| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Eden" |
| Date: |
10 Mar 2006 12:07:10 AM |
| Object: |
Five Pro-Abortion Dodges - Part IV |
By Todd M. Aglialoro
Crisis
http://www.crisismagazine.com/april2004/aglialoro.htm
4. 'Embrace the Guilt': Naomi Wolf
Feminist-at-large Naomi Wolf is perhaps best known for
her work as a consultant to Al Gore's presidential
campaign in 1999-2000. Charged with creating, ex
nihilo, a personality for the vice president that would
play better with women voters, Wolf devised the "alpha
male" strategy, which began with Gore donning earth
tones and lumberjack duds and ended (mercifully) with
his PG-13 smooch of Mrs. Gore on convention night. In
years previous, Wolf had been credited with identifying
the "soccer mom" constituency while advising Clinton's
reelection bid and caused numerous stirs with her books
and publications on gender conflict and female sexual
"liberation."
But in an earlier writing—an article for The New
Republic in 1995—she caused quite a different kind of
stir. In it she claimed that her recent firsthand
experience of pregnancy and childbirth had given her a
new perspective on the abortion debate, a perspective
she believed her fellow feminist pro-choicers needed to
hear and act on.
In "Our Bodies, Our Souls," Wolf called for "a radical
shift in the pro-choice movement's rhetoric and
consciousness about abortion." Self-deluded by their
long practice of dehumanizing the unborn (what she
termed "the fetus-is-nothing paradigm of the pro-choice
movement"), pro-choicers, she argued, were falling
dangerously out of touch with the reality of abortion
and women's experiences with it. In order to avert the
loss of credibility and thus political influence the
abortion movement would suffer thereby (although to her
credit, Wolf also cited the need simply "to be faithful
to the truth"), she asserted the "need to contextualize
the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral
framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a
real death."
This remarkable essay is liable to engender, in the
pro-life observer, the same kind of cognitive
dissonance that "safe, legal, and rare" does. In it
Wolf admits bluntly that the fetus is a live human
being with a certain value and that abortion
undoubtedly kills that human being. She laments the
prevalence of casual, "'I don't know what came over me;
it was such good Chardonnay' abortions." She insists
that abortion calls for a period of "mourning" and
recommends spiritual "mending" ceremonies for women who
abort, for vigils outside abortion clinics
"commemorating and saying goodbye to the dead."
Yet her practical aim all along is to help other
pro-abortionists develop a better strategy for keeping
abortion legal.
Wolf avoids adopting conventional pro-life convictions
by assigning the significance of the guilt and blood
and killing to interior categories only. "If I found
myself in circumstances in which I had to make the
terrible decision to end this life," she writes, "then
that would be between myself and God." For the
unhappily pregnant woman, oppressed by patriarchal
society and burdened by this fellow-victim inside her
womb, abortion is not a social injustice but a personal
"failure"; an evil to be borne and acknowledged and
slowly atoned for.
For its frank admission (and thus diffusion) of the
evidence that abortion kills a living human being, and
its conclusion that this evidence doesn't logically
require prohibition of abortion—and in fact may even
lend its perpetrators a certain tragic nobility—Wolf's
argument is a powerful one. Its effects live on in
every pro-choice apologist who tries to imbue his
position with moral gravity—or, as with our next case,
in those who invoke the name of God.
.
|
|
| User: "Malcolm" |
|
| Title: Re: Five Pro-Abortion Dodges - Part IV |
10 Mar 2006 04:56:01 PM |
|
|
"Eden" <banmilk@hotmail.com> wrote
In "Our Bodies, Our Souls," Wolf called for "a radical
shift in the pro-choice movement's rhetoric and
consciousness about abortion." Self-deluded by their
long practice of dehumanizing the unborn (what she
termed "the fetus-is-nothing paradigm of the pro-choice
movement"), pro-choicers, she argued, were falling
dangerously out of touch with the reality of abortion
and women's experiences with it.
Being a feminist, she will believe that no woman must ever be criticised for
her sexual behaviour, because her body is hers to do as she wants, hence
pro-abortion.
She will also believe that feelings are what matters. Nothing is so
important as a woman's feelings.
This is where she hits a snag. In order to defend legal abortion, it has got
to be presented as a safe, consequence free solution to a serious problem.
But that means that women aren't allowed to express certain feeling of
bitterness, or of regret, or of incompetence to choose, about it.
--
Buy my book 12 Common Atheist Arguments (refuted)
$1.25 download or $6.90 paper, available www.lulu.com
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "newsguy" |
|
| Title: Re: Five Pro-Abortion Dodges - Part IV |
10 Mar 2006 02:22:56 AM |
|
|
Eden wrote:
By Todd M. Aglialoro
Crisis
http://www.crisismagazine.com/april2004/aglialoro.htm
In "Our Bodies, Our Souls," Wolf called for "a radical
shift in the pro-choice movement's rhetoric and
consciousness about abortion." Self-deluded by their
long practice of dehumanizing the unborn (what she
termed "the fetus-is-nothing paradigm of the pro-choice
movement"), pro-choicers, she argued, were falling
dangerously out of touch with the reality of abortion
and women's experiences with it. In order to avert the
loss of credibility and thus political influence the
abortion movement would suffer thereby (although to her
credit, Wolf also cited the need simply "to be faithful
to the truth"), she asserted the "need to contextualize
the fight to defend abortion rights within a moral
framework that admits that the death of a fetus is a
real death."
The bible says a fetus is not life:
Exo 21:
22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit
depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely
punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him;
and he shall pay as the judges determine.
23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
Note who is life and what is property.
If a fetus has the right to live in a woman without her consent
so does anyone, thus legalizing rape.
This remarkable essay is liable to engender, in the
pro-life observer, the same kind of cognitive
dissonance that "safe, legal, and rare" does. In it
Wolf admits bluntly that the fetus is a live human
being with a certain value and that abortion
undoubtedly kills that human being. She laments the
prevalence of casual, "'I don't know what came over me;
it was such good Chardonnay' abortions." She insists
that abortion calls for a period of "mourning" and
recommends spiritual "mending" ceremonies for women who
abort, for vigils outside abortion clinics
"commemorating and saying goodbye to the dead."
Yet her practical aim all along is to help other
pro-abortionists develop a better strategy for keeping
abortion legal.
Wolf avoids adopting conventional pro-life convictions
by assigning the significance of the guilt and blood
and killing to interior categories only. "If I found
myself in circumstances in which I had to make the
terrible decision to end this life," she writes, "then
that would be between myself and God." For the
unhappily pregnant woman, oppressed by patriarchal
society and burdened by this fellow-victim inside her
womb, abortion is not a social injustice but a personal
"failure"; an evil to be borne and acknowledged and
slowly atoned for.
For its frank admission (and thus diffusion) of the
evidence that abortion kills a living human being, and
its conclusion that this evidence doesn't logically
require prohibition of abortion-and in fact may even
lend its perpetrators a certain tragic nobility-Wolf's
argument is a powerful one. Its effects live on in
every pro-choice apologist who tries to imbue his
position with moral gravity-or, as with our next case,
in those who invoke the name of God.
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
