Posts Tagged ‘abortion’
[LINK] “Charles Murray’s Gay-Marriage Surprise”
Charles Murray, the American conservative author most famous for co-authoring a book (The Bell Curve) which argued for the genetic intellectual inferiority of African-Americans, has come out in support of same-sex marriage. Jane Mayer’s article at The New Yorker describes how, at CPAC, Murray made a surprising case.
As he got warmed up, Murray explained that, while driving for more than an hour that morning to the conference, he had begun talking out loud to himself, which is how he usually practices his speeches. Upon realizing that he had more than an hour’s worth of fresh thoughts, he decided to simply drop the planned ones. The question on his mind was “How can conservatives make their case after the election?,” and the answer he wanted to share was drawn from his experience with his own four children. They range in age, he said, from twenty-three to forty-three. While they share many of his views on limiting the size of government, and supporting free enterprise, he said, “Not one of them thought of voting for a Republican President” in the last election. Their disenchantment with the Republican Party was not specifically because of Mitt Romney, he added, but because, “They consider the Party to be run by anti-abortion, anti-gay, religious nuts.”
“With gay marriage,” he went on, “I think the train has left the station.”
Certainly the locomotive power of the issue seemed hard to miss on a day when the top political news was Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman’s announcement that he, too, supports gay marriage. (Richard Socarides has more on that.) While Portman’s position shifted because of his family situation—he explained publicly for the first time that his son had come out as gay—Murray said his own views had been influenced heavily by friends. “I was dead-set against gay marriage when it was first broached,” Murray said; as a fan of Edmund Burke, he regarded marriage as an ancient and indispensable cultural institution that “we shouldn’t mess with.” He used to agree with his friend Irving Kristol, the late father of neo-conservatism, that gay people wouldn’t like marriage. “ ‘Let them have it,’ ” he recounted Kristol as saying, with a chuckle. “ ‘They wont like it.’ ” Murray said that he himself used to think that “All they want is the wedding, and the party, and the honeymoon—but not this long thing we call marriage.”
But since then, Murray said, “we have acquired a number of gay and lesbian friends,” and to what he jokingly called his “dismay” as a “confident” social scientist, he learned he’d been wrong. He’d been especially influenced by the pro-gay-marriage arguments made by Jonathan Rausch, an openly gay writer for the National Journal and the Atlantic. Further, Murray said, he had discovered that the gay couples he knew with children were not just responsible parents; they were “excruciatingly responsible parents.”
By this time, the CPAC audience’s rustlings had an anxious edge. Murray’s remarks seemed to surprise many in the conference room at the National Harbor Convention Center, south of Washington, even if, when it comes to gay marriage, they shouldn’t have: he’s talked about the change in his personal views before, as David Weigel and Andrew Sullivan have noted. What was striking was how critical he argued it is for the G.O.P. to make a similar shift as a party.
He also condones abortion in certain circumstances. But, huh.
[BLOG] Some Wednesday links
- The Burgh Diaspora’s Jim Russell notes how Brazil is using the Afro-Brazilian majority legacy of the transatlantic slave trade to justify the construction of new transatlantic links with Africa.
- Crooked Timber comments upon the Irish anti-abortion laws that just cost a woman her life and the homophobia of the Reagan administration that made HIV/AIDS a laughing matter.
- Daniel Drezner wonders if the ongoing expanding Petraeus scandal will end up diminishing the American public’s regard for the military.
- Eastern Approaches notes that no one in the Balkans seems to be commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the First Balkan War.
- Far Outlier’s Joel quotes from Matthew Restall’s Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest to describe how Christopher Columbus was really riding on the coat-tails of Portugal’s successful long-range maritime exploration.
- Geocurrents observes efforts by some Arab Christians in the Levant to revive Aramaic.
- The Global Sociology Blog reviews Laurent Dubois’ Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, highlighting the extent to which Haiti’s catastrophes are the products of foreign meddling.
