Abortion Gang

Breaking news: one of the most well known and far-reaching cancer funds , Susan G. Komen for the Cure, has decided to halt all grants to the cancer-treatment-and-provention-place Planned Parenthood during the “abortion debate.” They are willing to sacrifice medical care for some of the most vulnerable Americans in order to please the anti-choice, anti-women’s health crowd.

When a patient goes to Planned Parenthood, she (or he) is often struggling financially. More often than not, she doesn’t have health insurance and uses Planned Parenthood as one of her only means to access health care. Patients go to Planned Parenthood when they need an annual exam, an STI test, or they are ill and need advice. Planned Parenthood is so incredibly vital because it offers cancer screenings, abortion care, STI/HIV testing and treatment, and many other services to people that would not be able to access those services without Planned Parenthood.

Anyone that knows health insurance knows that without access to preventive care, or a place to treat the common STI or cold, people go to the place that can help them (hopefully) get well and is not legally allowed to turn them away if they are unable to pay up front: the hospital emergency room. In a complicated and drawn out process, those visits to the ER end up costing the tax payer and insurance policy holders, so the common American’s premiums go up.

Now, I’m not blaming the people that go to the ER, I’m blaming our culture that puts them in the position to have to go to the ER when they should be able to go to, say, Planned Parenthood to treat an STI or to get a pregnancy test and maternity care. Because when a woman goes to Planned Parenthood for an PAP smear, finds she has abnormal cells on her cervix (HPV), and is able to obtain appropriate treatment to avoid cancer, she’s not only helping herself. She’s also avoiding a potentially life-threatening disease and costing our healthcare system far less than a trip to the ER or cancer treatment.

You fucked up, Susan G. Komen Foundation. The Foundation’s cowardly retreat during a highly charged political atmosphere is no doubt motivated by the threat of dwindling donations if they don’t stop helping Planned Parenthood keep women healthy. They are ultimately more worried about being able to please corporate sponsors than you know, actually helping people that might have cancer.

And there is no “abortion debate.” There is a group of white men in political and social leadership roles that have no way to stay in office and places of power without pandering to the we-want-to-control-women vote, who must pander to their religious sponsors who also want to control women. Access is being threatened because Planned Parenthood, an organization whose services comprise cancer screening/prenatal care/STI and HIV testing and treatment in addition to safe abortion care , is under attack and losing grants.

Is this the country we want ? Write to Susan G. Komen for the Cure and let them know that grants to Planned Parenthood are grants to prevent cancer!

Anti-choice activists absolutely love to use metaphors about what abortion is like. Abortion is like the holocaust! Abortion is like genocide! Abortion is like slavery!

I recently came across this quote to that effect. The author is talking about a new facility in Ohio where women would be able to both receive abortion care and talk to and/or engage an adoption specialist:

The Choice Network is a horrible idea.  It’s sort of like a gas chamber-passport facility for Jews.  In one convenient location, we can allow the Nazi-occupied countries of 1942 Europe choose to send their Jews to the gas chambers or give them passports to countries where they will be treated as free and equal citizens.  Both options are given equal validity.  Neither option is recommended or preferred by those who run the facility.  The founders of the facility don’t care if a Jew is sentenced to death or given a new chance at life.  No matter.  Both choices are treated the same.  Though one leads to murder and one to life, the facility takes no position.

No. Abortion is not like the Jews and the Nazis, and it’s not like genocide, and it’s not like slavery. Abortion is not like any of those things. This should be obvious to anyone with half a brain, but apparently, it’s not. Here are some very basic, seemingly obvious reasons why abortion is not like the Holocaust, genocide, or slavery:

1) Whether you think the fetus is a person with a soul or a collection of tissues, the vast majority of abortions occur at a time when the fetus could not  survive outside the womb. In the case of the holocaust and genocide, those being killed were human beings surviving without physical dependence on another person’s body.

