Redefining & Reclaiming "Pro-Life"
Last week, Texas Governor candidate Wendy Davis redefined the term "Pro-Life".
“I am pro-life,” she told a University of Texas at Brownsville crowd on Tuesday. “I care about the life of every child: every child that goes to bed hungry, every child that goes to bed without a proper education, every child that goes to bed without being able to be a part of the Texas dream, every woman and man who worry about their children’s future and their ability to provide for that future. I care about life and I have a record of fighting for people above all else.”
“This isn’t about protecting abortion,” Davis explained in the same appearance. “It’s about protecting women. It’s about trusting women to make good decisions for themselves and empowering them with the tools to do that.”
The "true Pro-Lifers" had something to say about it.
"She is the epitome of late-term abortion on demand. She is married to it and she will now do and say anything she can to get as far away from it as possible."
Greg Abbott, her opponent in the Governor's race, also had something to say about her statement.
“It's disingenuous of Sen. Davis to claim she's pro-life following her filibuster in support of late-term abortions and against common-sense medical standards that protect the health and safety of women. Sen. Davis' record on this issue is clear, and the fact that she is running from her position demonstrates how radically outside the mainstream her point of view is,” Abbott spokesman Matt Hirsch said.
Actually, Davis doesn't support late-term abortions on demand.
Davis' campaign says that looking only at late-term abortions, she opposes them except in cases of rape or incest, when the mother's life or health is endangered or if there are severe, irreversible fetal abnormalities......“I'll never run away from making sure that women are safe. I'll never run away from working to make sure that we have adequate health care, adequate choices and protection of very private decision-making for women,” Davis said when asked about the issue Saturday, as she filed the paperwork for the race for governor.
Davis' definition of "Pro-Life" sounds pretty similar to my chosen definition of "Pro-Choice". Speaking objectively, this is a great political strategy to gain votes from moderates and suburban Republican women who were appalled by HB2. (Yes, there were many Republican women in the HB2 hearings this summer fighting against the bill. Many testified that they thought politicians had gone too far.)
What's interesting is that, once again, people have had to reclaim and redefine derogatory terms used against them. Terms like slut, whore, bitch, cougar, etc. were originally meant to shame, but many have taken those words back and redefined them. Someone at the summer HB2 hearings asked me, "Why do all these people and politicians even care what someone does with a pregnancy or their body? How is that their business?" Well, if we go back to the reasons why people use derogatory terms specifically against women, maybe we can figure out why these people "care" so much about what happens in our bedrooms and inside our bodies.
1) Religious Extremism
In case you missed it, most of the opponents of abortion and birth control are religiously based. It's 2013 and people are still disgusted, appalled, and angry at the notion that women might actually enjoy sex even though research shows that a woman's sexual desire is perfectly natural. (Seriously - take a look at those outraged by the fact that women might enjoy sex.) Why do they care if women enjoy sex? Their religion tells them that sex is only allowed in marriage for procreation - period. Many religions, but especially the extreme sects, focus heavily on recruitment & conversion. People in these sects are taught to actively shove their religious beliefs in other people's faces/lives. Even if the other person isn't interested, sect members are encouraged to continue to keep trying until they could possibly wear down the convert. With this unrealistic/rigid belief system and convert mission, people harass, kidnap, assault, and murder anyone who doesn't meet their personal religious convictions and set of morals.
The danger here is that this kind of extremism has proven to fail in the past. Let's take Prohibition and the Volstead Act as an example of religious extremism in politics. Religious leaders tried to legislate personal lives and morals in the name of "saving the family from the sin of alcohol". These leaders did not realize the unintended consequences of the law. Many innocent people died in the crossfire of the goons and criminals that fought over illegal sales of alcohol. Many more innocent people died at the hands of crooked bootleggers and the lobbyists who laced booze with deadly chemicals to either make a quick buck or punish people for simply wanting a drink. In the end, the extremists refused to give in and the moderates won the fight to repeal the Volstead Act.
I am in NO WAY comparing reproductive rights to alcohol consumption. I am comparing the extremism we see today to the extremism of the past. All the Volstead Act did was push the demand underground and make it physically dangerous to seek out a bottle of champagne. The same thing is happening today with reproductive rights. All of these extremists think that by banning access to birth control and abortion, it will eradicate the demand for these services. This is not true at all. These laws are simply moving the activity underground and making it dangerous to simply seek out healthcare. I sincerely hope it doesn't take thirteen years and thousands of dead people for moderate/rational voices to push back against these extremists. History class is in the core curriculum for a reason. We have to learn from the past so that we don't repeat the same mistakes. Legislating personal lives and morals simply does not work. However, religious extremists will keep trying because their God tells them to do so.
2) Pronatalism
Laura Carroll explores the effects of pronatalism in her book The Baby Matrix:
What is this set of beliefs? It’s called “pronatalism,” meaning “pro”-“natal” or “pro-baby.” It’s the idea that parenthood and raising children should be the central focus of every person’s adult life. Pronatalism is a strong social force and includes a collection of beliefs so embedded that they have come to be seen as “true.”
Most people in the world believe many pronatalist myths such as: parenthood is the only way to be "fulfilled", if you don't have children you are selfish/freak/not normal, that marriage is solely for procreation, etc. In the US, adoption is still not preferred to a natural-born child. (Look at the money, physical/emotional pain spent on IVF treatments versus the amount of resources spent revamping the adoption process & foster care). Many adoptive parents and children are still treated differently than those who are "natural-born" parents/children. Couple these powerful myths and bias with religious extremism, and you have an entire population of people that will try to convert you and/or control your sex organs in the name of procreation/parenthood/God.
3) Fear, Ignorance, & Misinformation
I can't tell you how many times I sat next to "Pro-Life" people during the HB2 hearings that could not even tell the difference between Plan B and Mifepristone. Their ignorance was simply staggering. It only takes a quick Google search to weed out the misinformation regarding birth control and abortion that keeps floating around. What's sad, is that some state agencies, including Texas, promote this misinformation and lack of information. (There's also the issue that scientists studying "fetal pain" don't want their research to create abortion bans.) If entire generations of people haven't had comprehensive sex-education and are being fed false information, how can we expect them to know the scientific facts? It's a sad reality, but many are completely ignorant when it comes to the basic processes of their own bodies, birth control, and abortion. This misinformation and fear leads these people to join the religious extremists in the fight against basic healthcare.
Good News!
The good news to all of this is that extremism took a beating is the most recent election cycle. People seeking reproductive rights voted for a more moderate Virginia Governor and moderates all over the nation are voting for moderate mayors. I hope this trend continues. Moderates and rational voices need to make sure they are heard!
I'm glad Davis redefined "Pro-life" because we need to take the word back. As a Secular Humanist, I believe we are all we have on this Earth and it's our social/moral duty to help one another. This means we don't ignore children after they are born and tell their families to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps". If we were in their shoes, wouldn't we want kindness and compassion shown to us? Isn't that something that a certain son of God would do for people in need?