leavethesky | OT -BSG 'choice' rant

OT -BSG 'choice' rant

A lot of people are using the latest ep of BSG as an entre into political discussion about choice. Actually, that's not true. They've taken the opportunity to sermonize me and other LJers with anti-choice rhetoric. So let me just get this out there so you people can de-friend me if you like:

You will NEVER convince me (not even the tiniest bit) that abortion (or birth control) should be illegal or even regulated. You know how important the Bible was in your household when you were growing up? That's how important a woman's right to control her own body is to me and my family. In my childhood home, a woman's right to choose was the holiest of Holy, right up there with First Amendment rights and that whole "separation of church and state" thing. Nothing you could possibly say or do would convince me otherwise.

So, please, defriend me if you must, just understand that I don't agree with you and simply writing more and more on the subject in angrier language really isn't going to change my mind. In fact, it'll just make me defriend you because I know I'll never change your mind either and I'll just end up getting pissed off and stressed out and really I can't be bothered. If we can agree to disagree and know that our love of femslash transcends all of our differences, great. If not, see ya! [/rant]

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Amen, Sistah!!! Amen!!

phew!! I agonized over this post. so glad the first comment was yours. :) thanks!

There is a place and time for every discussion, but only if it is a discussion, with mutual respect for differences in values and opinions. That does not include fascist mandates by those who feel that they have the right to decide, not only for you, but for all of us. If they have so little respect for you and your feelings and beliefs, then, in my most humble opinion they have no right to be considered friends, even cyber-ones.

In other words, I think that you did and said the right thing. Glad that I could ease your discomfort in any way. Don't let them get to ya, sweets!!

I've been waiting for a chance to discuss the episode, since holy crap, it blew my mind with its awesomeness, but I don't like to talk fandom in my own journal, so I've been waiting for someone to post.

But no one's posted.

And apparently it's because I don't know any raving drama queens, even though a good portion of my list is pro-life. Pft. I am sorry that people suck. There is so much that could be talked about, like how Balthar would have my vote, and how sickening (and therefore, cool) that is, and, instead.. Boooooo, world.

I don't like to talk fandom in my own journal

You are one smart cookie. :)

And I totally agree on the more intereting discussion that could have taken place. Actually

jennyo is saying some fascinating stuff on the subject. What I find so intersting is the parallels between Roslin and Hilary Clinton, who has shifted her position on choice for political reasons.. But then, that's just me.

You know how important the Bible was in your household when you were growing up? That's how important a woman's right to control her own body is to me and my family.

haven't seen the ep (am only on episode 2.05, so) -- but i wanted to say: it was the exact same way at my house. my mom was an obstetrical nurse both pre- and post-Roe, and the absolute horrors she witnessed convinced her of the absolutely untouchable place a woman's right to a safe and legal abortion must be. she passed that on to me.

so: AMEN.

Your mother is my hero. She deserves an entire fangirl community and a medal. :)

Also, this is something that has been bothering me for a long time. The assumption that my pro-choice beliefs are simply some sort of intellectual (and therefor malleable) affectation instead of deeply held morals that are absolutely inseparable from my identity.

Okay, LJ is getting screwy so who knows if this will actually post.

you mean you're not just pro-choice because it's the COOL THING TO BE?! holy shit!

what i find most frustrating, i think, is the idea that in holding pro-choice ideals, one must somehow be overcoming an essential morality that assumes anti-choice is the more moral stance. that is, that i need a way to excuse my pro-choice beliefs, but that anti-choice advocates do not, as their position is hardly even in need of defense.

if that makes ANY SENSE AT ALL.

makes perfect sense. and clarifies a few things for me as well.

First let me say thank you for this post. I don't even watch BSG (no sci-fi channel) but I can fully understand your frustration because any time I have seen some sort of choice issue brought up on tv this kind of backlash has occured. And it makes me grind my teeth to the nerve because to me the mere thought of denying a woman the right to make choices about her own body is against everything that makes me who I am.