2) Those killed in the Holocaust, and in various world-wide genocides, were fully developed human beings with histories, families, and relationships. Abortion does not end relationships in this way, it prevents them from occurring.

3) Slavery! Abortion is not like slavery. Slavery is the ownership and exploitation of a person’s life. Abortion is preventing a life that does not yet exist from becoming one that does.

Whatever you think of abortion, it is not like anything else. It is unique. It is a medical procedure that does not end, but prevents, life. It is a medical procedure that we have, as a society, entangled in deeply suspect moral values, and objections to it generally rely on values and morals that, despite their claims to universality, are actually in the minority, and belong to a small, select group of people – people who, for example, would compare abortion to the Holocaust, or would judge black women for having abortions because abortion is like slavery.

I wonder sometimes if the people who write these hateful things do so because they feel so unjustly entitled to their incredible amount of privilege. Yes, there are anti-choice activists of color, and there are, I’m sure, Jewish anti-choice activists. But I find that the majority of anti-choice activists are white. The piece I quoted above was most certainly written by a white girl – there’s a picture – who has clearly never questioned her own comfortable privilege, or what it would mean to live as part of a group of people with the collective memory of holocaust, genocide or slavery, and what it would mean to have that experience re-appropriated by some asshole who never thought through what that experience of collective memory might actually mean for the people who live with it every single day.

I lived for a period of time in Rwanda, a country that, in the very recent past, actually experienced a genocide – or, probably more accurately, an intense civil war that resulted in deep, indescribable scars. This is a country where, as a result of the estimated one million deaths that occurred, fully 50% of the population is under the age of 18. These numbers are unheard of. It’s a country where, despite its actually liberal and forward-thinking ways (they had universal health care long before we even began debating it), men take more than one wife because there are, quite simply, not enough men, and women have decided it’s better to share a husband than simply not to have one.

A startling number of those children under 18 are the product of mass rapes that occurred during the genocide. The point wasn’t, usually, to get the women pregnant; the objective was generally to give them HIV/AIDS, and kill them slowly. Many of the women who bore children after the genocide did so because they had no access to abortion in the chaos and aftermath. In the United States, that happens occasionally. In Rwanda, it is, like the Holocaust among Jews, a collective memory of repeated trauma; the trauma of genocide, the trauma of rape, the trauma of childbirth and the knowledge that it would be necessary to raise an unwanted child who was the product of all of those previous traumas. It is startling to see. You do not forget it. You would not compare it to abortion.

As for the relationships between these women and their children who are the product of rape, I can say anecdotally that those relationships vary, like other relationships between parents and children. We knew women or heard about women who made the best of it; we knew children who had never known love because of it. We knew children who had been wanted until their parents re-married, and then they found themselves pariahs. It is worth noting, however, that abortion is legal in Rwanda under three circumstances, and one of those circumstances is rape.

Life is a crapshoot. An abortion means someone never plays. Birth control and miscarriages also means someone never plays. The opportunity to live is a much greater crapshoot than life itself.

I say to all the people tempted to make abortion about anything but abortion: don’t. It isn’t like anything else. If you must fight it, if you must insist that you know better than the women and the many, many mothers who make the decision that abortion is best for them, right now, that’s a point I’m too tired to argue. But if you must fight it, don’t be lazy, and don’t be an asshole. Do your research. Think carefully about what you say. Because every time you tell me abortion is like the Holocaust, or genocide, or slavery, I know you’re too dumb to be worth the breath it would take to argue.

Abortion is controversial. There can be no denying it. Even here in Canada, which might seem like a bastion of rationality because of our lack of abortion law, things are not peachy for women seeking abortions. Along with the various legal restrictions (covered from time to time in this space), there exist many (if not all) of the same social stigmas and regional and economic barriers for women seeking abortion here as in the States.

