The proposal:
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., an outspoken pro-life advocate, is preparing to do battle again on Capitol Hill.
On Tuesday, he’ll chair a House hearing in support of his latest legislative effort, the Prenatal NonDiscrimination Act (PreNDA). The measure would ban abortions done on the basis of gender or race.
“It would simply say that you cannot discriminate against the unborn by subjecting them to an abortion based on their race or sex,” Franks says.
The response from Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights:
“This bill is a cynical and offensive attempt to evoke race and sex discrimination when actually it’s about taking women’s rights away,” said Northup.
She says that protecting young girls from sex-selection abortions is “about taking women’s rights away.” We don’t know whether she has a position on racial discrimination. I suppose she probably does. I’ve done a web search on her name and on the name of the House bill, though, and I can’t find anything on that.
Anyway, I find her response patently absurd. I could even consider it comical in a way, if I could get past its injustice, its coldly hypocritical cynicism, its rhetorical manipulativeness, and its deadly background and intentions. She’s claiming to defend the rights of women, but she’s willing to throw baby girls under the bus for them.
Clearly she’s not supporting females’ rights. She has a particular and exclusive interest in the rights of “women,” meaning, females old enough to bear children. Of course that’s why we protect individuals’ rights, isn’t it—so that we can take care of the physically mature and able, at the expense of the weak? No. That’s as upside-down, legally and historically, as any view of rights could possibly be.
I can’t imagine what she thinks about girls’ rights. I’m thinking about, say, nine-year-olds.
Something seems unseemly and inappropriate about that question, as if it really shouldn’t be asked. I’m trying to track down why it feels that way. Maybe the question is sexist. I can’t imagine what would be wrong with that, though, when the rhetoric is already sexist (“women’s rights”). Is it age-ist, then? But Northup approves of age-ism—it’s only those who are of childbearing age who have “women’s rights”—so that ought to be okay, too. Sexism is fine. Age-ism is fine. Killing babies is fine. What’s not fine anymore?
The abortion rights lobby has always been about the powerful trampling on the defenseless. Formerly its members could play it the other way around, as if it were about protecting women, as the historically politically underprivileged sex. How do they think they can maintain the pretense now?
December 6th, 2011 | 9:22 am | #1
The legislation is purely symbolic, anyway; it wouldn’t stop any abortions.
What woman in America would honestly admit, “I’m having this abortion because I want a boy”?
December 6th, 2011 | 10:36 pm | #2
There is no logic in it, Tom. Rhetorical fluff trying to tie an irrational position into a metanarrative of a widespread female underclass.
December 7th, 2011 | 9:48 pm | #3
Women still face social discriminations that are unjust, and we still do occupy a male-dominated world, but that doesn’t mean we can justify abortion as a means to get rid of the binds of sexism. i agree that this legislation is symbolic and wouldn’t do much, as it’s not that hard to BS a different excuse for wanting an abortion, and I also agree that Northop’s response is disingenuous.
I just don’t understand why people must assume that because we’re trying to protect life, that must mean we hate women. I don’t believe that’s the case, as I value the life of the woman (or man) in the womb as well.
December 8th, 2011 | 2:33 am | #4
Nikolai: you make an excellent point. All life is sacred and deserves our protection. I’ve thought a long time about this issue. The only consistent position is to be prowomen and prolife, meaning that one supports the equal rights of women and men, and the rights of the unborn. It’s absolutely reprehensible, for example, that women still, in many cases, do not get paid the same as men do, for the same work. We must do all we can, get all laws passed that reflect the equality of women and men.
December 9th, 2011 | 10:43 am | #5
“The legislation is purely symbolic, anyway; it wouldn’t stop any abortions.”
That’s very true, but that actually raises a question: do symbols matter? I submit that unless the symbol is somehow counter-productive to something substantial, “purely symbolic” is no reason not to pursue it.
The lack of such legislation could also be construed as a symbol of sorts — which symbol do we want?
Of course, ideally, we’d have no need for this particular symbol because the law that symbolizes that all human life is legally protected would be in place. However, that not being on the table at the moment, maybe it does matter which currently available symbols we choose.
December 9th, 2011 | 10:47 am | #6
That’s an excellent observation, pentamom. Thanks.
December 9th, 2011 | 6:27 pm | #7
pentamom,
I think contextually, though, “symbolic legislation” for abortion is exactly what the pro-life community doesn’t need. Those who don’t share our views on abortion won’t take this symbol as a substantial claim on our side. In the event of a debate between the warring sides, all we’ll be told is that “all of your laws are symbolic anyway. They don’t really mean anything.” Many on the pro-choice side of the debate already think the pro-life argument is inherently ridiculous; more ammunition shouldn’t be fed to them.
The critical issue of the pro-life debate is convincing those who don’t believe the fetus is a human being of our belief. Pro-choicers don’t “like” abortion; they merely don’t think that the fetus is life and, as a result, value the mother’s ability to choose what to do with her womb over whatever this thing is in the womb. Even the most staunch pro-choicer can’t overlook the evidence of the psychological issues faced by some women who undergo abortion (many who underwent the procedure as pro-choicers). Thus, our goal shouldn’t be to put out flimsy, “symbolic” legislation that won’t convince anyone that the fetus is uncontestably a human life. Some may find our opinions “extreme” by trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, but the implication of the pro-life argument is that the fetus is a life, and thus to take that life is unjust. A claim that serious doesn’t need “symbolic” legislation. It needs something greater.
I agree with you, pentamom, in that “symbolic” is not necessary a derogatory term. Symbols can actually be quite beneficial to a movement needing momentum. I just think that the pro-life lobby has gotten the proper momentum but is not using it in the right manner.
December 11th, 2011 | 4:51 pm | #8
Abortion is an abomination to God, blessed are those who fight against abortion. Society must stop killing those poor little innocents.
December 18th, 2011 | 7:12 pm | #9
What if there were a pill you could take that would block or encourage certain chromosomes? Would that make it okay to choose the child’s gender?
If a child is a human being, then it’s not okay to kill it for any reason. But if the child is NOT a human being, then no reason needs to be given.
The idea that it could be okay to kill a baby in one situation – but not okay to kill an identical baby in another, different situation – this is incoherent to me.
It’s like saying there are acceptable and unacceptable reasons for killing a baby. But that makes no sense: there are no acceptable reasons for killing a baby. The only argument that makes it okay to kill the baby is “because it isn’t a baby yet”.
Imagine a hypothetical situation where someone causes a woman to go into labor prematurely, and due to extraordinary and advanced technology, the hospital is able to deliver a premature baby live. But the mother doesn’t want the baby, so she snaps its neck. This would be murder, but if it’s legal to kill this baby when it is in the womb, you have a situation where identical creatures are human and not human, depending not on traits of the creature but on the setting where the creature is found. This violates everything we claim to believe about how things are properly classified, and I believe it’s a powerful argument against the idea of “choice” (that is, the idea that a child is human or not-human depending not upon the child’s traits, or lack thereof, but rather on the mother’s “choice” – if she wants the baby, that magically “makes” it human somehow).
In the same way, saying that there is a difference between abortion for gender selection vs. abortion for any other purpose is just the same: it suggests that one is a crime and the other is not. To me this is another instance of classifying something based, not on what it is or isn’t, but on what we want it to be. You can’t classify things that way and be consistent with how we defined “reality” in other contexts..
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