Two articles to get your week started right:
First, Loretta Ross of Sistersong takes on the racist anti-black-abortion campaigns, and emphasizes the need to trust black women. She writes:
Our opponents began a misogynistic attack to shame-and-blame black women who choose abortion, alleging that we endanger the future of our children. After all, many people in our community already believe that black men are an endangered species because of white supremacy. Our opponents used a social responsibility frame to claim that black women have a racial obligation to have more babies – especially black male babies — despite our individual circumstances.
…
We had to fight the rhetorical impact of the billboards by reframing the discourse as an attack on the autonomy of black women, shifting the focus away from the sad, beautiful black boy in the advertisements.
It was not accidental that they chose a black male child to feature in their messaging, exacerbating gender tensions in the African American community. We decided that the best approach was to emphasize our opponents’ negative subliminal messages about black women. Either we were dupes of abortion providers, or we were evil women intent on having abortions – especially of black male children – for selfish reasons. In their first narrative, we were victims without agency unable to make our own decisions, pawns of racist, profit-driven abortion providers. In their second narrative, we were the uncaring enemies of our own children, and architects of black genocide.
We decided on affirming messages that refuted both narratives. We had to manage both positive and negative emotions about abortion.
Read it all here.
Next up, Amanda Marcotte looks at the right wing’s use of the word “abortion” to mean anything they don’t like, from women’s autonomy to heath care. She lists a series of examples, but this is my favorite:
Conservatives have been so successful with labeling contraception “abortion” that they’ve moved on to expanding the definition of “abortion” to include any support for women’s liberation and equality. Senators Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint recently levied questionable legal arguments along with their not-inconsiderable power to stop the National Women’s History Museum, a private organization, from buying land to build the museum. One reason was that a group called Concerned Women for America wrote the senators complaining that the museum would “focus on abortion rights.”
It’s hard to buy the argument that love of fetal life has anything to do with their opposition: Not only would the museum, being a museum, not be providing abortions, the CEO of the museum has made it clear that there wouldn’t even be an exhibit on the reproductive rights movement. The objection to the museum is clearly due to the fact that it celebrates women, women’s work and women’s right to equality. It’s hard for DeMint, Coburn, or the CWA to openly object to women’s equality, so they simply label equality “abortion,” and bank on the stigma that word carries.
The full article is here. Enjoy!