There are two alarming American trends that have been picking up steam here in recent years: the video sting (a la Lila Rose, or James O’Keefe) and crisis pregnancy centres, those supposed havens for troubled pregnant folks, which more often than not provide false information about abortion and use scare tactics (sometimes toeing the line of legality) to discourage women from seeking one out. These are things that most people working in abortion provision are being prepped to deal with. Legal abortion is so fragile, even here in this supposed socialist paradise; you get used to being constantly on the defensive, even when you are doing nothing wrong.

I was a bit uneasy when I saw this piece about a CPC in Surrey, BC that was recently the target of the same kind of undercover video sting operation so frequently used against the pro-choice movement. A CTV reporter went into the Surrey Pregnancy Options Centre posing as a pregnant woman, with a hidden camera. She asked about abortion, and the volunteers at the CPC told her a bunch of ridiculous lies, exaggerated the risks, and refused to refer her to an abortion clinic. They even gave her an envelope of information that had “For a proud Mom-to-be” written on it.

To be honest, it’s not the worst I’ve heard. I worked at a clinic that had a CPC next door, and we heard stories from patients about their experiences there that would shock you. But the fact remains that while Surrey Pregnancy Options Centre is not the worst offender, they are blatantly lying to people and spreading misinformation about legal health care.

My question is, how good do we feel about being behind the camera? I met a woman at a NAF meeting who worked at one of the Planned Parenthood clinics that was targeted by the “racist donor” phone calls. They were fighting against backlash they simply could not afford. Speaking as someone who has now worked for a few organizations that struggle to keep unearned backlash and negative rumours out of the news, I can say that it’s not easy to continue doing good work when every move is scrutinized by the right wing and the media. Sustainability without putting staff and patients at direct physical risk is always a concern for abortion clinics; it gets worse when they are targeted by these undercover operations. If you want change, go through the courts or the government, is what we say to the James O’Keefes and the Lila Roses. If your cause is so valid and moral, why be so sneaky? Stay on the level, and meet us where we’re at.

…So is it ok that we are now turning around and using the same tactics they used on us? Is it ok for the pro-choice movement to start Lila Rose-ing all over the place? Why don’t the same arguments apply to us? Maybe because we are being stalled in legal channels; there have been small victories with regards to how CPCs can and cannot advertise their services, but for the most part there seem to be no repercussions for giving false medical information to anyone who walks through the door. There are a lot of factors at play when it comes to social justice and the complicated relationship we, as activists, have with the justice system. But maybe that doesn’t excuse being giant hypocrites.

From a strictly personal standpoint, I don’t think I can forgive James O’Keefe for his part in creating the media storm that brought down ACORN in the US, or Lila Rose for setting back worthwhile organizations trying to provide health care to low income folks. Because of that, I cannot condone the use of the same tactics within our movement. But I also can’t help feeling that I’m indulging in a false equivalency here. The CTV reporter only went in and recorded what happened. There was – as far as we know – no suggestive editing, and no particularly leading questions. Does that make it ok?

I honestly cannot answer that question.

Abortion has recently become a hot topic (again) in Canada. Currently, the anti-choice contingent, lead by CPC MP Stephen Woodworth, has been asking why Canada denies that a fetus is human. In fact, they are claiming that abortion has nothing to do with it, they really just want Canada (and pro-choicers I presume) to acknowledge that a fetus is human. Here’s the thing: no pro-choicer I know denies that a fetus is human; we deny that it is a person. And there is a distinct difference.

“Human” can refer to so many things other than a person. Our cells are human. We have human emotions that aren’t experienced, as far as the current evidence shows, by other animals to the same degree as us. We have human culture and technology. “Human” is such a broad term that to suggest that a fetus is not human is really quite ridiculous. That being said, not all fetuses are human, just the ones that share human DNA. But DNA does not a person make.

