Perhaps this charge has been around forever and I’m only now noticing it a lot lately:
"Increasingly, anti-choicers are dropping the pretense that they’re motivated by ‘life’ and admitting…" http://t.co/6p2QcorwNQ
— RH Reality Check (@rhrealitycheck) February 1, 2014
A lame Shreveport Times editorial yesterday, which appears to have been written by a 22-year-old new college grad with a cliché-filled brain, added this argument to many others it threw against the wall:
Pretty soon you start to wonder if their opposition to abortion is less about “protecting life” and more about controlling women.
What do you think? Is the secret motive of pro-lifers not really about saving the lives of babies and mothers but about “controlling women”?
Feb.01, 2014 7:43 am |
Weekend question |
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.
All the work I do to prevent unborn children from being dismembered alive is clearly based on hatred of my own gender.
These people are truly deluded.
About the “washer woman” illustration…In the days before modern conveniences women like this (and men of labor) made the world go ’round. Our present day society is built on their shoulders. They are to be remembered and respected. Was this illustration chosen to represent the idea of ‘controlling women’? I find that perplexing.
I am pro-life because I am a human being and I have an innate desire to protect my own kind. We must do everything in our power to minimize the destruction of human life. We must work to avoid war, outlaw the death penalty, and protect our lives from the moment of conception to the point of natural death. All of these issues involve complications leading to monumental challenges. It isn’t easy but it IS simple when you think about it. Human life is precious and should never be knowingly ended for unworthy reasons. Would any of us want our life to be taken from us because someone else decided we were inconvenient or standing in the way of their own self promotion? Of course not!
There is something to be said for a little physical work occasionally (for both genders!). I should probably handwash/hang clothes; the only thing that’s thin on me anymore is my fingers from typing!
Maybe it’s really the secret prolife agenda that caused many of the men to have to push mow the yard too! However, maybe the real prolife agenda isn’t about controlling men or women at all; maybe it’s about keeping them in shape and I need to get on board!
Or it could be that prolifers just really hate the fact that innocent humans are being slaughtered.
I still truly cannot understand why a pro-abortion person can’t comprehend that we find humans in utero worthy of life, even if they disagree, without strawmanning or villainizing. I have never heard one person simply concede the difference. They simply see the motivation for our conclusion through the eyes of their own reasoning.
Who ever wanted to control women? We want to save children’s lives, and help women to avoid the risks and trauma and aftermath of abortion. Not to mention the environment of abuse and coercion and manipulation that legal abortion creates.
It is the abortion industry who seeks to control women. They profit from exploiting desperate women, and they work toward increasing the number of teen pregnancies. They, and the men who rely on abortion as a quick dodge of their responsibilities. Those are the controllers.
And seriously…. Do you think it is possible that Amanda Marcotte could apprehend anything before you do? She wears blinders!
Final notice, pro-aborts:
I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR SEX LIFE NOR YOUR SPHERES OF INFLUENCE IN OR OUTSIDE OF THE HOME. You do what you need to do. I am so uninterested. You make your choice, you make your consequence. HAVE AT.
You never need to kill your own child in order to have social justice. See the irony, perhaps?
I’ve always thought this accusation was too stupid to deserve a response, so that is all I’ll say on this matter.
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/500x/45509066.jpg
Amanda Marcotte’s been asserting that for years. No surprise. I’ve sparred with her online; she is a complete dingbat.
They are all missing the forest for the trees, of course. If it wasn’t for our concern for life, marriage, and family “controlling” men, we would have utter chaos. Just look at the inner cities for proof.
God only knows what lurks in the hearts of people… but in viewing the evidence, I cannot reconcile a desire for control over females with the compassionate outreach that I see in the people I know who fight tirelessly to save mothers and their pre-born children. They invest in what becomes lifelong relationships but, as relationships are real, it means lifelong work to understand and support and share in tears.
