First off, many are going to ask themselves why I’ve come to this Prog Blog dust up so late. It happened about one week ago and you can see the details here and a goodly round up of the events that transpired here. There is also an excellent write up from Dr Dawg here worth a good read.
I spoke with Admin of the Prog Blog site to seek his clarification and while he admitted calling the unhappy parties ‘banshees’ (name for a screaming women ghost0 he was unapologetic in using that term and calling the issue of two supposidely progressive bloggers vascilating on women’s bodily control ‘a trivial matter.’
My feeling are summed up well by blogger Rusty Idols here but allow me to expand on my view of this hardly trivial issue.
I’ve read the two blogs in question there is no doubt in my mind that they were completely ignorant and while perhaps well intentioned bordered on misogynistic. The posters seem not to understand that for feminists this issue is black and white: you support complete freedom for women’s control over their own bodies or you support partial or complete government control. This is the crux of the issue. Feminists, progressives and advocates for a women’s right to choose have fought longs and hard and as a result, we live in a country where abortion is completely in control of women and their doctors. End of story.
Did Dr. Henry Mortentaler support late term abortions? No. Does that matter? Not one bit. You see, this is a battler over liberation from big government. Full stop! There really are no two was about it. We’ve seen south of the border the fighting that progressives, feminists and freedom advocates are undertaking (many losing sadly) against a growing wave of new big goernment restrictions on a fundamental point of women’s freedom. We don’t want that to come north. It must NOT come north! Hence the anger and frustration directed at two supposedly progressive bloggers, who think nothing of the attempt to reopen abortion debate through a back door channel. In fact it should be debated.
No it should not!
Whether a child or not the fact remains that the sole responsibility of the baby is not the governments. It’s the woman’s. Nobody has the right to intervene on behalf of an unborn fetus, baby or otherwise. It has not one thing to do with them.
This new motion being brought forward, M-312, is plainly a backdoor to reopening the abortion debate. Just when women on the pro-choice side felt they were safe, gthey have to face down again a group who want to impose their collective will on them.
How can this be?
What year are we living in?
How can it be that in 2012 we are, once again, face to face with such a clear campaign of overreach into women’s private lives? Just when women thought that perhaps they could take a breather, they are once again forced into the fray.
Enough is enough. Stephen Woodworth would do better to focus on what happens to these children once they are born and enter a country, and a government, that is doing it’s best to separate that child from success, happiness and freedom.
While debate is a fundamental part of our democracy some things are NOT up for debate. A women’s right to choose whether or not she wants to have an abortion, control over her own body, is one of them. This freedom is at great risk.
Therefore I am standing in solidarity with my fellow bloggers and feminists and forthwith requesting my bog be removed form the Progressive Bloggers aggregator.
To Scott Tribe: with all due respect you do yourself no favors by calling stalwart defenders of a women’s right to choose “wailing banshees” and by saying that the issue of trying to find a back door into the abortion debate is a “trivial” one. I respect what you have done and wish you the best of luck, but I cannot, and I will not, be a part of a group that permits the challenging of an issue that is fundamental to women’s rights!
je comprend.