A person is completely different from a human and although a person is also human, “human” is not necessarily a person. To suggest that they are synonyms is to conflate their meanings. People share a number of characteristics, which while not all are present in each person, most people will indeed share most of the characteristics. People have emotions and thoughts, they experience sensation, often through their 5 senses but not always. People have the capacity to learn, to form opinions, to have likes and dislikes. Even small infants and children have many of these qualities in at least a rudimentary sense. People also have individual bodies that are self-sustaining. When they are not self-sustaining, we have medical intervention that can take over to some extent, but when ultimately our bodies lose too much of their ability to self-sustain, we die.

This is the point at which the antis will point out conjoined twins; they enjoy conflating “fetus” with “conjoined twin.” The difference is that conjoined twins have at least some separation of their bodies. If they did not then they would be a parasitic fetus, or a fetus in fetu. Conjoined twins are two distinct individuals that share some organs. What is most important is that many conjoined twins are separated, or at least a separation is attempted. Unfortunately sometimes one, or both, die. There is (likely) no debate as to whether conjoined twins are individuals, but I don’t see huge protests and sums of money going into preventing their separation surgeries. I don’t see these parents harassed and tormented for the decision they are making, even when it is almost inevitable that one will die. To suggest that a fetus has more rights than a conjoined twin is to lose one’s grip with reality.

There is no equivalency to a fetus. A fetus is a fetus. It is not “like” anything else. To suggest otherwise is to conflate the meaning of both. Suggesting that pro-choicers deny that a fetus is human is disingenuous. I deny that a fetus is a person. I deny that it has a sufficient number of the characteristics that make a person a person to qualify it as such. Unfortunately, the antis in Canada are getting creative because they realize that abortion bans do not sit well with the majority of Canadians. Instead, they are attempting to frame the argument in ways that seem innocent and perhaps have even a “left wing flare,” but in fact are the complete opposite; they are backdoor attempts to start Canada down the slippery slope to abortion regulation. And I will not stand for it.

In Canada women have been granted the right to abortion by the Supreme Court of Canada on the basis of the Charter right of security of person. Recently, a case was heard by the SCC, which will see freedom of speech and religion clash with a woman’s right to security of person.

Linda Gibbons is a notorious anti-choice protestor. She would be known as a hardened criminal if she weren’t leading a religious crusade against abortion. She has spent 8-9 years behind bars in various stints over the past 17 years because of her refusal to abide by an injunction that forbids protesting within 150m of Toronto abortion clinics. The ban is an attempt to stop harassment against women who attend these clinics.

Ms. Gibbons appeared before the SCC recently, arguing that the injunctions should be removed so that she can exercise her “rights” to freedom of speech and religion. Her lawyers also argued that using the criminal justice system to enforce the injunction was inappropriate and that the clinics should be forced to pursue Ms. Gibbons in civil court. She believes that the injunction “stifles pro-life activism.” She effectively believes that she has an inalienable right to freedom of speech and that by preventing her from protesting directly out front of the clinics where she can harass the women entering the clinics the government is breaching her rights.

What Ms. Gibbons does not seem to appreciate is that all rights have limits. Her right to freedom of speech and religion are not absolute. The SCC does not place rights in a hierarchy, putting one above the other. This means that they place limits on certain rights to avoid clashes between different rights. This will be another instance where I am certain he SCC will clarify that the right to free speech is limited, namely harassment is not free speech and thus is not protected.

I can only guess what the SCC will say, but I expect that they will stop Ms. Gibbons from harassing patients. They must understand that women accessing legal healthcare have a right to do so in peace. This judgment will be interesting because in New Brunswick, the antis have purchased the property literally next door to the Fredericton Morgentaler Clinic, giving them easy access to patients. The NB government has refused to enact an injunction to push the protestors back, and so clinic escorts are needed to help protect the women. If this SCC judgment comes down limiting the rights of protestors, like I suspect that it will, it will give pro-choice activists in other cities, including Fredericton, the ammunition by which to demand injunctions to keep protestors back.

When this judgment comes down I will write an update.

Oh, and Ms. Gibbons? Thanks to your fight, I now donate $25 per month to Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. Thank you for the motivation.