If you think about it, if the goal were to control women, it would be much easier if they don’t have offspring who they’re concerned with. It doesn’t matter if a mother parents her children or sacrifices her own parenting experience for an adoptive family to fill that role – either way she’s now a “mama bear” who will have loyalties and passions that can’t be easily manipulated by third parties. Deny her the mama bear identity and it’s a different ballgame.
If they allow themselves to imagine, even for a moment, that our concern is for the human beings’ very lives (love them both), the resulting cracks in their narrative will blow their minds wide open.
GAH! NO.
I mean, we never ever say that women who don’t want to/can’t keep their babies have to raise them.
All we’re saying is, either don’t get pregnant and if you do and just can’t keep the resulting child, for goodness’ sake don’t kill it!! We’re saying that killing innocent parties is not an appropriate response to problems.
How is that so hard to understand!?
I thought the pro-choice movement was about controlling women. My bad. :-P
Sometimes men leave because the WOMAN is too controlling, a problem that can affect the inner cities too. Also, I’d certainly call killing a (very) young woman in the womb quite controlling.
Mutilation, murdering and throwing an unborn, innocent child like garbage into a medical waste container is NOT controlling. No, not controlling one bit. This president and his administration taking my hard earned tax dollars to pay for abortions which is against my religious beliefs and moral conscience and telling me to shut up about it is NOT controlling either. (You have got to be kidding me!!)
The picture of the woman and the washboard.
This is how my widowed great grandmother survived after her husband committed suicide and left her with 5 surviving children. She had lost 4 but was fortunate that 5 still lived. She farmed out some of the kids–more like indentured servitude–and struggled to survive on 50 cents/day as a domestic. She would lose yet another child in early adulthood to breast cancer.
She was lucky though. Four survived to adulthood and two of those died of old age.
I’ve been noticing (for decades) the increasing efforts of the pro-aborts to control the lives, careers and finances of women and pro-lifers.
Pro-life health care professionals are marginalized in a majority of workplace settings, or fired.
Tax payers and employers are being forced to pay for abortion/birthcontrol/sterilization.
Women are being funneled towards abortion by the false marketing of birth control that doesn’t work (morning after pills), or that is less effective than advertized (almost all of the rest of them).
Any time we support rape exceptions it makes it look exactly like we are more concerned about women’s sexuality than the babies. “If it wasn’t your fault then you can still have an abortion, but if it was your fault, well then, you can’t have an abortion.”
There should be no exceptions!
I sure don’t think there is any “secret agenda,” that way.
Some ‘pro-lifers’ do have a strong streak of wanting to control women. Anybody remember “Zeke,” i.e. poster name ‘Ezekiel…’ (there were some numbers there)?
From what I see now, this forum doesn’t have anybody really like that.
Yes. I do care about control. I want women to control their own sexuality. I also want MEN to control THEIR sexuality.
Humans are so much more than our basic urges, and when we subordinate those urges to our larger goals and sense of ethics and morality, society is much better off. We are always better off as people and as societies when our thinking happens above the waist. Society and individuals never benefit when we try to sidestep the natural consequences of our actions.
HOWEVER, that has nothing to do with gender roles, and only pertains to abortion in that unintended pregnancies are almost always the results of someone (either the man or the woman) not exercising self control. And no one really benefits from trying to escape the natural consequence.
As for the woman in the picture, she looks like someone who has earned respect. And whatever we like to say about gender roles, SOMEONE has to get the laundry done. I fail to see what is degrading about doing work that must happen–whether it’s cooking and cleaning, child rearing, construction work, plumbing, or garbage collection.
Some people don’t classify laundry as “work that must happen”…. remember those stinky occupoopers?
Hi Pharmer,
Let’s not forget the “rape tents” where women had to go to for protection during the occupy events. Real classy crowd.
Hi Dorothy LaBarbera! I chose the washboard photo because it popped up when I googled “enslaving women.” I think it portrays in a different way how Leftists say we want to keep women barefoot and pregnant. They view home-work as enslavement.
