LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

An interesting article over on AlterNet talks about the assault by 'pro-lifers' on the last operating abortion clinic in Mississippi. These hateful and aggressive people will get into your face and tell you that they're 'saving babies' until they're blue in the face.

Truth is, they aren't. They're destroying the self determination of women. They are against women having any personal freedom and autonomy at all. Making sure that they must carry all pregnancies to term- even those who are physically dangerous for them- is a means to put women 'into their place'.

No matter how many people have been duped into joining the anti-abortion movement on the basis of "saving babies," as Bob Avakian has pointed out in his book "Preaching From a Pulpit of Bones," "The essence of the anti-abortion 'movement' has been to assert patriarchal control over women, including to insist on the defining role of women as breeders of children. The fundamentalist foot-soldiers of this 'movement' make this very clear. The following prayer offered at an Operation Rescue rally, cited in Life magazine (July 1992), typifies this: "Oh please, Lord, break the curse on women's hearts that says we don't need our men. Break that independence.'" [emphasis mine]

"Break that independence." There's the bottom line: that to these True Believers™, women are not much more than mere helpmeets, or breeders of sons, and that having our own minds, our own lives, and our own freedom from both the tyranny of males and of forced pregnancy and childbirth is somhow an affont to their hateful god.

My family tried to 'condition' me to accept this mindset when I was a child. My grandmother was especially adamant in attempting to prepare me to 'serve my husband' when I grew up. There was no question in my mind that I would not marry. She tried to teach me some of those 'womanly things' that made a good wife. I resisted as much as I could. I do regret not learning to sew from her because she was a master craftswoman. But her reason for teaching me to sew was totally contrary to my own personal desires. And they did not include marriage.

I am glad that my 'independent spirit' was not broken, and if I had a counter-prayer for these people it would be that their insistence of keeping half the population in what is little more than forced servitude be diluted to nothing, and that instead of forcing women to be servants, they learn to realize that women are people, too, with rights, needs, and yes- the desire for independence, from both men and motherhood. Instead of praying to their God of Hate to 'break' them, they should pray that women be inspired and empowered. There might be fewer children born, but in this overcrowded world, that might not be such a bad thing.

And what about the 'babies' that these people swear are being killed? If you ask your average True Believer™, they'll insist that an 8-week old fetus is a miniature baby that just needs to grow bigger. The AlterNet article talks about that, too:

Besides, a fetus is not a baby. With its assault on basic science, including evolution, and its intentionally misleading and grotesque signs, the fundamentalist movement has misled many into imagining that aborted fetuses are cute little babies just waiting to be cuddled. In fact, 90 percent of abortions take place when the fetus is no longer than this string of o's: oooooooooooooo. Since there is no way these fetuses could become fully formed, independent human beings except as a subordinate part of a woman's overall biological processes for nine months, declaring that they all should be preserved means reducing women to incubators and slaves to their biology.

The anti-abortion people howl that the Bible says that abortion is wrong, but the Bible actually says the opposite- that babies aren't 'alive' until they breathe their first breath. Breath determines life, and presence. The foes of abortion continually ignore these passages.

When I was a kid and my mom was expecting my brother, I became absolutely fascinated with the development of fetuses. I pored over books about embryology and reproduction, searing the images of the alien things into my head. And they were alien- barely human in their earliest days- with fish eyes and gills, and a tail, and crude paddles for limbs. If you put the embryos of a fish, bird, person, monkey, and cat side by side in their earliest stages of development, you would have a difficult time telling them apart. I used to have a very good and effective tactic for getting the antis and their gory photos of aborted fetuses to leave: I'd examine the photos and see an anencephalic fetus here, an acardiac twin there, and one or two uterine deaths that they would only show parts of, making you believe that these were 'babies' hacked to pieces. I would call them on these. I'd ask them highly technical questions about late term abortions and the reasons why they are still done. They'd pack up and leave. How dare I call their bluffs? How dare I actually look at their nasty pictures, and tell them that they were lies?

But reread that last quoted sentence again: Since there is no way these fetuses could become fully formed, independent human beings except as a subordinate part of a woman's overall biological processes for nine months, declaring that they all should be preserved means reducing women to incubators and slaves to their biology.

No one should be a slave to their biology- men or women- but especially women, since we have much more to lose- our lives- by blindly permitting it to rule us. I tell the loudmouthed haters that men and women were both given working brains for a reason, and not permitting women to exercise their full soveriegn rights as human beings goes against our purpose. Their god might discriminate against women, but I do not believe that a truly loving god would do such a thing. And it is for this reason that I refuse to worship their god or their scriptures. They worship a god of hate and war.

The fight over abortion rights isn't about babies. It's about women. Womens' lives. Womens' self determination and autonomy. Womens' freedom and soveriegn human rights. Never forget that. If you are a female, you are only useful to these people as a walking incubator, and nothing more. Once that precious baby is born, the woman -and that child- no longer matter to these people.

(crossposted to my journal)