Feministe Feeback: Discussing Choice with a Young Woman

29 thoughts on Feministe Feeback: Discussing Choice with a Young Woman

1. Many of my friends who went to Catholic schools were shown The Silent Scream as sex education. We only left school a few years ago. :/

2. Don’t load your arguments with feminist keywords, not because she won’t identity with feminism, but just because it might confuse her. If you say “Anti-choicers are crazy wingnuts who believe in the systematic dismantling of reproductive rights”, you won’t get anywhere. Use clear, concise language, explain the facts simply, then ask if she’s interested. She seems very bright, so she probably will be!

3. i would take her current stance and start the conversation about preventing an unwanted pregnancy. if she’s open to a “just don’t have sex” line of thought, you can move on to a broader conversation about reproductive rights.

4. grr. i meant more than a “just don’t have sex”

   damn. hangover hurts the copyreading skills

5. Disclaimer: I’m NOT trying to be discouraging here, I’m just meditating on the larger context of your conversation(s) with this young woman, and trying to figure out how you can get the most info through to her before the potential gatekeepers in her life take note.

   So, some things to keep in mind: whatever situation this girl was in that allowed for her to see this awful film, be it school, youth group, etc., she was probably put there by her parents. AND she could very well be in a decent relationship with her parents, so that whatever you tell her she will tell them.

   Therefore, it may be best to plant questions in her mind about what she saw and/or is being told, rather than actually directly arguing against the view she has been presented with.

   Raise questions about who made the movie; the science involved; the reasons why, even if abortion is “bad” in a certain religious view, there are still public health issues involved in making it illegal (ie women will still find themselves in the circumstances that lead them to consider abortion, whether or not it’s legal, and will get abortions done, somewhere somehow, even if it’s not safe); AND MOST IMPORTANTLY drop mentions on informational websites or other info sources she could turn to if her conversation(s) with you are cut short and she still wants to know more.

   And again, I’m not trying to tell you to dumb it down or censor yourself or not talk to her. I just grew up with people who were the super-scary anti-choice, anti-woman sort, and I know they watch their children like hawks, trying to shut out all potential sources on “unsavory” info. Thus, you kind of have to take a back-door approach to getting through her — seed her with questions, get her curious enough to want to know more herself, without giving information that includes dog-whistles that will set off her parents and cause them to keep her as far away from you as possible.

   I hope this is helpful. Tread carefully, and best of luck.

   Oh, and you rock for taking on this little awareness-raising mission. Just saying 🙂

6. Am I right in remembering that an embryo doesn’t even have a detectable heartbeat until almost a month? I’d start with the demonstrably wrong stuff, then move more into philosophy. (I’d also fact-check me there; the medical reference book in my house while I was growing up was from about 1976.)

7. Well, put it this way, Anna, you can’t have a heartbeat if you are literally just a clump of cells that has barely implanted. So you’re right. 😉

   I’d just second advice to use language that is accessible to the audience at hand, and engage them to ask questions, and think, rather than just bombard them with fact. Planting the seeds of questioning is a much more successful way of getting through to people. Not that facts aren’t important, but first, a little encouragement to think and examine helps get people to actually listen to the facts, not hear what they want to hear.

   That said, if you want to read up about basic embryology, it might help you be able to articulate just how limited and not-person-like week-old blastocysts are.

   What we really need is a relatively easy to understand book/site about embryology as it relates to abortion rights, which debunks abortion myths. If anybody’s got any good sites for reference, or books on the subject, it might be useful to share them.

   Best of luck with that, though. 😀

8. Jeez, I’d just show her the pictures in my album.

   “These are five day old embryos. See? Wads of cells in a dish.”
   “These are five week old embryos. Yeah, I know. All you can really see are embryonic sacs. Not exciting, huh?”
   “These are eight week old embryos. Kind of look like gummy bears, don’t they?”
   “These are sixteen week fetuses. I know it’s hard to make out, but that’s a head over there. No, wait. Could be a butt. Uh. A foot? I don’t know.”