Navi, good one! Tweeting and FBing!
Was that ‘rape tents’ or ‘safe tents’, Mary ?? It certainly wasn’t healthy for the underage girls to be around the occupoopers.
Hi Pharmer,
I heard them called both, but you have a good point, safe tents definitely sounds better!
I think there are only a few who knowingly and intentionally wish to control women.
Of course there are a significant number who tell us that “womens roles” and “mens roles” are equally important and valuable. But it just so happens that an outcome of this is that the women fulfilling those roles find themselves being a bit subservient to men.
While there may not be either a covert or overt intent to control women for a lot of folk, it can be an intrinsic part of the mindset of those who yearn for what they keep telling us are ‘traditional values’ which will save us from ourselves.
“But it just so happens that an outcome of this is that the women fulfilling those roles find themselves being a bit subservient to men.”
I didn’t consider myself subservient when I was a stay at home parent, and I’m a man. I also did all the housework and most of the childcare even when I worked while I was still married. It isn’t the roles that are inherently imbalanced, it’s how people treat them. Me staying at home and doing the “traditional woman’s role” wasn’t me being subservient at all, the way my wife treated me was the issue. I think all necessary roles are equally important and none is more “subservient” than others, it’s the way people act that muck them up. But of course I don’t think any role is inherently “women’s” or “men’s” so there’s that.
But my answer to this question is of course not. I have zero interest in controlling people’s lives. My only concern is protecting unborn babies from being legally killed. I might have personal opinions on other things I think are inappropriate, but I wouldn’t try to enforce them at all. It’s about the babies, not about stopping women from doing anything.
I’ve done pro-life work for 10 years and I’ve never heard anyone make a reference to some desire to control women as their motive for trying to reduce the number of abortions. It’s not only out-of-touch to make such a claim, it’s less than honest. The fact that they use false accusations and use mud-slinging tactics is evidence that they don’t have a justification for this enormous human rights issue where over 1 million human beings are aborted each year so that for every 4 babies born, 1 is aborted and about 45% of women getting an abortion on an avg day have had 1 or more previous abortions. Sadly and ironically, it undermines their dignity as women to reduce themselves to such insults.
You expect them to admit they wish to control women Chris?
Hi Reality, it’s the other Chris. Yes, we sit around at the pro-life office all day scheming ways to control the women. Fortunately we have so many women managers at the office they have special insight into abusing their fellow women. Whenever we watch the Silent Scream, we never think about that poor child being torn apart, body part by body part, we actually just lament that another woman is out there enjoying sex and not in a nunnery, or something…
Well if there are “some” or “a few” or “a couple” of prolifers who WANT to control women and have STATED and ADMITTED they want to control women’s sexuality it shouldn’t be too hard to find them and link to them and quote them WORD FOR WORD.
It shouldn’t be that difficult to seek them and question them and interview them and then like, you know……report your findings!!
Or are we supposed to do your homework for you Amanda??
Whatever happened to journalistic integrity??!!
LOL I crack myself up!!
Well, ‘the other Chris’, I have a nagging suspicion you might just be feeding me porkies. I don’t believe that you do sit around scheming ways to control the women (although it’s interesting that you say ‘control the women’).
In my earlier comment I said that I think there are only a few who knowingly and intentionally wish to control women. Later I said You expect them to admit they wish to control women?
So if you want to convince me that you do scheme then I’ll need some evidence ;-)
How do you know that a few want to control women if they don’t admit it? Lol. Who are you talking about?
What do you think the driving force is behind my pro-life activism? Alexandra’s? Lrning’s? Carla’s? We are all quite different people with wildly different political and religious views, but what is the one thing we all have in common? It certainly isn’t a wish to return to traditional gender roles, that viewpoint Isn’t common to all pro-lifers.
LOL, you’ve seen a few who sail close to the wind Jack. And from time to time they pop up in the media.
