feel free to defriend me now

[jlh]

This came up on twitter, and it's hard to say complicated things in tweets, so I'm going to lay it all out here.

Here's the corrected Bieber quote, on the Rolling Stone website today:

He isn't sure what political party he'd support if he was old enough to vote. "I'm not sure about the parties," Bieber says. "But whatever they have in Korea, that's bad." He does have a solid opinion on abortion. "I really don't believe in abortion," Bieber says. "It's like killing a baby." How about in cases of rape? "Um. Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don't know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven't been in that position, so I wouldn't be able to judge that."

I'd thought that all the uproar was over what he said about rape, which was misquoted at first. But apparently people are angry that he said that he doesn't believe in abortion.

The thing is, I don't believe in abortion, either. I was an unwanted pregnancy, and a hard-to-place adoption since I'm not white. (White babies are rare and much sought-after; black babies, not so much, especially in the late 60s. Can't fool the neighbors into thinking that black baby is yours, after all.) I wasn't adopted until I was almost two. And I was born before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal.

So all those unwanted babies? They're me. I'm pretty convinced that if I had been conceived after abortion was legal, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. And nothing of value would be lost, of course, because I never would have existed for you to miss. I'm not saying abortion is morally wrong, just that it makes me really, really sad, and I feel a connection to that unwanted fetus, because that was me, once.

On the other hand, I've taken friends to clinics, held their hand, brought them home, helped with the medication, then sat in bed and watched movies with them afterwards. I understood that my friend was making the best decision for them, and I supported them whole heartedly. If a friend came to me asking for help, I'd give it; if they were asking for advice, I wouldn't, because I've no right to tell someone else what they should do.

I also don't think that the state has any business telling any of us what to do with our bodies. That's why I'm pro-choice.

It used to be that you could be personally against abortion, or at least personally uncomfortable with it--like HRC's "legal but rare"--and still call yourself pro-choice, but in the past few years that seems to not be true anymore, which puts me in a strange position. I'd never vote for any politician who doesn't believe in a woman's right to choose. I've given money to that effect. I can't even say that I'd never have an abortion--maybe there would be a circumstance in which I would.

It's just, you know, it's really personal.

Comments

[iberiandoctor]

*hugs tightly*

So, I'm a Christian and believe in fetal personhood. However, I do see myself as pro-choice: as a lawyer and citizen I don't believe the state should have the power to dictate what women do with their bodies save for extenuating circumstances. For instance, the state doesn't have the power to mandate that someone facilitate a life-giving blood or organ donation to another, and it shouldn't have the power to mandate that a woman acts as an incubator for another person for nine months. I agree with the Wade and Casey lines of reasoning in trying to strike a balance between the rights of the mother and the rights of the fetus: I am anti-elective late-term abortion save for medical emergencies - I think there the rights of the fetus should be accorded weight as opposed to pre-viability fetuses.

I am kind of sorry my response to your intensely personal story is so clinical! But this is such a personal issue (it makes me really really sad too, and at the same time as a woman it makes me angry that the state would seek to impose its own moral views on me and make a hard decision even harder) it helps me to step back and look at it impersonally, I guess.

[jlh]

That's a really good point about organ donation and being an incubator.

And it's like, a mess? I don't know, I had some bad experiences with online feminists around this issue last year and really backed down from feeling like I was all that feminist or pro-choice and I've been struggling with those labels ever since.

[trinaest]

I understand what you're saying. It's a personal choice for everyone. I'm absolutely pro-choice myself, but I've also always been convinced that were I ever in the position of having an unplanned pregnancy it's very, very unlikely that I would choose to have an abortion. My convenience isn't worth that cost to me. (And I don't mean to make that sound judgmental by using the word "convenience" but it was a simple way to explain myself.)

For me, I can't say it's an absolute because how would I know until I was actually in the position to have to choose? But I do (and have always) felt quite strongly about the fact that FOR ME abortion isn't really an option (except perhaps the usual exceptions such as rape--again, I couldn't be sure until I was actually confronted with it).

That personal choice for myself, however, has absolutely no bearing on my belief that women should be allowed to make that choice for themselves.

[jlh]

No, I totally understand what you're saying. And I agree. What I would choose for myself is personal; what other women would choose for themselves is none of my business and certainly none of the state's business.

[alwayswondered]

There are things I myself would never consider doing, but I still think other people should have the right to do them if they want to; there are also things I hope I never have to do, but will do if I think they're better than the alternative. I'm pro-choice, but I do everything I can to avoid having to choose.

I'm sorry all the anger at J-Biebs is hurting you. I hope you're okay.

[jlh]

Thanks for asking; I'm better now. Listening to all that anger about anything can be very overwhelming for me, which is definitely my issue and one I'm working on, but it tends to knock me sideways. I'm glad I made this entry, though; that was helpful.

Yeah, I really don't see that I should be setting a moral standard for the rest of the universe. And then on top of that morality and legality are far from the same thing. Ugh, the State. Ugh.

