In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

12 thoughts on Required Reading

  1. Frank Bruni’s final sentence: “A week later, she was back on her ladder.”

    Life, as Bruni’s friend noted, really does teach you a little more.

  2. Good article, capped off with yet another sad “my abortion is the only moral abortion!” anecdote.

    After watching The Whistleblower and Terminator 2 over the weekend (the short scene at the gas station where John watches two little boys fight over who play-killed the other first, plus Sarah’s nuclear nightmare stuck in my head), I’m not too hot on homo sapiens right now.

  4. Somewhere a long time ago at my parents’ dinner table someone (my sister? my mother? my father?) shrugged and said, “Humans are complicated. That’s the one thing you can count on.”

    I’ve never been disabused of that notion since.

    1. You might want to take Bruni’s tale with a grain of salt: http://gawker.com/5896804/frank-brunis-too+good+to+be+true-abortion-tale

      …yeah, I’ll actually take John Cook’s post with a grain of salt. 1 in 3 American women will have an abortion in her lifetime. A lot of those women will identify as pro-life. Outside of a big city like NY, most places don’t have tons of abortion clinics to choose from — there’s often just the one. So yes, when an anti-choice protester gets pregnant, they will often come to the very clinic they protest. They’ll arrange to come in through a back door, or cover their faces, or devise some other way they won’t be recognized. It’s an oft-repeated story, from abortion providers across the country over two decades, because it happens. It might only happen once or twice in an abortion provider’s career, but it happens, and it’s a story that sticks. I’m not sure why John Cook assumes it’s an urban legend.

  6. It’s not an urban legend. I have a cousin who protested clinics and terminated two pregnancies. I have no idea whether the clinic(s) where she got her abortions were the same one(s) she protested at, but it’s entirely possible.

  7. I really don’t understand Cook’s post. He doesn’t cite any occasion on which someone admitted to making this up, or any abortion clinic saying they would refuse to perform an abortion in that scenario, or even any pro-life protestor saying this doesn’t happen. Instead, he says this is suspect because…. other people have previously reported consistent experiences?

    But even leaving aside those reports from numerous different individuals, look at the facts. Studies have shown that many women who identify as pro-life have abortions. And as Jill points out, many people are lucky to have access to a single clinic that provides abortions, if they have that at all. Given those two facts, is it really that hard to believe that some of the women protesting those clinics have used their services?

  8. But then they’re right back outside protesting? Knowing that the clinic personnel they’re yelling at now have them pegged as hypocrites?

    I have no problem believing that some “pro-life” people are hypocrites, but this just sets off my BS detector.

    1. But then they’re right back outside protesting? Knowing that the clinic personnel they’re yelling at now have them pegged as hypocrites?

      You’d be shocked. I haven’t worked at an abortion clinic, but when I was in college there was an active member of the College Republicans who swore up and down he was straight, but we’d all see him creeping around in corners at gay clubs on the weekends. And he had the nerve to argue in debates that homosexuality was a mental illness, while avoiding eye contact with the gay College Dems who had all seen him the weekend before. Cognitive dissonance is an impressive thing, and a lot of people don’t think they are hypocrites. They’re “different.” Their situation is unique.

  9. I really don’t understand Cook’s post. He doesn’t cite any occasion on which someone admitted to making this up, or any abortion clinic saying they would refuse to perform an abortion in that scenario, or even any pro-life protestor saying this doesn’t happen. Instead, he says this is suspect because…. other people have previously reported consistent experiences?

    Reasonable skepticism about source veracity is one thing, but given that the sources in question tend to be first-person narratives instead of second-hand hearsay, he can’t argue mere urban legend propagation. He must be arguing mass deception, or merely fabrication by Bruni, without any proof of his own unstated assertion.

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