It certainly isn’t a wish to return to traditional gender roles – no, you and the others you mention don’t display any great urge to go all 19th century. The amusing part is that when people do speak of ‘traditional roles’ they are never willing to clearly enunciate which version or time of ‘tradition’ they mean.
that viewpoint Isn’t common to all pro-lifers – which is what I said.
“LOL, you’ve seen a few who sail close to the wind Jack. And from time to time they pop up in the media”
Lol well I certainly won’t deny that our side has a couple crazies, you know that. ALL movements have their crazies and whackos and people who co-opt good ideas for abusive ideologies. The animal rights movement is famous for this, I can’t even relate to half those people. I believe in protecting animals but the movement went so far off the deep end that there are those who seem to want human genocide, lol. But it doesn’t negate how important treating animals well is, no more than the couple crazies in the pro-life movement negates how important it is to protect babies.
“It certainly isn’t a wish to return to traditional gender roles – no, you and the others you mention don’t display any great urge to go all 19th century. The amusing part is that when people do speak of ‘traditional roles’ they are never willing to clearly enunciate which version or time of ‘tradition’ they mean.”
I’ll be a little controversial (dare I say it, a little conservative?) here and blame some of the extreme “we want the gender roles back!” on people who have degraded the “subservient” roles so much. Have you seen or talked to the more extremist element of the equality movements who think that wanting to be a homemaker or a housewife is anti-feminist in itself? Those people make me about as angry as those who act like the fifties were all idyllic and had no issues. I don’t see how it’s “feminist” to take the sphere that women have generally done a great job in, even when it was forced on them, like being the homemaker, doing childcare, elementary school teaching, nursing, etc. It just seems like there’s an element of the equality movements that genuinely look down on these type of more traditionally “feminine” occupations and roles, and I don’t think that’s anymore okay than forcing them on people. And it’s sexist in itself! Why should something so associated with women like childcare be degraded? Even men who choose childcare, nursing, and such are degraded because of this association as “women’s work” or not prestigious jobs/roles. Not every woman wants to have a career as a CEO or get a Ph.D, and that’s perfectly okay as long as that’s her choice (same for dudes, some people are ridiculously rude to stay at home dads, I got asked a lot if I were just lazy to let my wife support me, as well as that condescending “oh how often do you babysit your kids?”).
But anyway, I digress. My point was I think some of the push for more “traditional roles” is a reaction to this degradation of these necessary and just as important jobs and roles that have traditionally been done by women. Who’s more important, the breadwinner or homemaker? I don’t think that question can even be answered because they are both necessary (in a one income household at least). I think it’s great that no woman has to get married to have a prayer of supporting herself, but I also think it’s a shame that motherhood (parenting in general), homemaking, nursing, elementary education, and other traditionally female dominated occupations and roles are degraded so much, and it’s not right wingers who are the only ones doing it a lot of time.
“that viewpoint Isn’t common to all pro-lifers – which is what I said.”
No, that’s not what I was getting at. I know you know we all aren’t for the traditional stuff, you at least know that I have about less than zero interest in returning to the fifties. I was asking you what you think drives our pro-life work, why we choose this movement to devote so much time to, what’s the common thing in all of our viewpoints, even as they differ pretty drastically in other ways.
people who co-opt good ideas for abusive ideologies…..the movement went so far off the deep end – hm, sounds familiar ;-)
I don’t consider ‘homemaker’ or ‘housewife’ to be subservient roles in and of themselves. The problem is when some peoples thinking does align them thus.
It just seems like there’s an element of the equality movements that genuinely look down on these type of more traditionally “feminine” occupations and roles – I see many ‘traditionalists’ who look down on men who undertake such roles.
Who’s more important, the breadwinner or homemaker? – they are both equally important. The participants themselves don’t always see it that way however.
I was asking you what you think drives our pro-life work, why we choose this movement to devote so much time to, what’s the common thing in all of our viewpoints, even as they differ pretty drastically in other ways. – you don’t really think I’m touching that do you.