   Actually, that’s pretty much the conversation I had with my step daughter, except that I finished off with “Yeah, I know it’s kind of hard to make anything out. Ultrasounds are kind of Emperor’s New Clothes, aren’t they?”

   If you’re looking for pictures, you could always Google Image Search “five day blastocyst.”

9. Incidentally, since you asked for sites on myths, i thought I’d do some googling:
   This one’s very brief, but does detail the main points anti-choicers argue.

   This one’s a blog, but has a decent amount of information, as far as I can see.

   I also want to add that if she’s religious, you may want to point out that in Exodus (22, for reference) , it’s made clear that if you cause a woman to miscarry, you should pay a fine, but if you kill or injure her, you’re entitled to an eye for an eye.

   I came accross this Religious site with a section on abortion, and it might be worth reading through the bits it decides are for or against abortion. Yuo can at least then tell her that the bible is by no means clear that killing even newborns is murder, let alone foetuses.

   I hope that might be of help.

10. Anna Twitch, speaking of “demonstrably wrong stuff” in that film. My Catholic mom at the time said, “I don’t know an 8 month old infant who can ‘sense danger’, how can that little thing?’.

    And yes, in the bible it is perfectly okay to kill your enemies’ infants and cause your wife’s miscarriage should you suspect her of adultery, which could also mean she was raped, but who cares, ’cause it might not be yours. UHG!

11. I would talk to her about medically necessary abortion (which, if using “pro-life” definitions of pregnancy, would include ectopic pregnancy) and non-viable pregnancies and then ease her into the other stuff.

12. While comments about how to discuss abortion are helpful, I think it’s important to realize that the lies and misinformation are spread about a lot of subjects, not just abortion.

    I feel it’s really important to inform her about personal bias. Teach her how to seek out and properly assess information based on who said it and what they believe in. Without that, the arguments are just “he said/she said” arguments. But when she knows that one bit of information is coming from a biased source and another bit is coming from a neutral source, she can make the decision for herself as to what to believe. And that’s for abortion, reproductive rights, science and all sorts of information that’s floating around out there!

    (Don’t forget to mention your own biases, but encourage her to make up her own mind using accurate and honest information. The discussion shouldn’t be a battle between good people and bad people, but a battle over correct and incorrect information.)

    You also mentioned not knowing the lies and misinformation that is being spread. The best way to find out is to explore the other side! Check out pro-life websites and blogs, then check out their “facts” with credible sources to see if it’s right. Remember, it doesn’t help to counter pro-life facts with pro-choice facts. Try to find unbiased sources.

    Hope that helps.

13. Well, first I’d want to give her the biological facts as I understand them – blastocysts, embryos, fetuses, etc. Then I’d disclose the things I don’t know — whether or not a fetus “has a soul” or “is a person” or “feels pain” in some metaphysical way. Those are religious questions, not scientific ones, and as a devout agnostic, I’m not comfortable making pat statements one way or the other. I would encourage her to explore the various spiritual takes on abortion on her own, and maybe guide her toward some ones I like — articles by pro-choice Christians, for example.

    Then I’d give her some information about what happens in societies where abortion is legal and what happens where it’s criminalized, and let her know that a lot of women are going to find themselves in desperate situations and choose to terminate their pregnancies even if their only options are illegal, unsanitary, and dangerous; banning abortion doesn’t stop abortion. I would tell her what does lower abortion rates: access to, education about, and cultural acceptance of contraception. I would ask her why she thinks the people who are so worried about murdered babies don’t generally support the best method to prevent so-called baby-murder, and how she feels about that.

    Finally, I would remind her that it’s perfectly fine to feel uncomfortable about abortion, but she can still support other women’s access to it if she believes they have the right to choose for themselves. Hopefully, some of that would sink in and marinate in the years before she steps into a voting booth.