- At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Erik Loomis maps Detroit. The extent to which the borders of the City of Detroit overlap with African-American majority populations, and to which the sprawl of Metro Detroit is constructed so as to detach the suburbs from any responsibility for the city at their region’s center, is noteworthy.
- The Planetary Science Blog’s Emily Lakdawalla reports on Carl Sagan’s feminism.
- The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer summarizes what’s going on with Uruguay’s decriminalization of marijuana for personal use.
[LINK] “Social conservatives have gained little ground in Stephen Harper’s government”
Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hébert makes a good argument to the effect that the Conservative government of Canada, small-c conservative though it may be, has not been allowed by its leader the prime minister to fight American-style culture wars. The question is whether the party will it continue not to do so after Harper’s departure.
There has never been a federal government caucus as dominated by social conservatives as the one that Stephen Harper currently leads.
Yet, over his tenure, they have failed to regain an inch of ground on abortion rights and they have lost the same-sex marriage battle.
Just last month, the majority of Conservative MPs who would have wanted to reopen the abortion debate were defeated by a majority in the House of Commons that included the prime minister himself.
[. . . ]
Even as Harper exercises iron-clad control over his government, his position on social conservative issues is a minority one within his caucus. The recent vote on abortion rights provided a graphic illustration of that reality.
[ . . . T]he Harper decade has not been kind to Canada’s religious right and some of its members are hoping that payback time will come upon his retirement. Many see Jason Kenney as a promising flag-bearer. The immigration minister shored up his social conservative credentials when he voted a few weeks ago to revisit the legal status of the fetus.
The battle over Harper’s succession could be a watershed moment for the Conservative party. Notwithstanding mainstream Canadian public opinion, it is not necessarily immune to the kind of fratricidal battles that have crippled the Republican Party in the United States.
[LINK] “Social conservatives have gained little ground in Stephen Harper’s government”
Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hébert makes a good argument to the effect that the Conservative government of Canada, small-c conservative though it may be, has not been allowed by its leader the prime minister to fight American-style culture wars. The question is whether the party will it continue not to do so after Harper’s departure.
There has never been a federal government caucus as dominated by social conservatives as the one that Stephen Harper currently leads.
Yet, over his tenure, they have failed to regain an inch of ground on abortion rights and they have lost the same-sex marriage battle.
Just last month, the majority of Conservative MPs who would have wanted to reopen the abortion debate were defeated by a majority in the House of Commons that included the prime minister himself.
[. . . ]
Even as Harper exercises iron-clad control over his government, his position on social conservative issues is a minority one within his caucus. The recent vote on abortion rights provided a graphic illustration of that reality.
[ . . . T]he Harper decade has not been kind to Canada’s religious right and some of its members are hoping that payback time will come upon his retirement. Many see Jason Kenney as a promising flag-bearer. The immigration minister shored up his social conservative credentials when he voted a few weeks ago to revisit the legal status of the fetus.
The battle over Harper’s succession could be a watershed moment for the Conservative party. Notwithstanding mainstream Canadian public opinion, it is not necessarily immune to the kind of fratricidal battles that have crippled the Republican Party in the United States.
[BRIEF NOTE] On linking Ontario’s Roman Catholic schools with abortion
Continuing a theme on the questionable future of publically-funded Roman Catholic schools in Ontario, Livejournal’s suitablyemoname made a comment I’d like to promote to the front page. First, he linked to Sarah Boesveld’s National Post article describing the hostile reaction of prominent figures in said school system to a recent statement by the education minister on abortion and misogyny.
Ontario’s education minister is facing backlash from Catholic and pro-life groups after she appeared to equate anti-abortion views with “misogyny,” sparking questions of whether the provincial government seeks to restrict these teachings in publicly funded Catholic schools.
Catholics and religious groups have long worried an anti-bullying bill, now passed into law, would infringe on their constitutionally held right to teach church doctrine because it requires Catholic schools to allow students to form Gay Straight Alliance clubs.