However, this was not something I grew up with in my home, as it was for you. I myself developed this sensibility later in life when I escaped the confines of the small town where I grew up and against everything that I was (and still am) told by the right wing, bible-thumping-when-convenient family that raised me. My only reason for telling you this is to let you know (as I am sure you already do, but I want to make this clear just in case) that this later development of my own pro-choice stance, before which I pretty much just didn't take a position at all, is no less an integral part of who I am as it would have been had I grown up in a different context, and is also not malleable. It is not simply intellectual, nor is it academic, even if academia is where I learned best to defend my position on the matter. It is a matter of morality, of love, of what makes me the person I am. And what sickens me along with the anti-choice flame wars that arise around this issue is the domination and entitlement of the anti-choice right over the word "moral". Fuck that shit.

And one other thing I should mention is that I do think that some regulation is needed around abortion, insofar as it is a medical procedure that must first protect the health and welfare of the person seeking the abortion. In other words, regulation to make sure people aren't forced to get cheaper or more readily available abortions by dangerous means. You get what I am saying.

Anyway, yeah, you rock and I agree with you wholeheartedly.

It is a matter of morality, of love, of what makes me the person I am. And what sickens me along with the anti-choice flame wars that arise around this issue is the domination and entitlement of the anti-choice right over the word "moral". Fuck that shit.

Exactly! I think it's time to retake that word 'moral' because it belongs to us as well. They've used it to beat us black and blue for years and I'm fucking tired of it. And for what it's worth, I think it's even more remarkable that you can come to your beliefs despite your upbringing. My parents were raised by racist, homophobic, anti-choice fundamentalists and I thank ghod every day that they managed to break away and raise me in a home full of queers, pro-choice freaks and minority lovin' liberal intellectuals.

Also, my fear of regulation comes from the fact that regulation typically equals restriction. But I'm all for a Choice Amendment.

I fully understand that regulation/restriction fear. Like I said, the only kind of regulation I ask if for the health care professionals involved to maintain proper conditions, accessibility and to openly offer information to their patients. Yadda yadda.

And for what it's worth, I think it's even more remarkable that you can come to your beliefs despite your upbringing.

Heh, it is so strange to hear it put that way. I mean, yeah, people say that all the time, but I didn't really experience my politics on this matter as a choice, much in the same way I didn't experience my being queer as a choice, although now I do the latter. But for me it just became a necessity, you know, a need to take a stand on something I saw so clearly. In fact it probably had much to do with my simultaneously emerging queer identity, this awareness that I was being told I could not be something that I felt so deeply, and that that all of these other oppressions, racism, sexism, anti-choice, everything, were coming from that same place and although different in their own way, were also affecting people in very similar and destructive ways. So yeah. I didn't overcome some restrictive upbringing to come around to the way I see things. Things just felt really wrong for so many reasons and when I started to look at them carefully I could trace the patterns so clearly. Pro-choice is part of who I am. Heh, the more I try to explain this the more abstract I sound. Forget me.

Excellent post, I agree whole-heartedly.

Us Red State liberals have to stick together. :)

I've not seen the episode yet, or read any of the discussions, but I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with your comments.

Gracias. good to know you've got my back. :)

Man .. people are nuts, and I'm glad that you spoke up. You're absolutely correct about the right to our own bodies being sancrosanct. If in the US you have to listen to bullshit preaching from the pro-life folks, in asian countries, families actually force abortions if the foetus is found to be of the wrong gender (usually, that means female). Pregnancy, abortion, birth control, no birth control, no one else has the right to decide for us.

*delurks*

Um.

Yeah. ;) What you said... ;)

ACtually, I still can't understand (after this many years) why it's a 'pro-life/pro-choice' discussion (with regards to abortion/birth control/etc) since it implies diametrically opposite opinions, when it really isn't that argument (pro-life/pro-choice implies pro-life/anti-life discussion, with pro-choice being equated anti-life).

But that's just me and my whole confusion thing. Considering I wrote a paper on RU-486 when it was first released some years ago, my views on abortion are pretty much: it's a hard enough choice to make, let's not make it harder by injecting a whole bunch of none-of-your-business-people into the whole process. *shrug*

*going back to lurk and read*

HI!! thanks for delurking. I know how terrifying that can be.

