On why the rabbits are not happy today.
Yesterday Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed outside his Church in Wichita, Kansas. This is old news to everyone in the US by now, but not everyone outside the US might be aware of what a terrible tragedy this is.
Dr. Tiller provided late-term abortions -- one of only three doctors in the entire US to do so. To quote the Salon article which sums this up perfectly:
Anti-choice activists often cast late-term abortions as the murder of a viable baby at the whim of a woman who doesn't wish to be inconvenienced, carried out by a doctor who looks at her and sees only cartoon dollar signs. They're egged on by relatively mainstream figures like Bill O'Reilly, who declared that Dr. Tiller "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000." Such misinformation and outright lies about procedures that are in fact rare and only performed when medically necessary are what led anti-choice activists to call Tiller "America's Doctor of Death," and accuse him of running a "murder mill."
The reality is that late-term abortions are terrifying, difficult, desperate things which only women who feel they have no other choice undertake. They are responses to the devastating information that a wanted baby has some terrible deformity which will mean its death within days of birth, anyway; they are a desperate action to save the life of the mother, when even a Ceasarian is too risky; they are a last resort for young victims of rape or incest who wait too long to get any other form of abortion, because they are afraid or confused. They are never done "on a whim" the way the anti-choice crowd love to characterise it -- they should live through something so painful.
But the simple fact is, Dr. Tiller wasn't "just" an abortion provider. He cared about the lives of women; about the lives of real, living women in the here-and-now. He stood up to the people who devalue women's lives by declaring them less important than the potential lives they carry.
It is almost coincidental that today is the start of the Silence Is The Enemy campaign, to speak out against the ongoing mass rape of women in wartorn countries.
I do not hesitate to call myself a feminist, especially when things like this are happening in the world. I happen to believe that every person has the right to her - or his - own body; and that no-one's sense of sexual entitlement or arbitrary "moral" code extends to any right to control someone else's body. The standard anti-choice rebuttal to this is that I am saying that women should have the ultimate, life-or-death control over the innocent life in their womb; and you know what? Yes, in this case, yes. That is by far the lesser of two evils, in the all-too-frequent situations where there is no good. For many, many reasons, all of which are based in simple physical reality, I consider the woman's life more important than the fetus that she might be carrying, whether or not you choose to call that fetus a "pre-born baby." Her life is undeniably real, to anyone, by any standard; she is autonomous, conscious, and capable of perception and suffering. That "pre-born baby"? If it is a standard abortion, then it is done before any possibility of consciousness or perception, just on the simple physical basis of what physiological systems exist and where they are in their stage of development, at a point where I and many, many others would not even be able to assign it personhood. And if it is a late-term abortion such as Dr. Tiller provided, then things are already so dire that this "life" holds no real, feasible hope of continuance. Saying that it is right to make the real, living, conscious woman suffer for the benefit of a fairytale -- that is inexcusable.
And the idea that violence continues against women simply because it can, is simply unconscionable.
But what makes me despair, what makes me so angry right now, is the sheer level of hatred, selfishness, and self-righteous, self-congratulating entitlement -- oh, and did I mention hatefulness? -- which has appeared in the comments online all over America's media coverage. When that level of sheer shitheaded nastiness smacks me in the face, I lose all faith in humanity as a worthwhile endeavor, all over again.
For a long time now, my faith in any higher power has waxed and waned; but this makes me frankly long for certainty that there is a God, and that this God were dedicated to justice. Because then the people who celebrate this vileness would have a chance to live through the terror and pain of having choices taken away from them. Maybe, just maybe, they might learn something.
But that is not something that I, as a moral person, really ought to wish on anyone. Although it's hard not to. Very hard.
Update:
What ursulav says, too.
Update 2:
And what pope_guilty says as well, very much so.
This short piece is also worth a look.
Dr. Tiller provided late-term abortions -- one of only three doctors in the entire US to do so. To quote the Salon article which sums this up perfectly:
Anti-choice activists often cast late-term abortions as the murder of a viable baby at the whim of a woman who doesn't wish to be inconvenienced, carried out by a doctor who looks at her and sees only cartoon dollar signs. They're egged on by relatively mainstream figures like Bill O'Reilly, who declared that Dr. Tiller "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000." Such misinformation and outright lies about procedures that are in fact rare and only performed when medically necessary are what led anti-choice activists to call Tiller "America's Doctor of Death," and accuse him of running a "murder mill."
The reality is that late-term abortions are terrifying, difficult, desperate things which only women who feel they have no other choice undertake. They are responses to the devastating information that a wanted baby has some terrible deformity which will mean its death within days of birth, anyway; they are a desperate action to save the life of the mother, when even a Ceasarian is too risky; they are a last resort for young victims of rape or incest who wait too long to get any other form of abortion, because they are afraid or confused. They are never done "on a whim" the way the anti-choice crowd love to characterise it -- they should live through something so painful.
But the simple fact is, Dr. Tiller wasn't "just" an abortion provider. He cared about the lives of women; about the lives of real, living women in the here-and-now. He stood up to the people who devalue women's lives by declaring them less important than the potential lives they carry.
It is almost coincidental that today is the start of the Silence Is The Enemy campaign, to speak out against the ongoing mass rape of women in wartorn countries.
I do not hesitate to call myself a feminist, especially when things like this are happening in the world. I happen to believe that every person has the right to her - or his - own body; and that no-one's sense of sexual entitlement or arbitrary "moral" code extends to any right to control someone else's body. The standard anti-choice rebuttal to this is that I am saying that women should have the ultimate, life-or-death control over the innocent life in their womb; and you know what? Yes, in this case, yes. That is by far the lesser of two evils, in the all-too-frequent situations where there is no good. For many, many reasons, all of which are based in simple physical reality, I consider the woman's life more important than the fetus that she might be carrying, whether or not you choose to call that fetus a "pre-born baby." Her life is undeniably real, to anyone, by any standard; she is autonomous, conscious, and capable of perception and suffering. That "pre-born baby"? If it is a standard abortion, then it is done before any possibility of consciousness or perception, just on the simple physical basis of what physiological systems exist and where they are in their stage of development, at a point where I and many, many others would not even be able to assign it personhood. And if it is a late-term abortion such as Dr. Tiller provided, then things are already so dire that this "life" holds no real, feasible hope of continuance. Saying that it is right to make the real, living, conscious woman suffer for the benefit of a fairytale -- that is inexcusable.
And the idea that violence continues against women simply because it can, is simply unconscionable.
But what makes me despair, what makes me so angry right now, is the sheer level of hatred, selfishness, and self-righteous, self-congratulating entitlement -- oh, and did I mention hatefulness? -- which has appeared in the comments online all over America's media coverage. When that level of sheer shitheaded nastiness smacks me in the face, I lose all faith in humanity as a worthwhile endeavor, all over again.
For a long time now, my faith in any higher power has waxed and waned; but this makes me frankly long for certainty that there is a God, and that this God were dedicated to justice. Because then the people who celebrate this vileness would have a chance to live through the terror and pain of having choices taken away from them. Maybe, just maybe, they might learn something.
But that is not something that I, as a moral person, really ought to wish on anyone. Although it's hard not to. Very hard.
Update:
What ursulav says, too.
Update 2:
And what pope_guilty says as well, very much so.
This short piece is also worth a look.