Arguing with anti-abortionists is a waste of time. The idea that there can be a definitive logical argument that will convince them is deeply flawed. Anti-choicers don’t operate on the level of reason. They are driven by such powerful psychological needs that no argument will be potent enough.
Anti -abortionists are precisely those unwanted children who are obsessed with punishing the symbolic Mommy for not wanting them. Have you seen them rage and throw tantrums in front of abortion clinics? In the depths of their psyche, every woman who is walking into that clinic represents that eternally rejecting mother of their own. They go into such fits of fury because they are terrified that – this time – Mommy will finally manage to terminate them. Just imagine the plight of the guy who murdered Dr. Tiller. In his mind, the symbolic Daddy conspired with the symbolic Mommy to negate him on a regular basis. Of course, he blew up.
The good news is that the very existence of legal abortion makes it easier tor women to prevent such unwanted children, children who are filled with rage and hatred they don’t even understand themselves, from coming into existence. The longer abortion exists as a legal and accessible procedure, the fewer unwanted children will be born. Of course, there will always be brainwashed and browbeaten women who will not dare to confess that they don’t want some or all of their children and will keep having unwanted children. Those children, though, will be a minority with no actual power.
Why do you think they are getting so rabid? Because they lost their fight and they know it.
Clarissa's Blog 
Anti-lifers, on the other hand, like Anders Breivik, feel no rage, because they won their fight and they know it.
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Now you made me feel sorry for the anti-choicers.
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This was no the goal of the post, to be honest. 🙂
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Umm… I wouldn’t want to make psychological diagnoses of people I don’t know like that. I do think that it is possible that these people are not driven by rage stemming from being unwanted, but by a sincere if misdirected desire to protect children, exacerbated by their religious beliefs. The murderers of doctors and people who work at abortion clinics, of course, are extremely psychologically disturbed, but the woman who carries a sign at a protest might simply have an overly sentimental view of life (which could actually come from a childhood that was too comfortable and contented, as in “my mother loved all of us kids, I loved being pregnant and having my babies, how could any normal happy woman want an abortion?”), and also she might be trying to gain status among her peers.
It’s really easy to demonize people who hold positions you don’t like. Perhaps that is what the people you argued with sensed and that’s why they shut down. No one likes being treated like a monster, even if it is deserved. The problems is both sides demonize the other. Anti-abortionists think a woman who has an abortion is an evil baby-killing slut, or else a brainwashed victim of evil baby-killing feminazis. Pro-choicers think anti-abortionists just want to chain women up in a kitchen and make them have babies until they die. The real problem is not seeing the other as human.
Let’s get one thing straight: I don’t like abortion or see it as some great thing. I see it as an indicator that somewhere down the line there was a failure. I don’t think it should be illegal, though, any more than I think people with diabetes who refused to take their insulin and are now in the hospital should be thrown out to die. That’s why I think birth control should be freely offered to all — the more people take control of their reproductive systems, the less abortion there will be.
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//people with diabetes who refused to take their insulin and are now in the hospital should be thrown out to die
Imo using this example is partly accepting anti-choice rhetoric. They love to talk of women refusing to be responsible (f.e. by having sex out of marriage, as if unwanted pregnancy happens only out of it). In RL birth control fails sometimes. A condom can break, morning after pill may be enough far away to let pregnancy happen (especially with pharmacists being able to refuse selling), etc.
Yes, “somewhere down the line there was a failure” of BC, but it isn’t like refusing to take insulin on purpose in most cases imo.
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I realized it was a bad analogy after I hit “send.” Okay, maybe it’s more like not wearing a seat belt? After all, you might not get into an accident, and if you do, you might not be thrown through a windshield. Okay, maybe not.
By the way, I didn’t mean “failure” to be totally on the shoulders of the individual. I also meant the system could have failed in some way — condom breakage, that small percentage of fertilization that can occur even when one is on the pill, dislodged IUDs, rape, etc. Going back to the diabetic thing, maybe the person was given a bad batch of insulin.
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” I wouldn’t want to make psychological diagnoses of people I don’t know like that.”
– What disease did I diagnoze them with?
