DN! had a piece up this morning on the abortion debate, in Texas and across the country.
Once again, women who don’t believe in abortion are effectively silenced when put into the frame that if you don’t believe in abortion, or believe it should be limited to 12 weeks (20 weeks in the Texas law), you are anti-woman. A woman may be a defender of equal rights, as I am, but if she does not believe in abortion, she is, as this piece illustrates, cut off from the discussion.
It’s presented as an either/or situation–if you’re a feminist, you MUST believe in abortion, at any time during a pregnancy.
I don’t agree with Carly Fiorina for lots of reasons, but this time, she did hit the nail on the head–it is framed as draconian when they want to limit abortion to five months’ gestation, but we are only a handful of countries that allow it, among them is China. When it is framed as draconian, it cuts off any discussion of different views.
My previous blogs on abortion here and here.
The last link provides the best over-all view of how other countries approach not only abortion, but maternal care, maternal birth rates, and other measures of care of women.
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It’s interesting that they ran a piece right after that on a white woman’s family history in the slave trade. It is a tough discussion to have–emotions involved along with guilt make it difficult, as they said. It was gut wrenching to find out my ancestors had slaves many generations ago. You feel shame, but then defensive that you don’t condone it–this doesn’t represent your own personal view.
As I watched the piece, I thought one could easily put “woman” inserted where they mentioned that the United States was built on slavery. Women being paid with low wages have allowed the wealthy to grow in this country….and is still happening today—look at Walmart and others using sweat shops in other countries and the U.S. that abuse mostly women workers.
As I mentioned before, when Mitch Daniels became governor, the already low pay of $21,000 went down to as low as $16,000 for secretaries in the state. I believe that most state salaries went down, but the women’s wages were below livable wages.
When I was in college, there was a group fasting to protest the use of sweatshops to create the college’s retail clothing. They gathered in the common area across from the student union and put up tents. There was a lively discussion on this in one of my classes (one of the few discussions allowed) and a young student boasted that she and her friends were grilling steaks next to the hunger strikers. She was angered at it and laughed at them having to smell the cooking food.
JCPenney was one of the stores that I had previously patronized regularly….over decades. I went there as a child (I remember buying sewing supplies and 45’s there–(young kids ask your parents what a “45” was). I shopped there as a young adult and then as a mother buying for the whole family. When I became aware of sweatshops, and started looking at labels, I realized that I could not justify buying clothes at Penney’s anymore. I had always bought there and it was something of a shock to my kids when I refused to buy the clothing….some arguments ending as screaming matches.
I thought I could circumvent this by sewing clothes, but alas, the fabric in the fabric stores is made in….countries that have sweatshops….