You would think that this is the sort of issue that everyone could agree on. Not so, however. Slate columnist Sital Kalantry chastises feminist groups for allowing themselves to be sucked in by a documentary which was apparently (gasp) made by pro-lifers:
It’s a Girl, a documentary about the tragic practice of sex-selection abortions in India and China, is being widely screened by pro-choice groups across America, including the New Jersey Chapter of the National Organization for Women and feminist groups on university campuses. It was an official selection for the Amnesty International Film Festival in 2012 and appeared in Ms. magazine’s feminist movies review. But as organizations and groups evaluate whether to screen this movie, they should be aware that the film’s director worked for Harvest Media Ministry, an organization that makes pro-life and other videos for church groups.Apparently, if it's pro-lifers who are opposing the wholesale slaughter of girl babies, it is in the interest of women's rights to stand back and wait for the root causes of the slaughter to abate. Otherwise, they might somehow be playing the game of those anti-choice fanatics.
How did this happen? How did a movie linked to a pro-life group become the darling of the pro-choice community? The story involves clever disguises on the part of financing sources that managed to hide their involvement and pass off a movie about the horrors of sex-selection abortions as just a sympathetic movie about the plight of women in India and China. And the pro-life message is subtle enough that they got away with it.
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The closest the movie comes to endorsing a broad anti-abortion message is at the end, when Indian writer Rita Banerji states that “all life is sacred.” The final scene is a lengthy heart-wrenching depiction of a woman playing with her two daughters who she refused to abort despite her in-laws’ insistence. But the message is subtle enough that a recent review appearing in the Atlantic claims that the movie “doesn't buttress either pro-life or pro-choice—or, at least, doesn't buttress one at the expense of another.”
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Pro-life groups have in recent years begun using the practice of sex-selective abortion—a practice that is rare in the United States—in foreign countries as an excuse for limiting women's access to abortion here at home. A bill was recently filed in the North Carolina legislature to ban sex-selective abortion, and a similar bill was defeated in the U.S. House of Representatives last year. Although no one supports sex-selective abortion, pro-choice groups correctly worry that such laws could be misused to restrict abortion more broadly.
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Female feticide and infanticide will end only when the inequalities— such as dowry, inheritance laws, lack of equality in education, lack of economic opportunities, and other forms of discrimination against girls and women—that create a son preference change. As well-intentioned Americans who wish to address human rights violations in other countries, we should fully inform ourselves about the background, goals, and tactics used by filmmakers and organizations before we choose to support them.
17 comments:
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: either a woman has the right to abort for any reason or she has no right to abort at all.
Where does NOW get off telling women that they can't abort their female fetuses? It's not like they have any right to live. Oh sure, it's a shame that there's gender imbalance and that women aren't valued in some developing countries, but surely forcing women to carry female fetuses to term isn't the answer. And who are we to force our beliefs about women on other countries? I thought we had evolved past such cultural imperialism.
Odd, something ate my < /sarcasm> tag.
Kristin,
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: either a woman has the right to abort for any reason or she has no right to abort at all.
You remind me of a thought I had recently.
One of the past mantras is that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare". It sounds idyllic enough, given a certain perspective. But when I actually sat around and thought about it, I realized that the 'rare' part stood out like a sore thumb.
Rare? Why should it be rare? What if it's not rare? Is a woman who has multiple abortions doing something immoral? Wrong? Condemnable? I'd love to have that question put to a pro-choice politician. "Name one case where an abortion would be immoral to procure or conduct." I do not think the current political climate allows for any response to that aside from 'there is no such case'.
Crude,
It is possible to think both that (a) abortion is moral and (b) it should be rare. An analogy would be appendectomies: clearly, appendectomies are not immoral, but it would be a good thing if advances in medicine made them ten times rarer than they are today by reducing the incidence of infected appendixes or making effective non-surgical treatments more available. So, a sincere and thoughtful pro-choicer could want to keep abortion legal and yet work to make it rarer by preventing unwanted pregnancies and providing women with alternatives to abortion.
Disclaimer: I am pro-life; if there were a button that made all abortions illegal in all 50 states I would push it; but wrong <> unreasonable.
Lawyer Sital Kilantry argues for abortion, while at the same time arguing against human rights violations. But her pro-abortion position implies as a principle the radical rejection of human rights, since the child is completely human from the moment of conception. Her arguments tend to establish the principle "no right but what we make". Peter Singer and others then happily argue towards this terminus, leading eventually to state of law (see H. Berman, Law and Revolution on how social change proceeds always by change of law) where everyone's life is contingent on arbitrarily chosen "social-practical" considerations. Old, infirm, not too bright, don't like your style, overfilled the quota - by law into the recycler with you !