“people who co-opt good ideas for abusive ideologies…..the movement went so far off the deep end – hm, sounds familiar ”
Lol. The pro-life movement has not gone off the deep end. There are a few pro-lifers who are off the deep end themselves, but for the most part the movement is still solid. We’re making progress in our goals, and as organizations such as PLAGAL and Secular Pro-life gain more respectability we’re becoming more inclusive (it’s certainly a lot better than I remember even five years or so ago). We’re doing great!
“I don’t consider ‘homemaker’ or ‘housewife’ to be subservient roles in and of themselves. The problem is when some peoples thinking does align them thus.”
Well yeah, that’s kinda my point. The roles themselves are necessary and honestly what is more important than parenting your children (for either gender, and whether you work out of the home or not)? Not much. Stable families and good parents are probably the most important thing for a stable society. I have mad respect for good mothers and fathers, just as much as I have for a doctor or lawyer or anything. The roles themselves are not bad. It’s how people degrade them or treat the people who do them. And this degradation isn’t exclusive to or inherent in the pro-life movement or with conservatives, both sides of the spectrum have their issues with them.
“It just seems like there’s an element of the equality movements that genuinely look down on these type of more traditionally “feminine” occupations and roles – I see many ‘traditionalists’ who look down on men who undertake such roles.”
I do agree with that, actually. The degrading of men who do “female” roles is almost completely on the right wing side. They tend to see us as lazy or feminine or less of a man. Feminists tend to LOVE men who take traditional female roles, lol, because it leaves the woman in the relationship free to pursue career interests. Which is fine if that works for the couple. I don’t think you can tell me honestly you’ve never seen the leftists look down on women choosing to be homemakers, though. I’ve seen it plenty of times, they seem to see it as a slight against feminism. Which is dumb, because feminism was supposed to be about giving women choices and if more women than men choose to stay at home after having their children I see nothing wrong with that as long as that’s what works for their family. I actually wish it were possible for all families to have a stay at home parent (gender doesn’t matter to me, parenting ability does), because it really is healthier for the kids by many metrics.
“Who’s more important, the breadwinner or homemaker? – they are both equally important. The participants themselves don’t always see it that way however.”
Lol it’s true. After my son was born my wife was the stay at home while I worked, and apparently that was much more difficult and respectable than working. But when our roles switched and I was the stay at home, suddenly the breadwinnning role was more important and in need of adulation. Haha. But really, all things being equal I don’t see either as more important. A family needs both financial support and someone to care for the children and the home, if one parent can stay home to provide these things that’s great and just as important as making money.
“I was asking you what you think drives our pro-life work, why we choose this movement to devote so much time to, what’s the common thing in all of our viewpoints, even as they differ pretty drastically in other ways. – you don’t really think I’m touching that do you. ”
Lol why not? The thread is about what pro-choicers suspect pro-lifers are secretly after. Why do you think I am pro-life? Do you think I secretly hate women and want to knock them up and keep them in the kitchen? Do you think I resent women’s lib and want to force the ladies out of the workplace? Do you think I can’t stand the thought of women enjoying themselves sexually so I want them “punished with a baby”? Or do you think I think that human fetuses are children just like my born babies are and deserve legal protection from being arbitrarily killed? What do you think my motives actually are?
(I’m making it personal because I think it’s really easy for pro-choicers to speak about the pro-life movement in general and forget it’s made up of just normal people who have different reasons for believing in protecting fetuses. It’s easy to act like we’re after some weird control thing when it’s in generalities, but if you’re talking to a person you’ve talked to a lot who you know isn’t like pure evil it’s harder to dismiss them).
Too many words Jack, one of my eyeballs fell over!
Parts of the anti-choice movement are also anti-contraception – and not just the ones they deem ‘abort’ the product of conception. I don’t think I need to explain the differing extents of opposition against the choices others make some of them then agitate about.
I agree with most of what you have expressed in your next three paragraphs. Disagreement would merely be about nuance.