Trigger warning for anti-abortion violence, violence against women, gruesome imagery, threats, etc.

Sophia wrote a post a day or two ago about being a Tebow fan and being pro-choice. To reconcile the fact that she loves watching the football player and that he’s anti-choice, she talked about how she’s going to donate to a pro-choice organization every time he scores a touchdown. Who knew that what riles up anti-abortion folks is not the potential to help women and their (already existing) children, but defending a football star and insulting bloggers they’ve never met?

Instead of publishing the dozens of insulting, hateful, and blatantly violent comments and emails we’ve gotten over the last 48 hours, below are some highlights (lowlights, really), in case you had any doubts about what the anti-choice movement is really about: shaming, disrespecting, and hating women.

Some people thought they’d be really smart and donate to their local anti-abortion organization instead. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

You know what, for every touchdown Tebow scores, I think I’ll donate money to my local pregnancy care centre. Dare to disagree with that, and you’ll expose yourself as the anti-choice people you really are…since if you’re really pro-choice, you should respect my right to donate my money to something that will really help women. GOOOOOOOOOOOO, Tebow!!

Others thought that insulting Sophia and telling us all we should die was the way to get us to change our minds (nope, still doesn’t work).

This is genuinely pathetic in every way. Sophia, you are a pretentious piece of garbage. It pains me that your mother didn’t have enough sense to abort you when she had the chance. I’m sure she’s really proud of you. Get a life, and if you love abortions so much why dont you go f-ck yourself and jam a wire hanger up your snatch.

Definition of anti-abortion respect and kindness there, am I right? Other folks decided to go straight up medical and take us to task for being sluttly abortion lovers.

Who devotes this much time and energy advocating the act of sucking out a human fetus from a woman’s uterus using a vacuum. I don’t mind if you’re pro choice, but my god this is dreadful. You guys must really have a lot going for you. You guys are like abortion addicts. I bet for every one girl participating in this blog there are 7 terminated pregnancies. Nasty ass ho’s. NASTY.

And then there’s the folks who just couldn’t resist getting all World War II on us, claiming that we’re discriminating against Tebow a la Hitler. As a Jew, I get particular joy out of this. You want to make this about the Holocaust? Try me, fools.

You are discriminating against someone who has every right to display his faith, just as you have every right to display yours without prejudice from those around you who would disagree.  The hatred oozing from you is astonishing!!  Hatred for what!??!  Someone who believes in God??  Just because you don’t believe in God doesn’t mean He doesn’t exist…and I daresay one day you will experience the consequences of your lack of faith.  I would liken you to Hitler…for your hatred.

And, my personal favorite, the over-reaching Christian who hopes that Jesus saves us all (memo: already too late).

You folks are truely deranged.  Does Jesus save?  You’ll know for certain a microsecond or so after you cross over from this life into the next.  God luck.

Oh anti-abortion folks. Sometimes I wish I could just give you a hug and tell you that it’s all going to be ok. This isn’t a war on Christians, or your beliefs, or your precious Tim Tebow. We are doing the work, God’s work, if you will, that saves women’s lives, strengthens their families, and lets women achieve their hopes and dreams, all while you’re anonymously commenting on a blog post about football. You make our job so easy! Thanks for reminding us who is really on the side of love, kindness, respect, compassion, and justice.

On November 16, 2011, First Resort, a San Francisco organization that describes itself as existing “solely to provide free medical care and counseling services to assist women in making fully informed decisions about unplanned pregnancies,” filed a lawsuit against the City of San Francisco, alleging that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ ban on crisis pregnancy centers’ engagement in “false or misleading advertising practices,” interfered with their First Amendment rights.

First Resort is one of many so-called crisis pregnancy centers (also called CPCs) across the country which claim to provide accurate medical information to women considering abortions, but instead engage in practices that range from spouting total falsehoods to bullying.  Reports surfaced in North Carolina recently that a Jewish woman visiting a number of CPCs was told not only to not have an abortion, but that she would go to hell.  At one, she was even told to become a born again virgin.