I don't get it either. Except that it's a brilliant tactic on the part of the right. Instead of seeing it as a complex issue, they frame it as a binary argument so that everyone has to pick a side. And since no one wants to be anti-life., as if that were actually possible...

The problem lies at that issue of 'none of your business'. Because they argue that they have a moral obligation to make it their business. Which is why I'd like to reclaim that idea of morality. Because I have a moral (and just as legitimate) obligation to tell them to butt the fuck out.

;)

*snorts* at the idea of any woman's body being any one's business other than her own. If people don't want me to tell them not to (drink, smoke, inhale fumes of a herbal sort), then they don't get to tell (anyone: man/woman/child) not to (do whatever to my/their body, that doesn't affect anyone but the individual).

The state has no business in the bedrooms of private citizens.

The state has no business in the bodies of women (or men).

Moral beliefs aside, until people are willing to accept that if they want to impose their views on others, they darned well better be willing to have someone else's views imposed on themselves.

Somehow, the shoe on the other foot never fits as well as people feel it should. *shrug*

Because they argue that they have a moral obligation to make it their business.

I'm perverse enough to argue that I have a moral obligation to not listen or respond to anyone that makes anything that is my business theirs. ;) *g*

Well, I haven't seen the episode, and I probably won't for a while. But I just wanted to give you a smooch and a pat on the back or whatnot. Because I agree with you 100%.

Thanks for the smooch. I'll take all of that I can get. :)

I don't watch BSG, but I want to give you mad props for this post. Believing in choice is not an affectation, nor is it a mood or a passing fad: it's a belief, often a moral one, and it is therefore neither inferior nor superior to any other.

Freedom is our most cherished principle: people should realize freedom does not exist without choice, no matter what that choice happens to be.

LOVE your icon. Absolutely perfect for you comment. heh.

And thanks for the supprot.

Believing in choice is not an affectation, nor is it a mood or a passing fad: it's a belief, often a moral one, and it is therefore neither inferior nor superior to any other.

Amen and thank you for saying it better than I could.

also, I think one of the most nauseating thing about the fundamentalists and their president is the way they have co-opted that word freedom and stripped it of all meaning.

I've never seen BSG, but I did want to say thank you for posting this. We never talked about abortion in my house, but I do distinctly remember my mother standing up in the middle of Mass one day and hauling us out of the church because the priest wouldn't stop talking about how eeeevil it was not to want to have babies. I'll always respect her for that, and I've never understood people who feel that they have a right to control what I do with my own reproductive system.

So basically: word. And thank you.

We never talked about abortion in my house, but I do distinctly remember my mother standing up in the middle of Mass one day and hauling us out of the church

That, to me, is so incredibly powerful. More powerful than marches and petitions. Your mother rocks.

I've never understood people who feel that they have a right to control what I do with my own reproductive system.

Remember, it's not really your reproductive system. It belongs to the state and federal government. ;)

Anne Lamott takes back her Christian morality and stands up for the "already born". I agree that we've let the C³ (Creepy Conservative Christians) claim the position "moral" on too many issues: poverty and security and education as well as abortion.

Also, abortion is not a choice; no one "chooses" to have an abortion (gee, what shall I do today? Go to the beach? Read a book? I know, I'll have an emotionally fraught medical procedure!). Personal bodily security is non-negotiable; it's the automatic default position, or at least, it should be.

I'm not sure what Moore et al. are trying to accomplish, but I'm pretty certain that now is not the right time to be doing it.

It is the most frightening of all repercussions of this administration and the new shuffling of our high court. All under the cloak of 'Privacy'this issue brings back the stench of endometrial rotgut infections that Killed so many girls, desperately seeking a way out.
Women have always been the underdogs in society. Reproductive rights: the foundation of a woman's basic ability to take the wheel in the journey of her life, is the starting point. It is a short ride to being hauled off in the paddy wagon for being gay, being in a trans-ethnic relationship, engaging in 'unapproved' sexual activity, or having sex for reasons other than procreation. Affects everyone.

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OT -BSG 'choice' rant

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