Lol why not? The thread is about what pro-choicers suspect pro-lifers are secretly after. – and I’ve made my comments on that.
Why do you think I am pro-life? – because you haven’t finished thinking about it.
Do you think I secretly hate women and want to knock them up and keep them in the kitchen? – nope, not you. I think you wouldn’t mind if you yourself got ‘knocked up’, honorably; but you wouldn’t want to feel forced into the kitchen.
Do you think I resent women’s lib and want to force the ladies out of the workplace? – the evidence would indicate the opposite.
Do you think I can’t stand the thought of women enjoying themselves sexually so I want them “punished with a baby”? – (shakes head)
Or do you think I think that human fetuses are children just like my born babies are and deserve legal protection from being arbitrarily killed? – yep.
What do you think my motives actually are? – short-sighted.
Yeah dude, you’re like…. so…not, like, pure evil ;-)
Lol wouldn’t you miss my long-winded ramblings if I stopped commenting. :)
“Parts of the anti-choice movement are also anti-contraception – and not just the ones they deem ‘abort’ the product of conception. I don’t think I need to explain the differing extents of opposition against the choices others make some of them then agitate about.”
Well yeah, some pro-lifers are anti-contraception or other things that don’t involve aborting a baby (homosexuality is a big one, promiscuity is another, basically anything that isn’t a heterosexual couple married for life). I can’t say I think a lot of things regarding how our culture views sex is particularly healthy myself. But pretty much none of us are trying to legislate that. Have you really seen people do something than argue against such things and not want to fund them with tax dollars or their own money? I know you’re pro-HHS mandate, but I hope you aren’t equating being against that with wanting contraception to be illegal or unavailable, because most of the anti-contraception pro-lifers aren’t gunning for that. On the legality side it’s about actual abortions, and that’s the most important thing to all of us.
“Why do you think I am pro-life? – because you haven’t finished thinking about it. ”
Lol both you and Megan seem to think this about me, except I think she more thinks it’s some mental damage on my part rather than just haven’t thought s things through. I have thought about it, and I simply cannot and will never be able to justify a child’s death for their parent’s wants. It’s completely antithetical to how I value children, I see them as more important than adult to be perfectly honest (though of course I believe adults deserve to have their lives protected too), and I will never be okay with tiny humans being killed unless it’s unavoidable. I think it’s every adult’s job to protect all children to the best of our ability, and abortion is completely against everything I fight for in that regard.
“Do you think I secretly hate women and want to knock them up and keep them in the kitchen? – nope, not you. I think you wouldn’t mind if you yourself got ‘knocked up’, honorably; but you wouldn’t want to feel forced into the kitchen.”
Lulz I laughed out loud at this just so you know. It was a funny mental image. If there’s ever some medical technique where men can carry babies, I would totally carry someone’s baby if they were going to abort it and it was the only way I could save that baby. I hope you believe that! I really am sincere in my views even if you think I’m shortsighted. Unborn babies are just as important as born babies.
I still think I would have made a great fifties housewife hahaha.
Lol wouldn’t you miss my long-winded ramblings if I stopped commenting. :) – they are rarely long-winded rantings. Sometimes they’re just long.
The anti-obamacare folk do tend to overlap a bit with anti-contraceptionists, anti-gay people etc.
I don’t think your stance is due to mental damage. I just think that for whatever reason you have an excessive consideration of fetuses.
I would totally carry someone’s baby if they were going to abort it and it was the only way I could save that baby. I hope you believe that! – I do believe that, totally :-)
I really am sincere in my views even if you think I’m shortsighted. Unborn babies are just as important as born babies. – the application of the term babies to fetuses is subjective and emotive. The word fetus exists for a reason. As does infant, adolescent, adult. The term ‘baby’ gets used in all manner of ways at all stages of life. To me, a fetus is a fetus and the born start out as infants.
I still think I would have made a great fifties housewife hahaha. – hang on, I’ll drag out my old treadle machine and run up an apron for you ;-)