14. De-lurking to put in my $0.02.

    I think that Anne Onne and Miss Kate were on the right track when they suggested that you encourage your young neighbor to question her own assumptions. I’d add that you might try framing the issue from the pregnant woman’s point of view. Young people have an innate sense of fairness, especially when it comes to being told to do something they don’t want to do. Ask a 12-year-old to do the dishes, and they’ll likely as not say, “That’s not fair!” Extend that logic to a commitment lasting anywhere from 9 months to a lifetime, and she’ll get the point.

    I think it was reasoning like that which led to my own belief in reproductive freedom, despite being raised in a Roman Catholic household. My first memories of being aware of the abortion debate revolve around the sense that it just wouldn’t be right to force the awesome responsibilities of parenthood on someone who didn’t want them.

15. Re-reading your post, I see that your neighbor is somewhat older than I initially thought. But I think what I said still applies.

16. Danakitty’s right–you have to make a bigger general point rather than try to refute nonsense bit by bit. I would say something like “Don’t credit everything you hear. Over the years, many people have believed many foolish things about reproduction. We may still be believing foolish things. Always investigate any claim you hear about baby-making.”

    Foolish what? she might ask. Well, the ancient Greeks thought that only fathers were genetic parents–that male bodies made babies, which they parked inside the mothers to incubate. And the inventor of the microscope peered at a sample of semen and said he could see tiny people swimming.

17. my thoughts are that you should approach more from the angle of legality than anything else. i mean, if she saw the film in school or youth group or whatever no matter what you tell her she might not believe you, becos unless shes the type who questions everything she hears, she probably puts alot of faith in big important institutions to tell the truth. at the same time, shes 14, she doesnt want to be told what to do by anyone. use that to your advantage. something like “well, you personally can make whatever decision you want about abortion for yourself, afterall, its your body, but it would be wrong for you to make that decision for anyone else. the pro-life movement wants to tell all women what they can do with their bodies. you probably dont like having your parents make decisions for you, so would you really enjoy government officials youve never even met telling you what to do with your body?”

    i mean, my mom is super awesome, but at 14 i didnt want her telling me what to do. at 14 i wanted to make all my own choices. i think most teenagers feel that way, struggling to be independent and “adult.” the idea of being told what to do by strangers could be the point that turns her thinking.

18. Just looking at the heartbeat side of things out of interest (because it’s not relevant to whether women should legally have control over their uteruses): a heartbeat can usually be detected by half decent ultrasound equipment at six weeks gestation (which is around 4 weeks actual gestation, since conventional timing goes from the first day of the last menstrual period and assumes a four week menstrual cycle.) Sometimes a HB is ultrasound-detectable at five weeks (3 weeks from conception) by more sophisticated equipment; sometimes not till after six weeks (4 weeks from conception).

    Just dragged out the old embryology textbook (“The Developing Human”, 3rd edition, Keith L Moore). Rhythmic myogenic contractions in the myoepicardial mantle of the primitive heart tube begin around day 22.

    Embryology is a pretty poor place to start (or continue) when you’re talking about reproductive justice. Molluscs and arthropods have mechanisms to circulate fluid around their bodies.

19. I think getting into an argument about how “human” a month-old embryo *really* is will probably never be a winning argument. Until someone has the resources to critically evaluate different sources (like a basic background in biology, for one), it comes down to “who do you trust more,” and a neighbor probably doesn’t rank that high.

    Instead, I’d take more of a civics approach to the whole thing, I think. I’d point out that most of the big issues that people really disagree with (at least around laws) involve situations where two different people have rights, and they’re in conflict. The situations that are very clear-cut, where one person has rights and the other doesn’t, don’t become hotly-debated. I’d point out that many people believe that the fetus has the same rights as a baby, but even if that’s true, people in general have a right to control their own bodies. With pregnancy, these two “rights” come into conflict: when people say abortions shouldn’t be allowed, it’s saying the fetus’ right to life overrides a woman’s right to control her very body, and that is something I very strongly disagree with, because pregnancy can be very hard physically, sometimes dangerous or even deadly, and even safe pregnancies involve childbirth, with no one should be forced to go through. (After all, we don’t force people to donate spare kidneys, even though that could save a life, because we recognize that it would be unfair to force someone to undergo surgery unwillingly, even if it’s lifesaving for someone else.)

