Thoughts on no-win situations and abortion politics...
One of the things that's especially annoying about being involved in abortion access rights, which is obviously a huge topic for me, is that in terms of justifications/nullifications of my viewpoints, it's an absolute no-win situation to state whether I've personally had an abortion or not.
According to the antis screaming and preaching at us:
If I've had one, I'm just trying to justify my own past guilt.
If I haven't, I'm just naive and misguided and know not of what I speak.
Apparently, there are no circumstances under which I could've come to the conclusion that abortion access needs to be protected in which my own experiences are not fatally biasing my perception. *eyeroll* Makes me nuts.
Aside from dealing with the antis and more rabid members of the right, I don't bring up the answer to the implicit question very often because of the temptation to use that self-protectively to one's own benefit and to the detriment of other women. When abortion politics come up in day to day life, there's certainly a pressure to distance oneself from the judgment -- to say "Oh, sure, I fight for that, but I've never done that, or never would" (ie I'm not like them). In a lot of contexts, it further the stigmatization of the women one is contrasting oneself against. I'm not cool with that. So, if people, especially antis, assume I have, I let them continue to assume, and use it as a chance to explore what it's like to be judged like that. If it comes up in more general conversation, and it's relevant, I'll probably talk more specifically about my history, and under what circumstances I think I would or wouldn't decide to have an abortion, but I try really hard not to get dragged into the "special case" defense that passively argues that my reasons are "better" than any other woman's; that's another nasty stigmatization/divide-and-conquer tactic. I've even been debating how much to explicitly clarify in this post, for similar reasons. It's tricky stuff, sometimes.
And as long as I'm on the topic, this is the argument I make for why even if you believe abortion is flat-out evil, you shouldn't be in favor of making it illegal:
At this point in our country, we know ways to save lives. We can save lives with blood donations, with organ donations. Blood donation is practically risk-free, and we know lives (big, full, no-one-debates-their-status lives) depend on it. And yet, even though another human being may die because you choose not to donate, we still won't strap you down and forcibly take your blood -- we value individual bodily integrity too highly.
Pregnancy, risk-wise, is much more similar to donating a kidney -- this is going to change your body, change your life, even introduce a risk of death from the process itself. Usually it goes just fine, but the complications can be terrifying. It's a major decision, a major commitment, even if it ends in a totally emotionally neutral adoption at the end (and life isn't that simple anyway, in terms of how adoption works in people's lives). It may be a wonderfully worthwhile commitment and decision, or it may not, depending on your situation and your world view. Regardless, again, we would never forcibly take a kidney from one person in order to maintain the life of another. We won't even do it if it's for your own child and you refuse to donate, and your child will otherwise die. We feel that strongly about the right to bodily integrity. No more than we would do that should we take over bodily decision-making for pregnant women.
I should clarify this is not the sum total of my own viewpoint on the matter, which is not premised on "abortion is evil" at all -- it's the explanation I use for why I am offended by people trying to take away my control over my own body and life, regardless of their wholehearted beliefs about the ethics of the topic.
According to the antis screaming and preaching at us:
If I've had one, I'm just trying to justify my own past guilt.
If I haven't, I'm just naive and misguided and know not of what I speak.
Apparently, there are no circumstances under which I could've come to the conclusion that abortion access needs to be protected in which my own experiences are not fatally biasing my perception. *eyeroll* Makes me nuts.
Aside from dealing with the antis and more rabid members of the right, I don't bring up the answer to the implicit question very often because of the temptation to use that self-protectively to one's own benefit and to the detriment of other women. When abortion politics come up in day to day life, there's certainly a pressure to distance oneself from the judgment -- to say "Oh, sure, I fight for that, but I've never done that, or never would" (ie I'm not like them). In a lot of contexts, it further the stigmatization of the women one is contrasting oneself against. I'm not cool with that. So, if people, especially antis, assume I have, I let them continue to assume, and use it as a chance to explore what it's like to be judged like that. If it comes up in more general conversation, and it's relevant, I'll probably talk more specifically about my history, and under what circumstances I think I would or wouldn't decide to have an abortion, but I try really hard not to get dragged into the "special case" defense that passively argues that my reasons are "better" than any other woman's; that's another nasty stigmatization/divide-and-conquer tactic. I've even been debating how much to explicitly clarify in this post, for similar reasons. It's tricky stuff, sometimes.
And as long as I'm on the topic, this is the argument I make for why even if you believe abortion is flat-out evil, you shouldn't be in favor of making it illegal:
At this point in our country, we know ways to save lives. We can save lives with blood donations, with organ donations. Blood donation is practically risk-free, and we know lives (big, full, no-one-debates-their-status lives) depend on it. And yet, even though another human being may die because you choose not to donate, we still won't strap you down and forcibly take your blood -- we value individual bodily integrity too highly.
Pregnancy, risk-wise, is much more similar to donating a kidney -- this is going to change your body, change your life, even introduce a risk of death from the process itself. Usually it goes just fine, but the complications can be terrifying. It's a major decision, a major commitment, even if it ends in a totally emotionally neutral adoption at the end (and life isn't that simple anyway, in terms of how adoption works in people's lives). It may be a wonderfully worthwhile commitment and decision, or it may not, depending on your situation and your world view. Regardless, again, we would never forcibly take a kidney from one person in order to maintain the life of another. We won't even do it if it's for your own child and you refuse to donate, and your child will otherwise die. We feel that strongly about the right to bodily integrity. No more than we would do that should we take over bodily decision-making for pregnant women.
I should clarify this is not the sum total of my own viewpoint on the matter, which is not premised on "abortion is evil" at all -- it's the explanation I use for why I am offended by people trying to take away my control over my own body and life, regardless of their wholehearted beliefs about the ethics of the topic.