I remember receiving, not a ton, but several emails from good pro-lifers oh-so-politely suggesting that what I had written was….hard to believe. They were too kind to actually accuse me of making it up, but the gist was hard to miss: Nobody, but nobody would ever say, could ever say what I attributed to the author of a particular article.
The beauty of the Internet is that you can easily direct good-faith skeptics to the source. So, in his instance, go to www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/03/14/choice-words-about-abortion-0 where you will find (I kid you not) “I Love Abortion: Implying Otherwise Accomplishes Nothing for Women’s Rights,” by Jessica DelBalzo.
The rhrealitycheck.org site is peopled by the kind of women who think the use of abusive and potty-mouthed language in the service of saying anything is somehow bold and just the recipe to rally the Sisterhood against the Patriarchal State, aka, the Republican Party. No pro-lifer ever for a moment cared about a single woman in a crisis pregnancy and, for that matter, there really IS no crisis pregnancy, just the opportunity to simultaneously exercise autonomy and tidy up a few loose ends.
Here are DelBalzo’s first two paragraphs:
“I love abortion. I don’t accept it. I don’t view it as a necessary evil. I embrace it. I donate to abortion funds. I write about how important it is to make sure that every woman has access to safe, legal abortion services. I have bumper stickers and buttons and t-shirts proclaiming my support for reproductive freedom. I love abortion.
“And I bristle every time a fellow activist uses a trendy catch-phrase or rallying cry meant to placate pro-lifers. The first of these, ‘Make abortion safe, legal, and rare!” has been used for decades as a call for abortion rights.’
She can live with the first two, but “rare” set her off. Why? DelBalzo’s argument is that suggesting that abortion be rare is an example of the cardinal sin (probably the only sin): it
“implies a value judgement, promoting the idea that abortion is somehow distasteful or immoral and should be avoided.”
Well, even to ponder that possibility puts you on the same side of the fence as those crazy “misogynistic, forced-birth advocates.” To DelBalzo, there is no abortion that can EVER be “an immoral or objectionable option.” Warming to the topic, she adds, “Terminating a pregnancy is not an unethical act, yet suggesting that abortion should be rare implies that there is something undesirable about having one.”
Two points. First, she achieves her certitude by offering a blanket exemption, thus clearing the field of any possibility of an “undesirable abortion.” (I’m sure that didn’t surprise you.) “As such [meaning the all-purpose “get-out-of-acting-like-a-morally-accountable-adult” card]
“we must avoid stigmatizing it in any way. No woman benefits from even the vaguest insinuation that abortion is an immoral or objectionable option.”
Second, her justifications bare an eerie resemblance to the reasoning undergirding the “after-birth abortion” [infanticide] argument. Anything in a woman’s life that might be affected by an unexpected baby is reason enough to off the kid (although there is not a word in her essay that acknowledges that there is any there, there).
Abortion is not only “the one final, definitive instrument that secures our bodily autonomy” but also (as lyrically described by DelBalzo) a woman’s “last refuge.”
Given all that, her concluding thought? “What’s not to love?”
How about over 54 million unborn babies?
Chelsea Garcia is a political writer with a special interest in international relations and social issues. Events surrounding the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel are a major focus for political journalists. But as a former local reporter, she is also interested in national politics.
Chelsea Garcia studied media, communication and political science in Texas, USA, and learned the journalistic trade during an internship at a daily newspaper. In addition to her political writing, she is pursuing a master's degree in multimedia and writing at Texas.