The Huffington Post has reported that at First Resort in San Francisco, these baby hungry anti-choice mavens are not satisfied with walk in traffic to the clinic style offices, whose awning reads “A Woman’s Choice Resource Center.”  Instead, according to San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, First Resort actively recruits women unsure of their options by purchasing Google ads for the term “abortion San Francisco,” so that they could ensure that their website would be at the top of results for anyone searching for abortion services in the area.

Unfortunately, laws protecting women from organizations whose singular focus on babies and controlling women’s bodies leads them to lie do not have a great track record for survival in our legal system.  Earlier this year, a Federal judge struck down a similar law in New York, on the grounds that the First Amendment should somehow be extrapolated and perverted to mean that it is okay to lie to women when they are at their most vulnerable.

SF Appeal reported that Bayview Supervisor Malia Cohen put a great deal of effort into writing the law in such a way that it “both protects free speech as well as any women at risk of being misled.”  She clarified to reporters this week that, “this legislation does not limit or prescribe what views groups or individuals may express.  Rather it prevents groups from knowingly engaging in false or misleading advertising about the pregnancy related services they offer.”

Which, I suppose means that any San Francisco abortion clinics cannot, unfortunately, tell potential clients that having an abortion will make them thinner or blonder without incurring the city’s new $500-per-infraction fine.  If there is a San Francisco Planned Parenthood location, then they better not promise a free cruise or day at Disneyland following each procedure without following through.

Except that, as far as I know, there are no abortion clinics offering designer shoes as gifts-with-purchase-of-abortion or failing to provide full medical information to their patients.  So, if First Resort, or other CPCs feel like they are being singled out for providing misinformation, then maybe they should start asking themselves why they need to lie, instead of sucking up the courts’ time and money by suing.

Over at Slate, Rachael Larimore has written a somewhat convoluted piece, partially in response to Amanda Marcotte’s earlier article in which she explores the trend of touring “I was almost aborted” speakers. Larimore argues that pro-choicers are actually afraid of the “What if I hadn’t been born?” question because it challenges our supposed perception that “…some ‘unwanted’ children actually grow up in loving homes and become responsible, even successful, adults.”

Perhaps it is too much to ask that this belief can be dispelled by pro-choicers simply saying, no, we know that some “unwanted” children do okay. We also know that many women who decide to proceed with an unplanned pregnancy end up being fantastic parents. We also know that some adopted kids have great lives and contribute a lot to society. We even wish for these things, and try to facilitate the frequency of these events by supporting many things that help make them possible: accessible, funded daycare and childcare; the de-stigmatization of single motherhood; financial and emotional support for new parents; and on and on. Pro-choicers have a wide range of concerns outside of abortion (that’s why we call ourselves “pro-choice” and not “pro-legal-abortion”) – we would like to see pregnant people have access to all the information and resources they need regardless of their chosen pregnancy outcome.

Larimore thinks that we are scared to answer the question: “What if I hadn’t been born?”, but personally I don’t think it’s that difficult. Putting aside the fact that, had that one thing changed, an infinite number of alternate worlds is created, the answer is quite simply: “then you wouldn’t be here.” There’s a lot more to it of course: maybe things would have been a little easier for your mother; maybe she would have had another child later on, that she could have loved and cared for more; maybe things would have been worse for her, and having you saved her from going down a difficult road. Maybe someone more competent would have your job; maybe your partner would have fallen in love with an unstable person who killed them in a jealous rage, changing a lot of other lives; maybe everything would be exactly the same; maybe maybe maybe.

The reason pro-choicers often deflect this question as meaningless is because it is. There is no way for us to know what would happen if a different choice was made. The question itself is a shameless emotional baiting tactic that anti-choicers use in two ways: 1. asking it about themselves to make you feel like a jerk if you don’t care about them not being born, or 2. asking it about you to make you feel like you’re so lucky to be alive – as if you would even know or care if you had been aborted. “What if your mother aborted you?” the anti-choice protesters would hurl the question over the fence at us, back in my clinic escort days. “Then I wouldn’t be born,” we would answer back. What if the moon were made of blue cheese?