    The most effective arguments are the ones that reframe a bit away from the debate about “can a fetus feel pain?” to questions about whether everyone has a fundamental right to their own body. Giving an counterargument like that is planting the seed, and at the same time being respectful to whoever in her life (her parents? her church?) disagrees. You don’t want to end up in a situation where you’re calling her parents / her church wrong, because if it comes down to a believability contest between you and them, the neighbor definitely isn’t going to win.

20. As others have said, how you speak to a young person (teenage or kid) is as important, or more, than what you tell them about blastocysts. I remember when the world had a firm dividing line between Grownups and Us, and how everyone on their side of the line felt they had an authority just because of that. Be sure not to frame anything you say, no matter how kindly expressed, as coming from a superior source of knowledge than her personally.

    For example, when a girl says that she heard that unborn babies feel pain, don’t say, “That’s not true! The human nervous system doesn’t develop until [etc.]” Instead, say, “Really? That’s not what I learned. I learned that scientists [etc.] I think that’s what’s really happening.” I don’t mean to suggest equivocating at all, just to talk about the subject with cheerful interest and engagement, as if there’s a way of finding the truth outside arguments and emotions, which there is. Don’t make her feel she has to choose sides in a battle between you and the church/school/parents who told her such a thing.

21. I think the most important thing about any discussion of choice with a young person is to get them to identify at least as much with a woman as they do with a largely undifferentiated group of fetal cells. As the Planned Parenthood link points out, the main anti-choice strategy is to remove the woman from the equation altogether and focus on the fetus. It’s very effective, because a cluster of cells can be anything you want it to be–a smiling pink baby, a future president, a cloud that looks like a pony–and no one has any trouble loving a product of their imagination. I guess I would start by talking hypothetically about women she knows (not herself, because it’s too easy to say ‘I would never do that!’) and try to move from there to general principles about the rights people have over their bodies.

22. Lots of good advice.

    You could recommend If These Walls Could Talk and fight movies with movies.

    I agree that 14 is a tough age to convince of one thing or another. Maybe just being a supportive adult who is open to discussing the issue and finding more information with her is enough. And respecting her opinion, no matter how crappy and uninformed it may be. That’s a revolutionary approach to dealing with teenagers in this day and age.

    I just want to throw out there that some fetal tissue (later term) is distinguishable and can be disturbing. Lots of anti-choice folks use grains of the truth to form larger lies, so being very dogmatic about the issue could get you into a troublesome discussion.

23. If it was The Silent Scream, it’s been put up on Youtube (broken up into several pieces). The comment section will probably drive you crazy, so don’t read those.

24. I agree with those who say to get her to question her own assumptions. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with the plainly medical fact that “a women cannot even know that she is pregnant at one week, and they certainly couldn’t do an abortion at that point, and even if they could, it certainly would not have a heartbeat.” Though I’m rather sure that the fetus in the Silent Scream was not supposed to be one week old, but it was definitely older than they claimed.

    My original advice is this: if she seems receptive — and I do mean if, because otherwise there is a small potential for it to backfire — explain to her that at least one-third of women will have an abortion at some point (I’ve also seen stats pointing to a higher rate of over 40%). Which means that she almost undoubtedly knows someone, though she doesn’t know who they are, who has had an abortion.

    I think that in our society, unless you have someone in your life to give you different ideas, “pro-life” becomes a kind of default position. It’s because the battle is painted as one between babies and women. Practically everyone loves a baby, but as we know, not nearly as many people love women. In a misogynist culture, a fetus that is called a baby vs. woman is almost bound to result in the baby winning. Fetuses are given faces, we’re shown ultrasounds and hear stuff about heartbeats — but you very rarely see women who have had abortions, because of the stigma, shame and outright hate.