“I do think that it is possible that these people are not driven by rage stemming from being unwanted, but by a sincere if misdirected desire to protect children, exacerbated by their religious beliefs”
– I am yet to hear of a single anti-abortionist who protects children by donating all his or her money to orphanages, going to war zones to save children, or even just fostering unwanted kids. Every anti-abortionist politician does everything s/he can to dispossess kids from poor families. No, this explanation doesn’t work.
” but the woman who carries a sign at a protest might simply have an overly sentimental view of life (which could actually come from a childhood that was too comfortable and contented, as in “my mother loved all of us kids, I loved being pregnant and having my babies, how could any normal happy woman want an abortion?”), and also she might be trying to gain status among her peers”
– You need a lot more than a question of “how could anybody not want to live the same way as I do?” to waste time on storming clinics. A lot more. As for peers, one chooses one’s own peers.
“It’s really easy to demonize people who hold positions you don’t like. Perhaps that is what the people you argued with sensed and that’s why they shut down. No one likes being treated like a monster, even if it is deserved. ”
– I don;t see where I demonized anybody. In this very thread, a reader said that I made her feel compassion for these people. I also don;t associate with such people, so this is all a fantasy about anybody being treated as a monster and shutting down.
“The real problem is not seeing the other as human.”
– No. The real problem is that I respect their right to do whatever they wish with their bodies and they do not respect mine. From the very beginning I show them the kind of respect they refuse to show me. And I’m the bad guy here? Why, because I allow myself to have an opinion about these people on my blog? Yes, that will surely traumatize them a lot more than the cannibalistic legislation they want to introduce that will actually impact people’s lives.
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The point is that nobody is offering a better explanation than I am, so until they do, I will stick to mine. The explanation of “they just like kiddies too much” is laughable. I’m sorry, but it is. These are the very same people who insist that it’s necessary to brutalize children as a means of discipline and who foam at the mouth when they hear of poor people getting foodstamps to feed their kids.
Yeah, such baby lovers they are.
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I didn’t say you were the bad guy or diagnosing anyone with a disease. It seemed to me that you were lumping all these people into one block (they fear they were unwanted, so they are reacting to that fear with rage), when I see a whole lot of different motivations (well, two or three more) for being anti-abortion. I also forgot a lot of people against choice see abortion as a symptom of how society is “out of control” and what they fear is chaos. The fact that their fears are exaggerated (often cynically so, by politicians and religious leaders) doesn’t mean they don’t feel them.
I also said “sincere if misdirected.” I don’t really know what anti-abortionists do for children who are actually born — i don’t hang with those people, so I’m not qualified to say. It might be that some of them do help poor kids and I believe there is at least a tandem movement to help unmarried pregnant women that they at least pay lip service to.
Also, the urge to conform, to belong to a peer group, has become very strong in this country. It’s why so many people get into so many bad things like picketing abortion clinics. Belonging to a group is very comforting (or so I keep reading — I’ve never understood the impulse myself). And groups are encouraged to demonize other, opposing groups. It’s particularly dangerous in America because we think we’re all so individual and special that we aren’t like those “other countries” and that things that happen elsewhere can’t happen here.
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Hmm, that was supposed to be a reply. Also I think my sentence about loving children was inadequate. What I mean was they think they love children. They refuse to recognize that they are abusive, just like child abusers will tell you they “love” their kids and only beat them “for their own good.” The problem isn’t that they are mustache-twirling villains or rage-filled child-haters.
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” Belonging to a group is very comforting (or so I keep reading — I’ve never understood the impulse myself). And groups are encouraged to demonize other, opposing groups.”
– Of course. But they didn’t choose to find that comfort through a passionate support of a hockey team or joining a Jane Austen fan club.
” It might be that some of them do help poor kids ”
– I wrote a post asking the anti-abortionists who were hanging around here to list their achievements in helping abandoned kids. That made them very upset and no evidence was provided. I’m still waiting, though. 🙂 They can contact me any time.:-)
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I’m surprised at that. On conservative websites where they’ve talked about how bad abortion is they’ve always listed all sorts of organizations where pregnant women can go to get help, and adoption agencies, and so on. I guess none of the anti-choicers you’ve encountered have actually given any thought to anything beyond “abortion is bad!” It doesn’t surprise me. Being against something on the internet is easy. Actually helping someone in the real world is hard.
