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Rhetorical Strategies Of The Reproductive Rights Agendas
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The debate between pro-life and pro-choice advocates is based on the fundamental beliefs with which we shape our world. Time has stated that the issue of bodily privacy is "the core" of the abortion debate. The question is whether “privacy” is broad enough to encompass a women's right to terminate her pregnancy. The other main issue of the abortion debate is how the idea of choice is framed. Should a woman have the "choice" to end another human's life? Who determines if she can or can not make that choice? Should young females have the "choice" to engage in pre-marital underage sex? There is an extensive amount of room for debate with styles ranging from the subtle to the extreme, yet these tactics may not make a large difference due to the nature of the issue. No one specific fact or argument is likely to change any strong-willed advocates mind. ”As everyone knows strong pro-life advocates regard pro-choicers as either murderers or supporters of murderers, while in the eyes of pro-choicers, pro-life advocates are determined to deprive women of the right to control their own bodies. The disagreement between them is anything but intellectual because it is so obviously fundamental. In an intellectual disagreement the parties can talk to one another because they share a set of basic assumptions; but in a fundamental argument, basic assumptions are precisely what is in dispute. You can either have fundamental or you can have intellectual, but you can’t have both, and if….you privilege intellectual, you have not honored the level of fundamental disagreement, you have evaded it.” Unity Within Group “Therefore, to succeed, each side must see and present its understanding of the cultural and personal meaning of reproduction as "natural" and correct. To legitimate their own position, proponents must make a persuasive case so that the formulations of the opposition appear unnatural, immoral, or false. On an individual and organizational level, then, each side constitutes itself in dialogue with the "enemy," real and imagined. The opposition is both incorporated and repudiated, understood and denied. This process is what gives the "procreation stories" and the abortion debate their dialectical qualities. The "other" becomes a critical counterpoint on which one's own stance depends.” - While abortion is such a complex topic with a variety of possible opinions and grey areas, a strategy dualing sides tend to take full advantage of is the idea of unity within the group. At the Coffman Memorial Union confrontation, no sole member of either the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform or the coalition of the University Pro-Choice Coalition and the Women Student's Activist Collective took aggressive stances against the opposing group. One strategy discussed was to block the view of the abortion pictures with black material, creating a “blind” if the passerby wished to avoid the display’s pictures. This was not done without the OK of all group members. Taking a sole stance within the context of a group argument leaves the actor prey to be picked apart and possibly misrepresents the ideas of the group as a whole. An in-group argument makes the group appear weak and unorganized. This may have the effect of making their argument seem weak and unorganized. Pro-Life Conservative Pro-life advocates see sex for pleasure as an evil which has invaded our society. They believe that sex should happen only within marriage and only within the context of procreation. Abortion fosters a sense of irresponsibility for the reproductive consequences of sexual activity. Fears are expressed about the sexual knowledge of young children and sex education which leaves no euphemism unexplained. “Much in the same way that pro-choice women embraced feminism, this younger cohort of pro-life women find in their movement a particular symbolic frame that integrates their experience of work, reproduction, and marriage with the shifting ideas of gender and politics that they encounter around them. It is not that they discovered an ideology that "fit" what they had always been. Their sense of identification evolves in the very process of voicing their views against abortion. In the regular performance of their activism, they are, simultaneously, transforming themselves and their community, projecting their vision of the culture into the future, both pragmatically and symbolically.” - Religious Moral Support Those who look towards religion for answers to the reproductive rights debate point to many phrases from the Bible. Some in particular include chapter 44 from the Book of Isaiah "I knew you before you were formed in your mother's womb. Fear not, for you are my witness." Attention is also focused on language used in phrases from Genesis and Exodus where unborn babies are referred to as “sons and daughters” and a “child.” Since people who believe the Bible is the flawless, supreme word of God are hard to argue with, pro-choice advocates would probably not attempt to argue about the religious grounds, however they might point to some differing statistics. Some abortion critics claim that pregnancies from rape-related incidents are in fact so rare as to not merit their legality. A believer of science may point to a study done such as this one by Holmes, Resnick, Kilpatrick, and Best done at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medical University of South Carolina in 1996. This study states that the rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0%. Another example of the importance of religion to pro-life advocates is seen in the Tony Kaye's 2006 documentary Lake of Fire: A group of people nail hundreds or thousands of white crosses in front of the Washington Monument, mourning these deaths as a "cemetery for the innocent." A sign is erected around these crosses that says "Children of Hillary's Village," implying that Hillary Clinton's pro-sex ideas and the pro-choice policies of her husband's administration were to blame for these children's deaths. Potential Damage to Mother see Abortion-breast cancer hypothesis see Abortion and mental health see Fetal Pain Fear Pro-life advocates touch on the innate fears which are shared by humans. The displays put on by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform are said to necessarily expose the harsh realities of abortion. These pictures are extremely gruesome, gory and grisly in nature and spark feelings of shock and reprehension. Pro-life advocates make attempts to link feelings of the suffering of past historical disasters to the abortion debate. Comparisons are made to the discrimination and dehumanization of Jews during the Holocaust and the slavery and lynching of Black people in the United States. The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision is likened to the Nuremberg Laws and Scott v. Sandford which cast the Jewish and Black minorities as “sub-human”. The images of our world’s intolerant past still shock society and draw on innate fears of danger. They cast the enemy as a