Now, Laurel Broten’s comments at a press conference last week in her other capacity as Minister Responsible for Women’s Issues have stoked concerns the government wants to dictate what Catholics can and cannot teach.
“Bill 13 is about tackling misogyny,” she said. “Taking away a woman’s right to choose could arguably be one of the most misogynistic actions that one could take.”
[. . .]
“The right to life, from conception to natural death, is a core teaching of Catholicism,” Joanne McGarry, executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League said in a statement Friday. “Ms. Broten reportedly said she doesn’t think there is a conflict between ‘choosing Catholic education for your children and supporting a woman’s right to choose’ so she is clearly ill-informed about the fundamentals of Catholicism.”
[. . .]
The Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association was more perplexed by her statements than offended, since there is no reference to abortion or misogyny in Bill 13. “Catholic parents who send children to our school expect that their children will be educated according to the tenets of the Catholic faith,” said president Marino Gazzola. “Our curriculum isn’t going to change, but this is certainly posing questions.”
Linking this school system to the abortion question, suitablyemoname argues, is a shortsighted idea given public opinion.
A 2012 Forum poll found that 87% of Ontarians believe that abortion should be legal in “some” or “all” cases. Only 11% share the doctrinal Catholic view that abortion should never be an option.
With that in mind, this is a spectacularly stupid fight to pick.
The GSA fight seriously weakened the very foundations of Catholic education in Ontario. Bluntly stated, a majority of Ontarians support the existence of GSAs in Catholic schools, and because the Catholics raised an enormous stink about it, they forced many of their traditional allies (including the Liberal Government, under a Catholic premier) to turn against them. Catholics lost the battle, and by drawing so much negative attention to Catholic schools, they’ve turned Ontarians against their existence. Polls taken this summer suggest that, in light of the GSA controversy, over 50% of Ontarians now support defunding the Catholic schools.
Abortion is even more one-sided as an issue. We’re no longer talking about queer teenagers and their supporters, a relatively small constituency: we’re talking about 87% of the population. We’re talking about the women’s movement, the unions, the social justice organizations, and countless other groups who have their fingers in all sorts of pies. Even the Hudak Conservatives won’t touch abortion as an issue. (At least, not in public.)
In short: the Catholics have found an issue where they’re overwhelmingly on the wrong side of popular opinion, where there are no political allies to be found, where people don’t even want to discuss the matter, and which intersects directly with the existence of Catholic schools.
LJ’s jsburbidge‘s argument that the Roman Catholic Church under the current Pope may be preparing to withdraw from the idea of serving society in its entirety, instead retreating to a doctrinally orthodox hard core, makes more sense than ever.
[BRIEF NOTE] On linking Ontario’s Roman Catholic schools with abortion
Continuing a theme on the questionable future of publically-funded Roman Catholic schools in Ontario, suitablyemoname made a comment I’d like to promote to the front page. First, he linked to Sarah Boesveld’s National Post article describing the hostile reaction of prominent figures in said school system to a recent statement by the education minister on abortion and misogyny.
Ontario’s education minister is facing backlash from Catholic and pro-life groups after she appeared to equate anti-abortion views with “misogyny,” sparking questions of whether the provincial government seeks to restrict these teachings in publicly funded Catholic schools.
Catholics and religious groups have long worried an anti-bullying bill, now passed into law, would infringe on their constitutionally held right to teach church doctrine because it requires Catholic schools to allow students to form Gay Straight Alliance clubs.
Now, Laurel Broten’s comments at a press conference last week in her other capacity as Minister Responsible for Women’s Issues have stoked concerns the government wants to dictate what Catholics can and cannot teach.
“Bill 13 is about tackling misogyny,” she said. “Taking away a woman’s right to choose could arguably be one of the most misogynistic actions that one could take.”
[. . .]
“The right to life, from conception to natural death, is a core teaching of Catholicism,” Joanne McGarry, executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League said in a statement Friday. “Ms. Broten reportedly said she doesn’t think there is a conflict between ‘choosing Catholic education for your children and supporting a woman’s right to choose’ so she is clearly ill-informed about the fundamentals of Catholicism.”