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This gave me a good laugh, having dealt with anti-choicers who fit this description perfectly.
I actually -have- met anti-choicers who adopt children, mostly children with disabilities and children from poor countries, and to be honest, that’s downright scary and warping, and I feel for the poor kids. The parents isolate them from other people with disabilities (One girl, who was blind, wanted to go to a high school for blind an deaf children, but her parents wanted to continue to homeschool her and keep her away from people who might teach her braille or how to function without the help of a sighted person) and from their home culture (The same girl was Vietnamese, and was interested in learning about her home country, but her parents chided her for that, saying that because she was blind, she should learn to be colourblind as well and learn to just be American) and constantly drop reminders about how they were untouchable, unwanted children, but the goodly parents rescued them from certain death.
They treat parenting like a power trip, and through their brainwashing, they prevent the kids from being fully realized individuals who are capable of ever taking care of themselves. That’s considerably more damaging than abortion could ever be.
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These are really sad and tragic stories. How horrible!
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And later both she and the society will pay the bills. Those “parents” won’t live / support her forever (whatever happens first), after all.
Shouldn’t country have laws to check on children with disabilities (adopted or not) and make sure they get maximum training to become maximum independent later? Sure, bad upbringing can happen to anybody, but for children with disabilities the consequences are especially dire.
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I also cynically think that if you present it in economic terms, as referring only to children with disabilities, most concervatives/people will support such a law.
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I actually know what some of the parents do when they know they can’t take care of their disabled adoptees any longer: They make arrangements with their church to find someone willing to marry their children and take care of them.
That makes me shudder to remember…
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Much of the help that anti-abortion activists give or claim to give to women is exceedingly short-term, should the woman not opt for giving up the resulting infant for adoption (or should the resulting infant be “not an attractive adoptee” by virtue of race or disability). A package or two of free disposable nappies doesn’t go far. Some of the “crisis pregnancy centers” have been connected to “homes for unwed mothers” that apply significant pressure on the woman to sign away the infant. (See The Nation magazine, “Shotgun Adoption”, 2009 article by Kathryn Joyce, behind subscribers-only paywall.)
People who are anti-abortion by religion or philosophy AND who see the big picture may do more useful things in the setting of general support for poor families. These people don’t consider themselves anti-abortion activists, and are indistinguishable from other volunteers at free general medical clinics, school supplies drives, food banks, after-school programs, and so on.
The majority of parents who try for transcultural, transracial, international, international disabled, and “special needs” adoptions are ill-prepared, naive about the lifespan issues and needs of these adoptees above and beyond ordinary adoptees, and sadly, most of the parents fail their adopted children in significant ways, according to many adult adoptees. “Good will” is not enough. And I am not talking about parents who have an agenda! The ones with an agenda have even more ignorance. (See an article about the evangelical international adoption movement, http://www.thenation.com/article/160096/evangelical-adoption-crusade .)
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Really great, important comments from NancyP.
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I have an additional explanation: they get the same pleasure as the one town’s women got from seeing Hester on a scaffold in “The Scarlet Letter”. It has to be gratifying to see pregnant scarlet women and the contrast between you & them works to flatteringly emphasize one’s purity. People always enjoyed viewing punishments meted out to others, but nowadays in America such places became harder to find. I am sure some of those women would be the ones in 16th century Europe to pay money for a place near a window to get the best view of an execution or a branding, depending on the delicateness of one’s nerves.
Besides, since you, the self-rightous one, stand there, “trying” to prevent, you can imagine yourself as a Christian warrior in the Holy Crusade against Immorality. You’re a Hero, who Really Cares, an extra-good Christian.
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El’s comments are also great.
I’m sorry I missed such a great discussion yesterday.
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Clarissa this explanation seems very pseudo-scientific. You’ve formed a theory to explain a behaviour with no testable evidence, and when people have challenged you on this, you’ve just said “I don’t see YOU coming up with a better explanation.”
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What “science” do you think this belongs to? 🙂 This is not a rhetorical question. When you answer, you will see that this is not in issue that can be analyzed by administering blood tests or X-rays.
An additional question: which science does tests to provide explanations for human behavior?
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