bloodthirsty racist fascist. At the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform display at the entrance Coffman Memorial Union at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities on April 24th, 2008, signs warned passerby that they were about to witness gruesome pictures of “Genocide”, which were in fact pictures of abortions next to pictures from the Holocaust and African-American lynchings. Intimidation Pro-life activists often participate in large scale "blockades" in front of abortion clinics. The purpose of these blockades is to intimidate pregnant women seeking abortions and clinic employees and volunteers. Often protestors sit or lie in parking lot driveways and in doorways to make entrance into the clinics more difficult. Protestors throw themselves on the hoods of cars; shout in women entering the clinic's faces; jostle, grab, push and shove women as they enter the clinic; elbow, grab and spit on clinic volunteers. Some strongly fervent pro-life advocates buy property adjacent to abortion clinics in an effort to maintain a constant presence on the abortion clinics. Another interesting example is Norma McCorvey's conversion to Operation Rescue due to the group setting up its office next door to her home. Some even go far enough as to promote and carry out the murder of abortion practitioners. In the U.S., violence directed toward abortion providers has killed 7 people, including 3 doctors, 2 clinic employees, a security guard, and a clinic escort. There have been more than 5,600 reported acts of violence against abortion providers since 1977 as well as more than 132,000 acts of disruption, including bomb threats and harassing calls. Between 1997 and 2007, at least 41 bombings, 174 arsons, 94 attempted bombings and arsons and 623 bomb threats that have been directed at abortion providers. Another example is the Riverside, California group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. Association with the Holocaust evokes the emotions and moral issues tied to this event. By using comparisons which are evident to nearly all as horrible, shameful events, the pro-life agenda hopes to put the undecided in the position of moral duty which can have direct consequences on our society. The undecided is provoked to make a choice of being associated with the Holocaust, genocide and slavery or instead, being against abortion. Sanctity of Life Pro-life advocates concentrate on the potential value and beauty of the unborn child. Statistics of when bodily processes and features start to develop are given as an example of the wondrous process of development of the child. Pictures of fetuses are placed next to coins as a reference of their size and vulnerability. This tactic questions a viewer's sense of personhood and when that begins. "It was very inconvenient to have this daughter. My husband was in school and I was working. We thought we needed other things besides a child. And had abortion been available to me, I might have aborted the girl who was teacher of the year. What a loss to society that would have been." Pro-Choice Nurturance Pro-choice advocates argue that legal abortions are nurturing in the contexts of being able to provide for existing children; allowing young women to focus on nurturing themselves; avoiding risky birth or illegal abortion procedures; and avoiding bringing an unwanted child into the world. An unwanted child won't be a happy one. Unwanted children often become victims of neglect including abuse of abandonment. Gender Inequalities "The social identity historically assigned to women was that of wife, subordinate, caregiver and mother. Women were "nurturers" - their biological function - and caregivers - a natural extension of that function - mothers to their own children and the "mothers of the nation" with an obligation to serve the family of mankind. Thus an independent female sexuality - one devoid of maternal instinct or disinclined to produce heirs - was a threat to society, as dangerous as terrorism, viral and contagious, and downright unpatriotic." By bearing children, women are giving up access to the resources that men have. These resources include higher education and labor-market experience. In losing the autonomy to make choices about her own body, a women loses the free will to shape her own destiny. Laura M. Otten states that women's subservience to men had its roots in the feudal traditions of Great Britain. A women's value was based solely on her contributions as a wife and a mother because a man's status was proportional to his property and heirs. Kate Millet argues that making abortion illegal “forces motherhood” on the unwilling as a social obligation. She claims that this creates a negative view of sexuality itself and denies the fact that the idea of sexuality can be removed the act of procreation. Legality Pro-choice proponents are quick to point out that abortion will not disappear if made illegal; Abortions will still be wanted and that demand will be filled by illegal abortions that threaten the safety of the mother. Feminist lawyer, Debran Rowland, points to deaths from illegal abortions in 1910 on New York's lower east side; "Pregnancy was a chronic condition among the women of this class." Homemade remedies ranged from "herb teas" to "turpentine, steaming, rolling downstairs, inserting slippery elm, knitting needles shoe-hooks" In 1995, approximately 58 percent of women having abortions were using contraceptives when they got pregnant. Women in these cases were taking the precautions they had been taught, yet those precautions don’t always work. Abortion is then “less about sexual irresponsibility than about realistic necessity.” Making contraceptives illegal does not diminish the need for their use. Making abortion illegal makes the mother unsafe. Feminist author Kate Millet goes so far as to call it a “death penalty” based on the patriarchal legal systems depriving women of control of her body and the decision to have a legal abortion. She gives estimates of 2 to 5 thousand deaths from illegal abortions each year. These statistics are hard to verify because they are not all reported. They are based on estimates of abortionists and referral services. Bibliography * * Faye D. Ginsburg Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate In An American Community 1998 University of California Press * Debran Rowland, The Boundaries of Her Body: The Troubling History of Reproductive Rights in America Sphinx Publishing, Naperville, IN 2004 ISBN 1-57248-368-7 * Marjorie Agosín. Women, Gender and Human Rights: A Global Perspective Rutgers University Press. 2001. ISBN 0-8135-2982-4 * Kate Millet. Sexual Politics University of Illinois Press. 2000. ISBN 0-252-06889-0 * Laura M. Otten. Women's Rights and the Law Prager 1993. Westport, Connecticut. * Stanley Fish. ‘'‘Boutique Multiculturalism; or Why Liberals Are Incapable of Thinking About Hate Speech’'’ ‘’Critical Inquiry, Vol 23, No. 2 (Winter 19970 pp. 388-389’’ * * * Emily J. Minor, ‘’Clinic Owner Steadfast Amidst Arson’s Ashes’’ Palm Beach Post, July 7, 2005, at 1A. * * Lake of Fire. Tony Kaye. DVD. Thinkfilm, 2006 Footnotes
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