[. . .]
The Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association was more perplexed by her statements than offended, since there is no reference to abortion or misogyny in Bill 13. “Catholic parents who send children to our school expect that their children will be educated according to the tenets of the Catholic faith,” said president Marino Gazzola. “Our curriculum isn’t going to change, but this is certainly posing questions.”
Linking this school system to the abortion question, suitablyemoname argues, is a shortsighted idea given public opinion.
A 2012 Forum poll found that 87% of Ontarians believe that abortion should be legal in “some” or “all” cases. Only 11% share the doctrinal Catholic view that abortion should never be an option.
With that in mind, this is a spectacularly stupid fight to pick.
The GSA fight seriously weakened the very foundations of Catholic education in Ontario. Bluntly stated, a majority of Ontarians support the existence of GSAs in Catholic schools, and because the Catholics raised an enormous stink about it, they forced many of their traditional allies (including the Liberal Government, under a Catholic premier) to turn against them. Catholics lost the battle, and by drawing so much negative attention to Catholic schools, they’ve turned Ontarians against their existence. Polls taken this summer suggest that, in light of the GSA controversy, over 50% of Ontarians now support defunding the Catholic schools.
Abortion is even more one-sided as an issue. We’re no longer talking about queer teenagers and their supporters, a relatively small constituency: we’re talking about 87% of the population. We’re talking about the women’s movement, the unions, the social justice organizations, and countless other groups who have their fingers in all sorts of pies. Even the Hudak Conservatives won’t touch abortion as an issue. (At least, not in public.)
In short: the Catholics have found an issue where they’re overwhelmingly on the wrong side of popular opinion, where there are no political allies to be found, where people don’t even want to discuss the matter, and which intersects directly with the existence of Catholic schools.
jsburbidge‘s argument that the Roman Catholic Church under the current Pope may be preparing to withdraw from the idea of serving society in its entirety, instead retreating to a doctrinally orthodox hard core, makes more sense than ever.
[DM] On sex selection in Ontario
I’ve a post up at Demography Matters taking note of a recent report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reporting that sex selection of one kind or another seems to be operating among Indo-Canadians particularly. What could this mean? Go, read and discuss.
[LINK] “Reproductive Rights and the Long Hand of Slave Breeding”
NewAppsBlog’s John Protevi linked to a very worthwhile post by JoAnn Wypijewski at The Nation, “Reproductive Rights and the Long Hand of Slave Breeding”. This post establishes, in the United States at least, a connection between reproductive freedoms and civil rights, by establishing the intimate links between coerced reproduction and the denial of reproductive rights and the particular nature of American slavery.
Slave populations in the United States, most unlike slave populations elsewhere in the world, maintained themselves, in fact grew through natural increase. Why? Wypijewski points to the research of American legal scholar Pamela Bridgewater, who points out that only the sustained domination of the sexual and reproductive lives of African slaves by their white owners let this occur. This domination needs to be remembered.
Pamela Bridgewater’s argument, expressed over the past several years in articles and forums, and at the heart of a book in final revision called Breeding a Nation: Reproductive Slavery and the Pursuit of Freedom, presents the most compelling conceptual and constitutional frame I know for considering women’s bodily integrity and defending it from the right.
In brief, her argument rolls out like this. The broad culture tells a standard story of the struggle for reproductive rights, beginning with the flapper, climaxing with the pill, Griswold v. Connecticut and an assumption of privacy rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and concluding with Roe v. Wade. The same culture tells a traditional story of black emancipation, beginning with the Middle Passage, climaxing with Dred Scott, Harpers Ferry and Civil War and concluding with the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Both stories have a postscript—a battle royal between liberation and reaction—but, as Bridgewater asserts, “Taken together, these stories have no comprehensive meaning. They tell no collective tale. They create no expectation of sexual freedom and no protection against, or remedy for, reproductive slavery. They exist in separate spheres; that is a mistake.” What unites them but what both leave out, except incidentally, is the experience of black women. Most significantly, they leave out “the lost chapter of slave breeding.”