Everyone makes decisions in their lives without knowing how things might have been if they had taken a different path. That is part of being human. You can tell a pregnant woman what could happen until you’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day she can only choose one of two options – continue the pregnancy, or terminate it – and then she lives with the outcome of that choice. The pro-choice movement is not interested in the game of telling women what *could* happen. All we want is for her to be free to weigh those possibilities and make that decision herself.

Jennie McCormack recently tried to seek a temporary restraining order against Idaho’s state law that bans abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. As she is not currently pregnant, the judge ruled that McCormack lacks legal standing on this issue. However, to put this into perspective, Jennie’s lawsuit is the very first court case challenging any of the later abortion bans that have been enacted in the past few years.

Idaho, as well as Alabama, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Kansas, and Nebraska, all enacted post-20 week abortion bans.  This arbitrary 20 week deadline is based upon frequently disputed research that claims that a fetus starts to feel pain at or after 20 weeks of gestation.  There is no legitimate scientific information that supports this; In fact, far more evidence suggests that a fetus actually can’t distinguish between touch and pain until around 35-37 weeks.

Here’s the thing about these “fetal pain” laws: as with most anti-choice legislation, the hidden agenda is paramount.  One restriction always leads to another.  It is a never-ending cycle of misinformation and bogus science aimed at restricting women’s access to abortion. Slowly but surely anti-choice activists are chipping away at our rights, and we are letting them get away with it. Will our birth control be next? Will a miscarriage be considered a “wrongful” termination of pregnancy? Anti-choicers are not concerned with pain or safety or women; they only care about getting their political agenda across.

More women must find their voices and stand up against anti-choice restrictions.  Especially because fetuses are about to have their voices “heard” in Washington. Yes, really.  Today, October 13, we can all head down to the U.S. Capitol Congressional Auditorium and listen to the “voice of the unborn.”  Can this get any creepier? People will literally be watching and listening to ultrasounds, performed purely to make a political statement.

Voices From the Womb (yes, this is a real event) states, “all 535 members will be personally invited to witness live ultrasounds on women who are in their first, second and third trimester of pregnancy. Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate will have the opportunity, for the first time, in the United States Capitol to “hear” from the pre-born children of America.” Notice, the women carrying the “pre-born of America” do not get to say anything at all.  This is the kick-off of what will be a national tour coming to a state near you.   After all, it is about to be an election year.

The laundry list of provisions and restrictions is endless. Fetal pain laws, mandatory waiting periods, parental consent, medically inaccurate anti-abortion counseling sessions, forced ultrasounds…over and over again we put the “rights” of fetuses above the rights of the women who are carrying them.  And now, we are literally giving fetuses a “voice” in Washington. Where will it end? When will a woman’s voice finally matter more than the unborn fetus she carries?

Recently I put 33 minutes of my life aside to watch the much ballyhooed “180,” a film (sorry, “award winning documentary”) purporting to change “the heart of a nation” on the question of abortion (and no I will not link it). I got my hopes up a little when I saw that one of the recommendations on the website, from a John Piper, went: “I give my unflinching, joyful, trembling Yes to ‘180’.” Well! Sounds sexy, no?

No.

The film opens with the question: “Have you heard of Adolf Hitler?” Don’t ask me what this has to do with abortion, because I was still trying to figure it out after the interview subject answered, “no” (no?? really??) and old news reels of Hitler’s Germany began to run. You’re really winning me over already, guys. Godwinned in the first fifteen seconds. We then meet Ray Comfort, who is “deeply concerned” that a generation is forgetting about the Holocaust. It goes downhill from there.

