[Peace-discuss] Obama gets another one right

Sun Jan 25 14:11:34 CST 2009

Wayne,

I appreciate your concern, as always, for the downtrodden, but I'm afraid it's misapplied here.  Many people I agree with on most issues would dismiss yours and others' anti-abortion views as another example of your religious blinders; I don't.  My guess is that you are both as sincere and as misguided and the many good humanitarians who supported, e.g. the US attacks in Kosovo (to save the ethnic Albanians from Serbian aggression) or the US conquest of the Philippines (to save the locals from Spanish tyranny, etc.) or the British conquest of India (to rid the Indians of superstition and slavery, etc.).

But for starters, I think you will have to admit that the ethical question of abortion rights has little to do with Margaret Sanger's infamous Social Darwinism (which is anyway not quite the way her later critics portray it, it seems to me), any more than your own Christian views are questionable in light of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the European 'civilizing' campaigns that masscred millions of indigenous people on one continent after another, or the many other Christian atrocities against the poor and downtrodden of the world. 

The question of whether abortion is a form of racism, or class oppression, is more complex in some ways, though actually very simple if looked at rightly, I'd argue.  True, abortion has been visited on the poor and people of color in this country and others as an oppressive campaign at times.  We can go further: forced abortions and forced sterilizations have been practised as genocide for at least generations.  Less overtly public welfare policies have targetted oppressed groups in many ways from the days of workhouses, -- up to and including reproductive policies my fellow NOW organizers and I encountered (as an example) in Mississippi in the 1990s whereby the locally administered Medicaid program would pay for poor  women to have subdermal contraceptive Norplant insertions BUT NOT pay to have them removed, regardless of the woman's wishes or even of the side-effects or allergic reactions, which were not uncommon.

It may surprise some honest abortion-foes to learn that NOW fought such policies vehemently, by the way.  The reasoning is relevant here.  NOW and other wrongly described "pro-abortion" groups currently working in the US support a basic principle that simplifies the whole issue: the individual liberty, autonomy, freedom, however you want to describe it, of a woman as well as a man to decide what happens to her physically, sexually, and in particular in terms of being pregnant or not.  As such it is the most fundamental libertarian political right.

Critics of the "pro-choice" movement rightly point out that such decisions, often difficult enough in themselves, do not happen in an economic vacuum - and so are not truly "free" choices.  Women and their families or support networks (spouses, partners, siblings, parents, close friends) must at times make tough decisions based on economic realities not of their own choosing.  Nowadays there are convincing statistical arguments that women overall have very nearly caught up with men in terms of earning power, and the biggest difference that lingers is that when women hit their child-bearing years they fall behind and usually never catch up again.  Of course some men encounter the same problem, but overall it is women.  For these and many other reasons (oppressive parents, drug-use, birth defects) abortion is not always a "free" choice any more than a large family has been a real choice for billions of women for thousands of years - they do it in part
 because their choices are severely constrained.  This is not the only reason to support abortion rights of course.  The basic argument for the right is an argument for human dignity and autonomy, as I've said.  But this is the economic context that can't be ignored.

So publicly-funded childcare, maternity and paternity leave and other employment considerations, free access to birth control and family planning services, rational sex education, and free abortion on demand are and must be all part of a comprehensive program of human rights that includes women as valued equal members of society and not second-class citizens.  It is part of why I believe the values of libertarianism require also the values of socialism to be logically and humanly consistent.  It is why conservatives who want to say they support women's rights and oppose racism and oppression must pick and choose which freedoms they support, which pieces of the overall reality they bring into their arguement.  And it's why liberals who want to support abortion rights are not always allies in the struggle for women's rights, but their programs do sometimes coincide.

Obama's move against the vicious "Mexico City" policy is progress, toward allowing poor women and families in communities whose livelihoods we have wrecked to at least find some maneuvering room in that disaster.  Reagan's and both Bushes' policy of limiting the options of the global poor, often our own victims, is oppression on top of oppression; lifting that ban is at least mild relief.  It isn't enough, but it is a step in the right direction.

 Ricky

"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn

________________________________
From: E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag>
To: Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
Cc: peace discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>; socialist forum core <sf-core at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 5:13:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Obama gets another one right

Ricky,

I find Obama to be quite consistent in his policy.  He supports the
killing of innocents both at home and abroad,
both with his warfare and with his "welfare".  One can't say that Obama
is incoherent as an international minister of death.

Abortion is the most explicit expression of racism and class warfare in
our contemporary world.  
It is the most dastardly and cowardly of all human rights violations,
since it violates the most fundamental Natural Right,
the Right to Life, and it attacks the Unborn, who are completely
helpless.

The operative social purpose of abortion is to rid the society of
"human weeds".  The founders
of Planned Parenthood identified as the poor and the Negro as
undesirables who should not be allowed to reproduce.   
Have you read Margaret Sanger's writings? Have you read about her
"Negro Project"?

I have some commentary at my website:  http://www.liberty4urbana.com/drupal-6.8/node/43
I hope that you will watch the three videos there and then report back
with your take on those issues.

Also, Lux Libertas will be broadcast again on UPTV-6
at 10 pm Sunday night.

Trent Cloin and I discuss the paradox and error of Abortion in America
in the first 30 mins.
In the 2nd 30 minutes we discuss MLK's April 9, 1967 speech "The Three
Dimensions of a Complete Life" which was
given in Chicago just 5 days after the "Beyond Vietnam" speech we all
heard last Sunday afternoon.
"Three Dimensions" does significantly address aspects of the
"Revolution of Values" which King called for in "Beyond Vietnam".

Wayne

Ricky Baldwin wrote: 
Put
this one in the column of real differences, differences that matter to
poor people's lives, among US presidents:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_abortion_ban

This is not as groundbreaking as closing Guantanamo Bay prison.  As the
article says, Clinton did the same.  Still, it speaks to the tone Obama
is setting in his first week in office.  And if Obama didn't do this,
we'd be right to call him out for failing to act.

Ricky

"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn 

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