[Peace-discuss] AWARE & abortion

[C. G. Estabrook]

On the table for Sunday's AWARE meeting is a proposal for a contribution to an 
organization that supports abortion; the group in question also does good work 
on health care that AWAREists all applaud.

Several posters to this list have argued vigorously, when this subject has come 
up before, that abortion has little to do with AWARE's antiwar/antiracism remit. 
  I'm sympathetic to this point of view - one reason I think that AWARE should 
not be supporting such advocacy with its own funds - but also to the reply that 
opposition to war is based largely on opposition to the illegitimate ending of 
human life, which many contend abortion to be.

There's a further difficulty, involving the antiracism aspect of AWARE's goals. 
  In an interview with the NYT (12 July 2009) Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg said, "I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was 
concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we 
don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for 
Medicaid funding for abortion."

It was been pointed out at the time of Roe v. Wade (1973) - and since - that the 
decision was motivated in part by the great tradition of American eugenics 
(where the Nazis claimed to have learnt it).  In those revolutionary days (the 
Sixties started late and ended late) Nixon's Supreme Court (not particularly 
liberal) was seen to have been particularly concerned about "growth in 
populations that we don't want to have too many of" - namely the poor, and 
minorities - especially as they became increasingly articulate.

Abortion as public policy is experienced by many not as choice but as no choice 
(e.g., "Society will not give you a job, education, a place to live, or an 
income - but it won't stop you from aborting your child").  AWARE's opposition 
to a public policy of war and racism should at least raise questions about 
abortion, it seems to me.  --CGE

"Abortion and the Left" <http://www.counterpunch.org/estabrook01172003.html>
"Support our Euphemism" <http://www.counterpunch.org/estabrook04182003.html>

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