    I think letting her know that someone she knows has had an abortion — a relative, friend’s parent, neighbor, teacher, etc. — helps to put a face on that. If you yourself have had an abortion, you might want to hold off on that information (if you were inclined to share it at all), because it could scare her off. But if you know someone who has had an abortion, that would also be something good to mention (without “outing” that woman, of course). And, as is applicable, use wording like “I have a friend who had an abortion, and it was a very hard decision for her/even though she didn’t want to, she otherwise would have gotten very sick/she thinks that it was the best decision she could have made/she couldn’t afford another child and wanted what was best for the children she had already/etc.” It could also help to point out that 60% of women who have abortions already have at least one child (to get rid of the idea that there are mothers, and then there are women who have abortions), women living in poverty are 4 times as likely to have an abortion (to get rid of the “casual, selfish” stereotype) and that about 80% of them identify with a Christian religion (to get rid of the “only bad women have abortions” and “my religion says abortion is bad so it definitely has to be” crap).

25. I’ve been discussing this with my almost 13 year old daughter for a few years. It was awkward, but I have found that she wants real information in small, truthful bites. That way, she can consider the conversation and whenever she wants, she can ask questions.

    I very much doubt it was their intention, but Maine Vitae Society’s endless commercials have sparked more times when the topic comes up in her mind. Their constant pounding has been remarkably effective in getting my preteen to talk! Should send them a thank you note…

26. > Am I right in remembering that an embryo doesn’t even have a detectable heartbeat until almost a month?

    If you are going to argue this general PoV, I’d suggest you use the brainwave argument. That’s the closest sign we have to measuring thought, and the division between being a thinking being as equivalent to a human being is a reasonable one. Whether brainwaves show thought, in the sense of self-awareness (which I’d suggest is the real component of humanity) is itself highly debatable, but, until we get something more concrete in interpreting and measuring what we mean by “self-awareness” and “rational thought”, brainwaves make an adequate, reasonable demarcation point.

    I forget, but the point where the embryonic brainwaves diverge from the mothers’ is, IIRC, somewhere around the three month line. I’m sure someone here probably knows straight up, so I shan’t bother to confirm that. If that’s wrong it’ll get corrected.

27. I got to explain this issue to my then-14-year-old sister, who is now 17 and has joined me in being a diehard for reproductive rights. It’s about reducing the issue–not its importance, but cutting out everything that involves “whether a fetus is actually a baby”. I told her that it was her job to decide on her own when a fetus became a baby and it was her job to decide whether or not she ever got an abortion, but it was not her job to tell anyone else what they could do with their bodies. My opinion didn’t really matter, it was enough that she was asking for help in forming her own.
    RedEmma was exactly right with the fairness idea, and it worked pretty well. It’s NOT fair to tell anyone else what they should or shouldn’t do. It also helped to praise my sister for having an open mind and asking the question, and remind her that asking questions is a good thing that is always acceptable. Facts didn’t necessarily help until she was ready to understand them, and a lot of kids default to “this is school” when you start throwing scientific facts at them and tune it out like a lecture.

28. I came from a VERY anti-choice background. I remember when I was a kid, my mom described a late-term abortion (what she termed “partial-birth”) at the dinner table. My parents compared women having abortions with Nazis killing the Jews. They were diehard anti-choice, as was just about everybody in our community. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties and investigating feminism that I decided I should have contol over my body–and every woman should have control over hers.

    I probably would’ve appreciated it as a teenager if someone had introduced me to feminism and had helped me to unlearn some of the lies my parents taught me. On the other hand, my parents would have been furious if they found out and would’ve made some kind of complaint against the person. It might be difficult to try to teach the teenage neighbor a bit more about reproductive rights without incurring the wrath of her parents.

29. Right, Beckie- I kept it as simple and straightforward as I could with my daughter. And encouraged her to let her thoughts and feeling evolve within her own comfort zone.

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