[elements]

I think the vast majority of the pro-choice movement feels more like you than like the absolutist people you encountered who made you feel icky about feminism. My view on abortion has always been that I'm grateful it's an option, and hope never to have to decide to choose it myself, and it's ideally done as soon as possible after conception if it's going to get done. Thankfully the closest I've come is the morning after pill. When that incident happened, I realized suddenly that if there were no such pill, and I'd ended up getting pregnant, in that scenario I'd have *known* abortion was the right call. Some time later, when I had casual sex with a longtime good friend who I'd once been in love with, I realized that if the same thing were to happen after being with him, I wouldn't know. I could envision being okay dealing with a life-altering outcome, and the idea of there potentially being a kid out there created between that friend and me. I was surprised with how clear and visceral that sense of "no, there is absolutely not supposed to be a baby growing here right now and with this potential father" that I had with the morning-after pill was, but there it was.

I read an article not long ago, that I may try digging up, by a guy who was his parents' second kid, and who likely wouldn't have been conceived if they hadn't, after angst, aborted the unintended pregnancy that came shortly after the first kid. So I figure it goes in all sorts of ways - some people wouldn't be here if it were or weren't for an abortion, but when you drill down that goes for any reproductive choice. If I didn't use birth control, I'd probably either be a mother by now, or unhappily celibate, so there are potential kids who aren't being brought into the world all over. I'm trying to decide if having kids is a life goal of mine or not, right now, because it's increasingly becoming a dealbreaking early-on question in the dating world. I think I'd probably have a better life, personally, if I don't. But then I think about the amorphous, hypothetical potential kids who might exist or might not, based on my choices. (Honestly I always have leaned toward adopting a somewhat older, harder to place kid, like you were. Skip the diaper changing and bring someone who already exists into the family they need.) I wouldn't exist if my dad's first wife hadn't left him. My sisters wouldn't exist if she and my dad had never married, which really was never a great match. I can get caught in a loop of second guessing what might have been, and how different things would be, at any stage. If my grandfather hadn't married my grandmother while he was stationed in the UK in WWII. If my maternal grandfather's family hadn't had to leave Poland. If my mom hadn't been reading an astronomy book on the steps right just then when my dad walked by with his telescope. Or all the kids who might have been born if their queer potential parents had forced themselves into soul-killing het marriages. The kids who'd exist if my queer friends who've gone with donors had happened to pick a different donor. (I'd go nuts choosing a donor, when you don't have falling in love to do the filtering for you.) It's all such a messy crapshoot.

I realize that might all come off as trying to rationalize away or belittle your experience which I'm really not intending, but this subject is always so hard to articulate well. What I meant to start out saying is, my view on abortion has always been the same, but for a while I thought that meant I was pro-life (in early high school, when I also thought I was a Republican), because I thought people should make an effort not to have to resort to an abortion whenever possible given their life circumstances. But then I realized that if I wanted any woman ever to have the option of making the choice not to have a child, then I had to be pro-choice, and there wasn't any other way to actually guarantee that choice without guaranteeing it to all women, regardless of circumstance.

As my housemate, who's a Planned Parenthood volunteer, points out as her driving motivation in that, when abortion is illegal, women die. Abortions still happen, but women die getting them when they can't be in doctors' offices. So even if I were *sure* abortion was wrong, I'd still have to be pro-choice. Even for the sex-shaming fundies, who'd choose the innocent fetus over the implied not-innocent woman, there are her future potential kids to consider, that she definitely can't have if she's killed or made infertile in a coat-hanger abortion. Not that they'd see it that way, but I've always wondered if they've even considered it.

I think most pro-choice people have some level of conflict, just like you. So I don't think you should be made to feel that you can't identify or fit into the pro-choice movement because of your view. You believe choice should be legal, that's pro-choice, and that's all that's required to be pro-choice.

(Wow, if I were more awake that would probably be half as long and twice as sensical.)

[jlh]

There are ways in which I've gotten used to negotiating the online space of not only fandom but media culture in general—cultural critics, reviews, talk about tv and movies and all that—where I have a good sense of what's extreme and what isn't and where I'm sitting in relation to that and I can maintain my own sense of what I'm doing in relation to that (unless people are being condescending, in which case I tend to just get annoyed).

But I find that more political spaces are much more difficult because the moderate political culture doesn't really speak very loudly on the internet, and the internet does tend toward the loudest, most extreme positions. Extremism on the right, whatever, but extremism on the left is tricky. It's difficult to know when you've come across something that's extreme, and when you've hit something that should be pushing you to another space. And you know, when those people are all talking to themselves, they have a lot of assumptions they take as given and it can be kind of a mess.

I've found the entire online feminist conversation to be unfortunately judgy and doctrinaire in a way that other conversations simply aren't. But I'm also realizing, and this is ageist but eh, the conversation is plenty ageist itself, that the conversation is really dominated by ladies in their early to mid 20s who are just shouting a lot? And I just do not tend to react well to those situations.

Which is all to say, I think I need to find ways to keep reaching out and grounding myself when I come across these statements that knock me sideways and also are incredibly sticky.