Comfort seems to have rounded up a disturbing number of young people who either don’t know, or are pretending not to know, who Hitler was and what he did. This should be a documentary about the failure of our public schools. But it’s not. It’s about how if you don’t know anything about the Holocaust, you’re probably going to lack a moral centre and have lots of abortions. I think that’s what it was about, anyway. I spent a lot of the time marvelling at the lack of ability his interview subjects possessed for putting together a coherent argument. I feel that for those he has convinced to turn “pro-life”, there will be little trouble turning them back. You don’t even need a logical point.

What the film consists of is a series of “man-on-the-street” style interviews interwoven throughout, all conducted by Comfort and intercut with footage of the Holocaust, as well as ultrasound images (thankfully used sparingly). I did expect some gruesome fetus porn, because of the disclaimer about disturbing images, but it must have been referring to grainy footage of piles of dead people from the concentration camps (in which I was amused to note, the genitals had been blurred. Yeah, because that’s the image we need to protect people from).

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that Comfort did not have some revolutionary new argument against abortion, but instead used the same old talking points and ridiculous hypotheticals that those of us in the pro-choice movement have heard (and refuted) many times. It can be overwhelming to be approached on the street though, and if you are not equipped to answer those questions I can see how some people might find them somewhat thought-provoking, even mind-changing. There was a lot of “I never thought of it that way before” comments from the subjects.

The film itself is fairly well put together for what it is, although I am not sure who it is supposed to be targeted to – I can’t imagine it changing the minds of anyone who has given even the slightest bit of thought to their pro-choice position. Sample hypothetical (paraphrased): “I’m a construction worker. I’m going to blow up that building, but I’m not sure if there are people inside. I think there aren’t, but I’m not sure. What would you say to me?” Um…..do your job and check? I’m reporting you? Get out of my womb with your goddamn dynamite??

I really wish people would stop coming up with hypothetical situations they can equate to abortion. Can’t we all agree there is no equivalent?

Abortion itself does not come up until 13 minutes in, after Comfort has already badgered his surprisingly good-natured subjects about whether it is better to bulldoze a bunch of Jewish people in a pit, shoot them to put them out of their misery, or take a bullet yourself from a German soldier (I’m not even kidding). There were also some questions about whether you would kill Hitler, and whether you would kill Hitler’s mother, that served to show morality as shades of grey, only to have Comfort totally contradict all that at the end with a very black-and-white approach to Christianity – a dangerous position to take for someone whose Bible never explicitly condemns abortion, and actually implicitly condones it.

Here are some reasons why this film did not make me change my mind about abortion:

1. I do not believe abortion is the moral equivalent to bulldozing Jewish people in a pit.

2. I feel conflicted about being on the same side as someone who would say to a young, pleasant woman of colour: “Hitler declared Jews as non-humans, and that’s what you’re doing when you say it’s ok to kill a child in the womb.”

3. I believe one can be moral without being a Christian.

4. I have the capacity for rational thought and am not instantly converted to an idea by being berated by talking points until I break down and say yes so the interviewer will just go away.

5. If I label myself, I do it based on what I believe, and not vice versa. I will not change my beliefs in order to fit into a category (ie “Christian”).

6. There was a really cute, self-identified gay woman in this film and it didn’t look like Comfort was able to convince her, and I still want a shot with her.

7. “It’s common practice to have a low moral standard when we free ourselves from the Ten Commandments, or when we’re unaware of their true meaning.” No.

8. It does not, in fact, concern me that if I were to die today I might end up in hell. Mostly because I follow my own moral compass and would rather suffer judgement than follow the (in my opinion, immoral) laws of a god I don’t believe in.

9. I don’t want to associate with a cause that has to put this disclaimer on their video and website: “We strongly condemn the use of any violence in connection with protesting abortion.”

and…

10. I trust women to make the right choice for them, regardless of their religious or spiritual beliefs, I want to be on the side that trusts and supports women, and I truly believe that abortion can be, and often is, an act of love.

Sorry Ray. Better luck next time.