Where Is NOW's RESOLVE?
Thirty years on, you are probably aware of Roe V Wade and the ripple effect it has had on society.
Here in Nashville you probably heard the mass squee from the Roe Fangirls when Sandra Day O'Connor broke up the Supremes. At last, and just in time for the National Conference! It was as if Davy Jones was playing the prom.
The agenda focus was back on Choice, and protecting women's right to choose. Why does NOW keep fighting a battle it's already won, when there are other hills left to climb?
Egalia writes of the rally and says to me in her comments
No one is threatening to pass a law to forbid you from having as many children as you like. You, however, appear to support passing laws that will forbid other women from making their own decisions.
Get real. That is NOT feminism.
No, no one is passing a law to forbid me from having as many children as I like. HOWEVER, as a woman with fertility issues, I'd like to know why NOW isn't equally vocal about the push to have insurance companies cover fertility treatments.
Apparently the right to pursue pregnancy as an ideal is not as kosher with NOW as the right to end it.
posted by Kat Coble @ 1:46 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Erin spent some time looking at the NOW website and was appalled at their front page (go to now.org to see). NOW portrays these women as having lost their lives because they received "back alley" abortions. Tellingly, however, one of the seven women was born in the 1800's and three others profiled were born in the first quarter of the 1900's, before the abortion debate even existed in its current form. Futher, no mention is made of the fact that several of them got into the situation because of bad personal choices, and other social and medical options were available.
One wonders why, with a history of over 100 years to choose from, NOW would profile these particular women?
I'd ask why they don't profile the fifteen million women who were aborted, but the answer to that is self-evident.
The most dangerous place in America really is the womb.
Jason
Not to mention the fact that in the fight to secure legal abortions we've forgotten that abortion is physically and emotionally traumatic.
Abortion is portrayed as the easy solution to a complex problem--Alexander slicing the Gordian Knot. I've spent years working with women who've exercised their right to choose. At least 80% of them are, years later, emotionally wounded by the experience. Worse, when they've tried to talk about their feelings with other Women Who Support Choice they are told to not speak out, because it makes the movement look bad. Every abortion has two victims.
Why does NOW keep fighting a battle it's already won
Because it is in danger of being overturned. That is why.
I've spent years working with women who've exercised their right to choose. At least 80% of them are, years later, emotionally wounded by the experience. Worse, when they've tried to talk about their feelings with other Women Who Support Choice they are told to not speak out, because it makes the movement look bad. Every abortion has two victims.
Wrong. I know plenty of women who are glad they had abortions. They are not victims.
I would be interested to learn where you spent so much time with women who have chosen to have abortions. Because most (non-partisan) studies reveal that abortion does not always amount to "emotionally wounded."
And I know lots of feminists who encourage women to speak out about their abortions to get rid of the stigma attatched to having one. Planned Parenthood even makes "I had an abortion" t-shirts. http://www.icecoldtshirts.com/product.php3/pid/63/prodn/I-HAD-AN-ABORTION
"Abortion is advocated by people who have themselves been born."- Ronald Reagan.
HOWEVER, as a woman with fertility issues, I'd like to know why NOW isn't equally vocal about the push to have insurance companies cover fertility treatments.
It's hard to win new rights when you are forever defending the ones you thought you won decades ago, but then I think that's the whole idea behind the right wing effort anti feminist effort. If we stay busy enough on yesteryear's battles we'll never move on to the others, some of which you seem to support.
Interesting how many women stand back and criticize the women at NOW for not being all powerful and taking on every issue. The best way to get an organization to work on your issues is to join it and do some of the work.
It's like voting, if you don't do it, then you don't have much ground for complaining.
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