In the So-Called ‘Abortion Wars,’ Only One Side Is Murdering the Other
In the So-Called ‘Abortion Wars,’ Only One Side Is Murdering the Other
Kurt Eichenwald’s Newsweek cover story completely misunderstands the fight over abortion in the United States.
A sign in support of Planned Parenthood stands outside the Colorado Springs clinic two days after the shooting, on November 29, 2015. (AP Photo / David Zalubowski)
It’s been a while since a journalist set the world straight on this whole abortion thing. Dana Milbank did it a few years ago in his Washington Post column—if only “both sides” would stop grandstanding and endorse contraception! David Frum had some thoughts about it, and so, way back in time, did abortion opponents Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan. Usually these people find abortion disturbing/wrong/immoral. Usually they don’t know much about the subject and are just parachuting in. And yes, usually these people are men.
“I am opposed to abortion,” Kurt Eichenwald begins his Newsweek cover story “America’s Abortion Wars (and How to End Them).” “I am opposed to abortion. I believe women have the right to choose. This is not a contradiction.” Well, okay. Most Americans would sort of agree with him on that—they don’t like abortion, but they want it to stay legal. “Opposed” is a strong word, though, and Eichenwald never bothers to explain why he is against abortion, or why his opinion matters, or what it means. Would he urge a wife, a lover, a child, a friend to keep an unwanted pregnancy? Would he support efforts to persuade others that abortion is wrong? His statement just hangs there, demonstrating his impartiality and seriousness, as part of his overall strategy of equating pro-choice and anti-choice movements. We’re “a country torn apart by absolutists.” “Both arguments are infused with hypocrisy, and consequences often go unconsidered while bumper-sticker logic prevails.” On the one hand, “Male commentators are frequently—and often rightfully—accused by pro-choice advocates of ‘mansplaining.’” On the other, “anyone broaching the other side of the argument is deemed a baby killer.” According to Eichenwald, accusing a man of “telling women what to think” is like accusing an abortion provider of murdering children. Really? As the blogger Choice Joyce asked, “When’s the last time you heard about a deranged feminist going on a murderous shooting rampage against mansplainers?”
Sorry, Newsweek. In the so-called abortion wars, only one side is murdering the other. Pro-choicers don’t invade Christian “crisis pregnancy centers,” guns blazing; they don’t picket Catholic churches and scream at the people going into worship. Only one side wants to force women to do their bidding. Only one side fights broad access to birth control and realistic sex education. Only one side has allied itself with the Republican Party, which wants to cut every program and rescind every law that helps women and children and promotes gender equality in the work place.
Eichenwald fails to realize that his “brilliant new idea” is what today’s reproductive-rights movement is all about. What makes Eichenwald’s “both sides do it” claim so strange is that his piece is actually a sustained and detailed attack on the anti-choice movement. He makes a forceful case that it lies about the safety of abortion in order to close clinics and doesn’t care if women die. He reminds readers that abortion is safer than childbirth and that women have abortions whether or not abortion is legal (before Roe, as he notes, American women had over 1 million abortions per year, about the same as now in a much smaller population). He claims almost nobody really believes that fertilized eggs are people, and argues for the abortion rights of rape victims by citing Judith Jarvis Thomson’s thought experiment in which a woman wakes up to find herself hooked up to a famous violinist who will die if she denies him the use of her body as a support system. He points out that most abortions happen in the first trimester, and only 1.5 percent after 21 weeks, although abortion opponents love to talk about the latter. By contrast, he makes no specific arguments against the pro-choice position. So where’s the “absolutism” on the abortion-rights side? Where’s the hypocrisy and the bumper-sticker logic? He never says.
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http://www.thenation.com/article/in-the-so-called-abortion-wars-only-one-side-is-murdering-the-other/
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