Put inversely, there is no way to argue for what is right except by going through that which is reasonable.
Yeah, I think Bob pretty well covers it.
On a tangential note: Every so often fellow pro-lifers argue that emphasizing sympathy cases such as sex-selective abortion is implicitly pro-choice. After all, if it's okay to abort for any reason why isn't it okay to abort because your child has Down Syndrome, or has a cleft palate, or is a girl or has brown eyes?
The reason I think these are worth talking about is not because aborting for these reasons is worse than aborting because you're not married, or because you don't think you can handle another kid right now. It's because these situations humanize the unborn person. They remind us that we're talking about a specific and unique person: A girl. A child with a cleft palate. A child with Down Syndrome. The minute we think about that we start to think about individual people we know who dealt with these situations. And now we're no longer talking about "a fetus" or "a lump of tissue" or "a potential human" but rather a person.
It's hard for me to see how someone who actually is sincere and thoughtful would stop at rare and not just (sincerely think and) say abortion is intrinsically wrong. And where are these special people ? Since Roe Wade was law what has happened is "safe (kinda), legal, and routine". Not trying to be contentious, just sayin'.
Bob,
It is possible to think both that (a) abortion is moral and (b) it should be rare. An analogy would be appendectomies: clearly, appendectomies are not immoral, but it would be a good thing if advances in medicine made them ten times rarer than they are today by reducing the incidence of infected appendixes or making effective non-surgical treatments more available. So, a sincere and thoughtful pro-choicer could want to keep abortion legal and yet work to make it rarer by preventing unwanted pregnancies and providing women with alternatives to abortion.
Granted, one could argue that abortion should be rare if the assumption is that, like an appendectomy, it's universally or close to universally regarded as supremely negative, even for non-moral reasons.
The problem is, I don't think it cashes out quite that way with abortion.
You give the example of preventing unwanted pregnancies. Alright, but abortion is one way to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. If it's safe, legal and moral (let's add 'cheap' into the mix as well), then what exactly is the purpose for wanting to prevent unwanted pregnancies?
A similar problem shows up with 'alternatives to abortion'. Why do we need alternatives if it's safe, legal, moral and cheap?
I can think of some replies off the top of my head: convenience or stigma come to mind. But then 'removing the stigma' and 'making abortion more convenient' are avenues of response. Who cares if they're rare?
Adding on to my previous comment: if it's safe, legal, moral and cheap, then in a whole lot of ways abortion ends up simply becoming 'just another artificial birth control method.' And artificial birth control is not something anyone who approves of thinks should be rare, or something it's important for us to find alternatives for.
You give the example of preventing unwanted pregnancies. Alright, but abortion is one way to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. If it's safe, legal and moral (let's add 'cheap' into the mix as well), then what exactly is the purpose for wanting to prevent unwanted pregnancies?
A similar problem shows up with 'alternatives to abortion'. Why do we need alternatives if it's safe, legal, moral and cheap?
I think the answer is that even from the most pro-choice point of view, at a biological level its always going to be far less stress and discomfort to never get pregnant in the first place than to abort. So while they are indeed thinking of abortion as a form of extreme birth control, they'd rather get the same effect using conventional birth control.
Assuming the goal of not giving birth when you don't want to is being met either way, pro-choicers would rather not resort to abortion.
But this is where their "rare" thing breaks down. Once a pregnancy actually occurs, they always seem to want abortion to be available. There's some lip service given to wanting being a single mom to be easier, more free health care during pregnancy, etc. But at the end of the day, the pro-choice mentality is that you should never have to give birth if you don't want to.
Darwin,
I think the answer is that even from the most pro-choice point of view, at a biological level its always going to be far less stress and discomfort to never get pregnant in the first place than to abort. So while they are indeed thinking of abortion as a form of extreme birth control, they'd rather get the same effect using conventional birth control.
I'm skeptical. First with the claim that, from the pro-abort point of view, it's an 'extreme' form of birth control. I think that's precisely the sort of view pro-aborts, to be consistent, must oppose. Maybe on the Kermit Gosnell end of things it gets cloudy (call it a failure of resolve). But on the other end, 'rare' can be swapped out with 'better abortifacients'.
If the problem is ultimately one about stress and discomfort, we're talking about what is in principle a technological limitation - and if we're talking about that, 'rare' is extremely conditional at best.
The appendectomy example point to "abortion should be rare because it is a riskier medical procedure than other contraceptives". If an appendectomy were always safer than lifetime risk of appendicitis, we might just routinely remove the appendix before appendicitis can kick in. If abortion were to be so safe as to be safer than oral contraceptives, why take oral contraceptives instead of aborting at the first sign of conception?
