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Exporting the Culture Wars

Jill

Working fervently to take away the rights of U.S. women just isn’t enough for domestic anti-abortion forces; now they want to infringe further on already limited rights of women in developing nations.

“We don’t expect to see the United Nations change, or Western Europe change,” said Joseph d’Agostino of the Population Research Institute, a Virginia-based anti-abortion group. “But with the Bush administration, pro-lifers feel there’s a real opportunity to stop the U.S. government from promoting abortion and sex education and population control in the Third World.”

Well, at least he was clear that we aren’t just talking about abortion here, and that the bigger issue involves basics like sex education, knowing how your own body functions, birth control and family planning. Better to just keep those “third-world” women in the dark about that stuff.

10 thoughts on Exporting the Culture Wars

  2. The same kind of evil fuck that’s taking money from Planned Parenthood and giving it to “Christian” organizations to berate pregnant women who are thinking about becoming “baby-killers”.

  3. The same kind of evil fuck that’s taking money from Planned Parenthood and giving it to “Christian” organizations to berate pregnant women who are thinking about becoming “baby-killers”.

    How exactly is Bush taking money from Planned Parenthood? IIRC, Planned Parenthood is tax exempt and actually recieves money from the federal government.

  5. Oh, because clearly in his idea of the dystopian heart of darkness, NO ONE knows how to breed. Sorry – the pro-lifers have arrived a bit late to the party. Possibly lost some time trying to figure out where, exactly, the “Third World” is on the map.

    I’d say my disgust knows no bounds, but really, it just knows no words.

  6. When conservatives tell you they want to leave abortion (and laws regarding reproductive choice) to the states, don’t believe a fucking word. They want abortion outlawed EVERYWHERE. They want contraception restricted/demonized EVERYWHERE. They want their anachronistic, theocratic views on sex spread EVERYWHERE.

    EVEN when abortion has been shown to decrease crime rates. EVEN when condoms have been shown to be effective in preventing the spread of STDs. EVEN when abstinence-only education has been proven ineffective and even counter-productive in many, consecutive studies. EVEN when empirical data along with the consensus of the scientific/academic community explicitly refute their positions, they refuse to budge and instead press doubly on because they think some cosmological intelligent designer would want them to and is SO not fucking with their heads by providing them by these conflicting data.

    American imperialism per se wouldn’t be so bad. But it is the strong export of a frightening brand of social/religious conservatism across the globe that should send shivers up everyone’s spines (except if your thinking is pre-18th-century Enlightenment which would make you more than slightly hopeless).

    By now, any reasonable person would see that their constant rhetoric on “smaller government” is pure bullshit. They don’t want smaller government because they want intrusion into the private sphere of citizens. They don’t want smaller government because they want to spy on citizens who make overseas calls. They don’t want smaller government because then it would be more difficult for them to keep tabs on those who represent a threat to their power.

    For all their talk on the inviolability of private property, it is ironic and even exceedingly hypocritical that they have little respect for the MOST private of properties– our genitalia, and our natural, absolute sovereignty over them away from government or public scrutiny. It’s one thing to say I’m going to tax your income, it’s a far more serious matter to say I’m going to apply certain restrictions on your BODY. Almost nothing else can breach the very dignity of an individual further.

    Forget the Project for the New AMERICAN Century. This is the Project for the New CONSERVATIVE Century. An “American century” wouldn’t be half-as-bad.

  7. Ok, I RARELY comment, but this just had me seeing red. Seriously, what do these idiots want? They think it’s morally right that women stay uneducated so that they don’t even have the information necessary to protect themselves from AIDS, etc.? They should just lay down, spread, turn their faces aside and close their eyes tight and take whatever the men in power decide to do to them? There is a reason that STD and death rates during pregnancy and birth are astronomically high in those areas. Lack of SEX EDUCATION.
    These people should be honest with themselves and everyone else and admit that it’s not about the “morality”. It’s about what power they can have over as many people as possible.

  8. I must say, that after wrestling with this issue on and off for years, and even though I don’t support abortion on principle, I have to go with supporting Roe from a legal standpoint. The pro-life movement has gotten so close to a Catholic-theocratic mindset (abortion = contraception = not accepting as many kids as God sends = wrong regardless of your circumstances), that I agree with you and fear that once Roe is overturned, basic family planning might be in danger as well.

    We have people like Jennifer Roback Morse and others constantly writing articles about how there is “no right not to have a baby,” and how “separating the pleasure aspect of sex from the procreative is wrong,” and how the non-Muslim population is apparently in crisis so we need to have bigger families. We hear all about the “anti-child” mentality and how couples with small families are essentially in teh same mindset as couples who abort.

    This is not Supreme Court material in my opinion; it is Church material.

    I know plenty of religiuos people who oppose the use of contraceptives but would never move to outlaw them. That is refreshing. But the biggest religious pundits seem to be pushing for us to lump abortion and birth control together in the same category and “mentality.”

    Even though as someone who believes life begins at conception, I can’t support striking down Roe unless we can somehow separate that idea from the “Let’s force women to see children as blessings” religious mindset. For selfish reasons, if contraception is restricted or banned, it will affect my marriage and life situation drastically. But also for societal reasons, if people are unable to plan their families either before OR after the fact, I’m imagining scenes from Soylent Green.

  9. Pingback: Feministe » What A Pro-Life International Policy Looks Like

  10. So these horrible people are trying to limit sex ed and all forms of birth control, and then later they’ll turn around and howl about how “They’re outbreeding us!” (“Us” being, of course, “Decent white Christians.”)

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