The forefathers of the pro-life movement remind us that the long-standing American tradition of female subordination and treating women as second-class citizens is something that pro-lifers aren’t going to give up so easily.
We start with Feministing’s Ann, who braved the Blogs4Life conference this morning. Among her observations:
* The majority of anti-choice bloggers, judging by the attendance, are 50-year-old men, several of whom brought their young sons along. Nearly every younger woman I noticed there was attending as a reporter.
* They love to equate the anti-abortion movement with the civil rights struggle. There were a lot of power-point slides featuring Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes and fuzzy photos of smiling black people. See, if you ask Sam Brownback, one of the problems with America is that we treat fetuses as second-class citizens, much like African-Americans were treated in the pre-civil rights era. Does this seem more than a little insulting to anyone else? Saying that black people and fetuses (and really, embryos) should be considered “equally human”? Wow.
* Peter Samuelson, of Americans United for Life (which pushes incremental, state-level anti-choice legislation like parental consent laws and waiting periods), said he is confident that Roe will not be overturned — it will be made irrelevant by the type of laws his organization promotes. The group only focuses on legislation that polls with public approval of 50-60% or more. “It’s incremental. It’s step-by-step. It’s very effective.”
* Did you know that abortion providers EAT FETUSES?! No, really! Jill Stanek told me so today.
* Tony Perkins: “There is something innately in us that tells us as one generation we should give birth to the next.” So if you don’t want children, you’re only lying to yourself.
* There was also much talk about how the annual March for Life never receives any coverage from the “secular media.” Quick Nexis and Google News searches reveal this is total bullshit.
Read Ann’s full post. Here’s a photo of the conference speakers:
Nine people. Eight men. Eight white people. Only one person who will ever have the possibility of getting pregnant. In the full day’s line-up, there are a grand total of three women.
Pro-lifers are also celebrating the Roe anniversary by deciding that “It’s time for the pro-life movement to address contraception.” Hell yeah, I thought when I read that headline, it is time for the pro-life movement to start addressing contraception, since it’s the most effective tool against unintended pregnancy. Sadly, I was far too optimistic. By “address contraception,” they mean “support the No Room for Contraception campaign.”
Some anti-choicers are taking their campaign to the streets: Another pharmacist, this time at a Wal-Mart in Ohio, refuses to give a couple emergency contraception.
And then there’s the sex “education” being given to students in Washington, my home state. It has all the usual marks of abstinence-only education, including misrepresentations, ignorance of medicine and science, and flat-out lies. But this program is especially disgusting, as it also includes the strong suggestion that women and girls bring sexual assault upon themselves:
Leighton then asks the class: If you’ve made the decision to be abstinent, at what stage do you think you should draw the line? There’s a brief silence. “Prolonged kissing?” ventures one boy. “Does that seem about right?” she asks the students. She notes that her daughter used to draw the line at French kissing—until she almost got raped after doing so on a date.
SHARE’s written curriculum makes the point more explicitly. It provides an anecdote about a college girl who French kisses on a first date. It then gives two questions to ask: “How might this situation make her vulnerable to date rape?” and “Is it safe for her to participate in preparing his body for intercourse when she does not know him very well?”
In other words, rape is about male desire, and women invite it by tempting men through open-mouth kissing. If you’re raped by someone you know, it’s because you made yourself vulnerable — not because the person who raped you had no regard for your feelings or physical safety, and only cared about exerting his control over you.
This curriculum is also deeply sexist, and relies on the idea that desirable women are those who dedicate their bodies to the patriarchy:
She tells the students about a class of all boys she taught last year in Kent. When asked how many of them wanted to marry virgins, “100 percent of those boys flew their hands up,” says Leighton.
“I thought it was pretty amazing,” says Leighton after class, referring to the preference the Kent boys expressed for virgins.
Lovely.
Happy Roe anniversary. Remember what the other side is actually fighting for. And fight harder.