So points on preserving the health of the mother, but it is an equivocal argument. By "rare" pro-abortion rights proponents mean "to minimize maternal risk" while using this sleigh of hand to win anti-abortion points with those who think "rare" means "abortion is always wrong, but we can't eliminate it 100%". But, in the end, if it becomes sufficiently safe and legal, it need not be rare at all, and you can get rid of those allies that misunderstood you.
Well, I suppose if you imagine a situation in which abortion was achieved immediately (no sitting around thinking "Oh my gosh, I'm pregnant"), without any bother, and without any side effects or discomfort, then yes, from a "safe, legal and moral" pro-choice point of view it might indeed be interchangeable with conventional birth control. If, for instance, one imagined a version of the pill which worked by magically determining whether the woman would later want to have been pregnant, then if she wouldn't invariably and reliably caused a spontaneous abortion at the age of one hour.
However, given a world such as the one that actually exists, in which surgical and chemical abortions are what they are, I think it's pretty clear that people don't like getting them and would rather not -- just so long as they can avoid them while still achieving the end of not being pregnant.
Also, keep in mind: People are often simply not consistent in their beliefs.
I have had people repeatedly insist to me that they both consider abortion to be "not a good thing" something "they don't want" and that "it is the right thing to do in some circumstances".
I agree that people often come to this through incoherent reasoning, but rightly or wrongly the simple fact is that people often hold beliefs that are not compatible and yet insist that they hold strongly to both.
Plus, at times, pounding really hard on demanding consistency ends up with them taking a worse position than they previously did.
Darwin,
Well, I suppose if you imagine a situation in which abortion was achieved immediately (no sitting around thinking "Oh my gosh, I'm pregnant"), without any bother, and without any side effects or discomfort,
Not that extreme. Like I said, 'better abortifacients'. Really, "non-extreme" contraception is not without any bother, side effects or discomfort on its own. Some take discipline and a daily regimen. Others are kind of a hassle. (I'm waiting for a prominent Catholic to make the obvious criticism of condoms, for example.)
The world as it is is a world where technology can often make once incredibly difficult things more convenient, and already has. Mifepristone isn't perfect, but it's leaps and bounds more convenient than setting up a doctor's appointment, showing up, etc. I suspect it's going to get improved down the line.
I agree that people often aren't consistent in their beliefs. And I'm not focusing on this necessarily from the angle of thinking 'If we just show them what their position leads to, they'll become pro-life!' I just hear the 'safe, legal and rare' chant, I used to assume it was true, but upon reflection I realized it simply doesn't make sense. And, as Maiki does a good job of illustrating, that particular claim does seem tied into giving a certain perception of abortion proponents that isn't really solid at the end.
Speaking of the OP, I like the line "Although no one supports sex-selective abortion..." Actually, quite a lot of people support it, apparently. Maybe even the author of that article, when the chips are down.
"However, given a world such as the one that actually exists, in which surgical and chemical abortions are what they are, I think it's pretty clear that people don't like getting them and would rather not -- just so long as they can avoid them while still achieving the end of not being pregnant."
I'm not suggesting the world is different than what it is. I'm saying that "rare" can carry very different connotations depending on who is being sold. "rare" can mean: "abortion is a stressful bother and a surgery" vs. "abortion is child murder so we should make it as rare as possible" -- those are very different perspectives and there is a false equivalency on wishing it were "rare".
I do agree on there being a lot of people in the middle with less consistent beliefs, though. A lot of women would never have an abortion or cheer an abortion but imagine a nebulous "other" for which abortions are desired and good.
Another thought on inconsistent beliefs: I think people see a few mistakes in life as needing an "undo" button in a very ends justify means way, but if it is not a "mistake" but a willful action, people don't see it as an ends justifying means scenario, and then feel they can be against it.
I see this in divorce, too. Basically, couple marries young and has a messy divorce. Conventional thought is of course couple should be allowed to remarry, do we really want to hold their "young mistakes" against them all their life? But if you get a person that just gets married and divorced 3-4 times or something, people don't really approve of that, by in large. Same with abortion... condom broke that one time in college, very poor woman down in hard times, etc. But they don't think abortion is ok as "routine" or to "kill baby girls". And I think this is where the "rare" terminology also creeps in. Suddenly, the ends are not "a mistake" but "promiscuity/misogyny" so the means are seen as evil.
Yes, it fails moral theology 101, where ends never justify means, but a whole lot of people's morality does not have that clause as a foundation.
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