Conservative blogger: getting your shame on
Carla Axtman
As an attendee of last week's Netroots Nation in Providence, Rhode Island, I was privileged to attend a speech by Democratic congressional candidate Darcy Burner. During the speech, Burner asked if there were women in the room who would be willing to stand up and talk about making the choice to have an abortion. All over the room, women stood. Myself included. Burner then asked those who were willing to support these women who would speak up about their choice to stand. As far as I could see, the entire rest of the room came to their feet.
For me, it felt like the safe and warm embrace of a loving community--willing to support me and speak out against those who would try and shame me.
For conservatives, it was just another chance to engage in being jackasses.
Case in point:
It was difficult to estimate the number of women as they were sprinkled through out the audience. They stood alone while Burner admonished the attendees to hold their applause.
Then Burner asked the others seated in the audience to stand and give these women a standing ovation. The audience complied enthusiastically.
I sat during this spectacle.
Burner said,”If you are a woman in this room, and statistically this is true of about 1/3 of the women in this room, if you’re a woman in this room who has had an abortion and is willing to come out about it, please stand up.”
She continued, “Now, if you are willing to stand with every woman who is willing to come out about having had an abortion, please stand up.”
Nearly everyone stood.
Burner said,”This is how we change the stories in people’s past. We need to make it okay for women to come out about the choices they make.”
The left will say that they’re not pro-abortion, they’re pro-choice or they’re pro-women. It was clear, though, that abortion itself was elevated as something good and something to be celebrated.
The speaker and the audience was honoring women who had an abortion as though the action was an objectively good thing.
Shorter Melissa: Sit down you shameful, murdering sluts. How dare you celebrate taking responsibility for your life & choices in a way in which I disagree.
Well Doc Clouthier (she's a chiropractor), I do celebrate it. I'm proud of the fact that I recognized I wasn't ready to have a baby at 19 years old. I'm relieved that I made the right decision and now I've got two healthy, well-adjusted and intelligent offspring. I waited to have children until I was ready to be a mother. That's what being pro-woman is all about.
So take your coat hanger mentality and your conservative, judgmental BS and get stuffed.
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8:05 p.m.
Jun 11, '12
What she distorts or can't see is that what's being celebrated is the disposal of shame for making an emotionally tough but objectively rational decision that women have been shamed about for centuries. Personal feelings aside, when it's been literally cleared with the Constitution and only people with a medical license can do it, how DARE anyone try to give someone crap for it? It'd be like shaming people for getting a blood transfusion: it's a MEDICAL PROCEDURE, not a satanic ritual. Turds.
11:05 p.m.
Jun 11, '12
Thank you, Carla, for being willing to not only stand up in that room -- but also to write about your story in this public forum.
Thank you for your courage in standing up to those that would bring the shame (and more).
11:08 p.m.
Jun 11, '12
I think that the one thing that ensures that people who are pro and those who are anti abortion will never agree on whether or nor abortion should be legal or illegal is that the pro people believe that the fetus that's being aborted is a living human being and innocent of any criminal activity that should end in a death sentence. While on the other hand, those who are pro abortion see the fetus and having the potential to become a human being, but at the point of its abortion it's no more than tissue.
The anti side can't comprehend the pro's point of view, and the pro side can't comprehend the anti's point of view regarding the life and/or tissue being destroyed.
And that's why the anti side is horrified and disgusted at those of us who are in favor of and/or have had an abortion.
To an anti abortion person, a woman having an abortion is equivalent to someone taking a shot gun to a little kid who's wandered onto your property. Pro people can poo poo that all they want but it doesn't change reality. Anti people aren't anti because they want to control women's reproductive rights, it's because they don't condone the killing of innocents.
Think about it. If someone came out and not only declared they had killed an innocent person, but also declared that they weren't ashamed of it, how would y'all feel about that? If you would be horrified, then you have some comprehension of how that conservative blogger felt.
6:44 a.m.
Jun 12, '12
I'm not buying it, Joanne. Not even a little.
If these people were all so horrified about the taking of "innocent lives", they'd be MUCH more circumspect about gun control laws, war and how much taxpayer money goes into building weapons. In fact--they'd be pouring into the streets to protest.
They'd also be strongly in favor of child labor/safety laws. And don't even get me started on paying for public schools to ensure all the innocent children could have a good start in life.
This is about control & power. Period.
10:58 p.m.
Jun 12, '12
Carla, do you believe that in having an abortion you are killing an innocent human being? If you did, could you have an abortion?
How many people who are against abortion have you talked to who have said anything other than they are against abortion because they believe that the abortion causes a human to be killed?
I know a lot of people who are against abortion. Every single one has told me that they are against it because they believe that the fetus that's being destroyed is a living human being. And I have gone around and around the "when does life begin" question. They would no sooner want you to kill that baby human than they would want you to get a gun and walk down the street shooting random strangers. Although they would applaud if you shot someone who broke into your house and threatened your life.
It really isn't about power. It really is about when a person believes that it's a human. Not being able to recognize that one simple fact is what keeps you from understanding your opponent and being able to fight them effectively.
9:01 a.m.
Jun 13, '12
Joanne:
I don't necessarily believe things about people based on what they say. I believe them based on how they ACT (or don't act).
Again--if it were about ending innocent human life, these same people would be absolutely flooding the streets over us still being involved in war. And they'd also be just as vehement about the death penalty...given that it's become clear that people have been put to death who aren't guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted and sentenced.
This is very much about power. And I submit that it is you who don't understand this opponent and how to fight them.
8:56 a.m.
Jun 12, '12
First of all, people who are pro-choice, are not "pro-abortion." Just like those that are anti-choice are not "pro-life."
The most significant differentiating factor between those who think women should be able to control their own bodies and those who don't think so, is religion.
The war on women...the campaign to take away women's reproductive rights is carried out by people who have fantasy-based belief systems, i.e., Christianty. This is just one of many examples of faith-based lunacy dragging down civilization.
10:45 a.m.
Jun 12, '12
Of course it's a human being; it's not a frog or a lion. However, it's not an INDEPENDENT human being. Where does mother end and fetus begin, exactly? Show me on the umbilical cord.
Since we're talking about two beings, one of which has Constitutional rights and one of which doesn't, seems like pretty simple calculus. Even if you want to suggest that the fetus should HAVE personhood status, pretty clearly in a conflict of rights between the fetus and the mother the mother should take precedence.
We justify killing in society in a number of circumstances. Murder is prohibited; killing is not. We do so in war. We do so in self defense (and in Florida, we do so simply by claiming self defense!). We do so out of mercy, not yet in this country but in others such as the Netherlands. And we do so in pregnancy, so as not to subject an undesirous parent to an unwanted child--and of course more importantly so as not to subject the child to being unwanted by its biological parent(s).
Some people are proud of killing in self defense in war or their homes, I suppose. I imagine very few to NO people take the same thought process when it comes to euthanasia of the terminally ill, or abortions of a fetus. Guess what people, sometimes life presents you with stark choices, and they sometimes involve life and death. Welcome to Earth.
7:02 p.m.
Jun 13, '12
"Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others." [Kang, 1996]
6:55 a.m.
Jun 14, '12
To grant personhood to a fetus that gives the potential child rights independent of the mother, you would have to sever the bonds of motherhood itself. When is that okay? When they rush to define when human life begins they have already run rough-shod over the rights of the mother to get there. They never even speak to that!