A letter I received yesterday. It’s certainly a “view from the other side.” I grew up with this view, to a certain extent and even had an old teacher of mine tell me how she can’t understand it when “women [like you] fail to support women’s hard fought rights.” That was at a wedding reception. I smiled and nodded.
To be certain, this is not my target audience…someone this doctrinaire is certainly not the person I aim to encourage. But I thought it’s good to know this view is alive and well. I’d say a comment of “no comment” is perhaps most appropriate…if you choose to comment, be nice.
You are not “pro-woman” and as a woman it is deeply disturbing that you would attempt to call yourself that. It makes me sick that women band together to unempower themselves after years of fighting and winning their rights. What you are, plain and simple, is ignorant religous nuts. After all, religion is the only reason you all seem to cling to this idea that a fetus is a baby or a human. Perhaps your thinking will go back another century and you will inform us all that sperm are sacred and the use of condoms is a sin. I hope you all come to your sences and remove this website before you actually cause any harm to the women’s rights movement.
You should be ashamed of what you are doing to your own people. Abortions are never forced, and no woman commenting on here would ever have an abortion if she did not want one. Why do you want to remove that right from others? It does not affect you. It does not involve you. It is none of your buisness. And yet you are so passionate about it.
Women spent so long fighting for their place and say in this man’s world and here you are, a group of women, commited to unempowering the women of this country.
If you could all focus your attention and energy on something that is actually important perhaps you could make a positive change in this wourld. But you don’t want that. You just want to ignorantly bitch and complain. Nice. I hope your proud. I’m not proud to be a woman today, and I truely wish I never found this disgraceful website.
by 
I would say to that lady, you are an obnoxious woman if you think you can speak for all of us. I am a free woman, with my own opinions, and you don’t represent me and have no business telling me what to do.
Keep up the good fight, Andrea et.al. When you provoke this kind of vitriolic response you know you’re doing something right! Someone’s conscience has been pricked, I would say.
I can see how there could be many elements of the ’empowerment’ letter that would prompt discussion. Two foundational one’s are ‘religion is the only reason’ and ‘in this man’s world’.
Religion being the expression of beliefs includes everyone and thus religion should be seen as irrelevant as being the reason for supporting something. If, on the other hand, the ’empowerment’ point is some ‘religions’ are to not to have any say on a certain issue then I suppose one is being asked to accept the ‘religion’ of; ‘I accept all religions that agree with me’.
The suggestion within the idea of ‘this man’s world’ seems to be that the problem is a result of some sexism. This sounds similar to other paradigms that seek to explain world problems are due to say ‘capitalism’ or ‘racism’. All theses ‘isms’ can offer fruitful discussion and debate but to base a position on an ‘ism’ should make that ‘ism’ the first point of discussion.
It *almost* irks me at this moment that I am a converted Catholic. I used to really stump people who thought all pro-lifers were Bible-thumpers. A very small part of me wishes I could still say “I am a pro-life, science-based, atheistic feminist”, but happily I can’t. Now I can say proudly that I am a pro-life, science-based, Catholic feminist…and people can have whatever issues with that they please.
All that being said…I was thinking that it would be great if you girls could have some sort of “information” page set up. I was on a pro-life FB group awhile back that had a wonderful page – it was a list of all the usual pro-choice arguments and the pro-life responses all packaged in one neat and tidy bundle. Now that FB has changed groups into “fan pages” that page seems to have disappeared. (Admittedly, it may be a user problem…I’m not a fan of fan pages.)
It would be a great resource for people like me who (at times) start to sputter and lose the ability to form coherent sentences during heated discussions. It would also be nice to redirect people like this letter writer so that they can, at the very least, be informed about the diverse group they are so vehemently scolding.
🙂
I just would exhort her to thoroughly examine the tenet of her belief that says “abortions are never forced.”
Just to add to my last comment, it is absolutely not true that no woman who is pro-life would ever have an abortion if she did not want one. It’s quite easy to make a decision that you quickly regret when faced with really tough circumstances.
If you are unwilling to undergo a few more steps to ensure that those women who really don’t want abortions are being screened out (ie. informed consent), then you are really selfish.
Whenever I read that kind of letter, I see someone who is suffering. As Alana said, this kind of vitriolic response doesn’t come from someone at peace with herself. I am at ease with my position when it comes to the status of the fetus and I never feel the need to spew acid on people who believe otherwise. It saddens me but it never angers me like this.
Nothing makes me so angry as people who claim that I must be grateful for the deaths of millions human beings simply because I am a woman. Urgh!
It’s my experience that pro-choice feminists demand absolute, total submission from women on the abortion rights issue. How empowering!
Andrea, I hope you wrote a polite, eloquent letter back.
Abortions are never forced? What about North Korea or China and their “population programs”? Secondly, what about the issue of gender selective abortion, and UN funding for it! I wonder if the esteemed feminist has anything to say about that!
To take Alana and Veronique’s points about the anger and pain that underlies these arguments, I would add there is a visceral defensiveness when one is aware of being intellectually dishonest. After all, this particular letter writer, and all those who argue that abortion is about women’s empowerment and control over their own bodies, never explain why that makes it right for women to kill someone who is totally dependent on them for their very lives. I think, for the most part, the “pro-choicers” refuse to acknowledge this deep, ugly hole in the argument and they lash out in the hope of distracting those who disagree.
This site was created to inform and discuss issues that relate to rights of all women. Some agree, some may disagree. Some hopefully are enlightened to see the better side of what it means to be a woman. Religious or not.
It is sad to realize that some women are not able to get over stereotypes that has been pushed on them for several decades now.
To Andrea,
Speaking from personal experience I can say that maybe an abortion is not forced but it is often 100% persuaded onto women. I was forcefully persuaded by my boyfriend to have an abortion (since it is so accessible and so very simple in today’s society). I am a very edcucated and not normally easily persuaded indvidual, but many women in the type of dilema I was in, are so very emtional and fragile that we make the decision against our own beliefs and make this decision for someone else. We then have to live with the conseqeunces and it is NOT easy. I have spoke to many women who have had abortions and there are many that had abortions for the same reason. It is easy to say you have a choice and its not forced untill it actually happens to you. I am pro-life now and will never forget and wonder what my baby would have been like. My abortion was performed at 14 weeks and it was so simple for to have, so fast, nothing to sign…I just think a life is worth more. People can have abortions at 5 months even with no trouble, everything paid for….I think it is ridiculous, its harder to rent a motel. Also I beleive it takes responsibilty away from men for there actions, they just say (oh well if anything happens they’ll have an abortion) but the women live with the consequences.
One of the side effects of abortion is that it makes you more militant. For either side. Prayers are compassion are called for. There are many, many women out there who are hurt and militant for what hurt them the most.
Abortions are never forced?
Obviously this woman eats up the shit that’s spoon fed to her by main stream media..
Well over 80% of women regret their abortions..and MANY (also around 83%) develop mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse etc. And many commit suicide (or try to)
If abortion wasnt wrong morally..and was never forced then all the therapy groups and retreats for women suffering after abortions wouldn’t exist.
This woman saying other people having abortions doesn’t concern you is ridiculous! That’s like trying to say a serial killer killing people in my neighborhood doesnt concern me!!
Keep up the good work, your blog is amazing.