I need to hit the pause button on the argument for a moment, because the considerable scholarship that revisionist historians have done for the past few decades has not filtered into mass consciousness. The mass-culture story of slavery is usually told in terms of economics, labor, color, men. Women outnumbered men in the enslaved population two to one by slavery’s end, but they enter the conventional story mainly under the rubric “family,” or in the cartoon triptych Mammy-Jezebel-Sapphire, or in the figure of Sally Hemmings. Yes, we have come to acknowledge, women were sexually exploited. Yes, many of the founders of this great nation prowled the slave quarters and fathered a nation in the literal as well as figurative sense. Yes, maybe rape was even rampant. That the slave system in the US depended on human beings not just as labor but as reproducible raw material is not part of the story America typically tells itself. That women had a particular currency in this system, prized for their sex or their wombs and often both, and that this uniquely female experience of slavery resonates through history to the present is not generally acknowledged. Even the left, in uncritically reiterating Malcolm X’s distinction between “the house Negro” and “the field Negro,” erases the female experience, the harrowing reality of the “favorite” that Harriet Jacobs describes in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
We don’t commonly recognize that American slaveholders supported closing the trans-Atlantic slave trade; that they did so to protect the domestic market, boosting their own nascent breeding operation. Women were the primary focus: their bodies, their “stock,” their reproductive capacity, their issue. Planters advertised for them in the same way as they did for breeding cows or mares, in farm magazines and catalogs. They shared tips with one another on how to get maximum value out of their breeders. They sold or lent enslaved men as studs and were known to lock teenage boys and girls together to mate in a kind of bullpen.They propagated new slaves themselves, and allowed their sons to, and had their physicians exploit female anatomy while working to suppress African midwives’ practice in areas of fertility, contraception and abortion.Reproduction and its control became the planters’ prerogative and profit source. Women could try to escape, ingest toxins or jump out a window—abortion by suicide, except it was hardly a sure thing.
This business was not hidden at the time, as Pamela details expansively. And, indeed, there it was, this open secret, embedded in a line from Uncle Tom’s Cabin that my eyes fell upon while we were preparing to arrange books on her new shelves: “’If we could get a breed of gals that didn’t care, now, for their young uns…would be ’bout the greatest mod’rn improvement I knows on,” says one slave hunter to another after Eliza makes her dramatic escape, carrying her child over the ice flows.
The foregoing is the merest scaffolding of one of the building blocks of Bridgewater’s argument, which continues thus. “If we integrate the lost chapter of slave breeding into those two traditional but separate stories, if we reconcile female slave resistance to coerced breeding as, in part, a struggle for emancipation and, in part, a struggle for reproductive freedom, the two tales become one: a comprehensive narrative that fuses the pursuit of reproductive freedom into the pursuit of civil freedom.”
[. . .]
Bridgewater argues that because slavery depended on the slaveholder’s right to control the bodies and reproductive capacities of enslaved women, coerced reproduction was as basic to the institution as forced labor. At the very least it qualifies among those badges and incidents, certainly as much as the inability to make contracts. Therefore, sexual and reproductive freedom is not simply a matter of privacy; it is fundamental to our and the law’s understanding of human autonomy and liberty. And so constraints on that freedom are not simply unconstitutional; they effectively reinstitute slavery.
The courts and Congress of the nineteenth century understood contracts, and even a little bit about labor. Women they understood wholly by their sex and wombs, and those they regarded as the property of husbands once owners exited the stage. It is not our fate to live with their failings. It is not our fate to live with the failure of later courts to apply the Thirteenth Amendment to claims for sexual and reproductive freedom or even to consider the historical context out of which the Fourteenth Amendment also emerged. It is not our fate, in other words, to confine ourselves to the pinched language of choice or even of privacy—or to the partial, white-centric history of women’s struggle for reproductive rights.
