FUSsa-talk Mailing List: Fwd: The roles played by abortion

[Robert Tapp (tappx001]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Robert Tapp <tappx001 [at] umn.edu>
> Date: January 23, 2010 1:00:05 PM EST
> To: Humanist Institute Discussion List <hidisc [at] humanistinstitute.org>
> 
> 
> Carol Joffe, author of an insightful new book, interviewed by Lynn Harris on 
> Salon.
> 
>       
> http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2010/01/22/abortion_dispatches_interview/index.html
> 
> The potency of this wedge issue  again showed in the Congressional bills and 
> their amendments by Stupak and Nelson. Humanists need to keep reminding our 
> neighbors that 2. this is a useful political issue for far-right crazies, and 
> 1. that it obscures all the serious ethical issues of responsible 
> reproduction.
> 
> On the #2 issue, Joffe makes a good case for ways that the issue has been used
> 
>> I have come to understand the abortion wars as a brilliant distraction that 
>> drains energies and resources away from other social needs, including the 
>> adequate provision of services that would allow people to have the intimate 
>> and family lives they wish for.
> 
> 
> On issue #1, she helps us remember that we humans are also sexual animals who 
> build cultures that both exaggerate our sexualoties and try to control and 
> channel them.
> 
>> the sexual schizophrenia we do here, where we have thongs for girls but "Our 
>> Bodies, Our Selves" banned from libraries. We are a society deeply 
>> conflicted about sexuality, especially female sexuality.
> 
> 
> Clearly religions have been used as heavy players in the abortion wars since 
> they rely on beliefs and slogans remote from reality-testing. Joffe urges us 
> to discover how many European countries included reproductive rights into 
> their health systems -- with the clear results of reducing unwanted 
> pregnancies and therefore abortions. She rightly sees this resisted here by 
> theocratic factions. The too-little recognized fact of spontaneous abortions 
> should be used to show the absurdity of such religious slogans as <life 
> begins at conception>. After Obama was safely (?) elected, I published on 
> that issue
> 
>> “Is God the Supreme Abortionist?” Religion Dispatches, Dec. 11, 2008
> 
> Now that corporatist interests have derailed serious legislative changes -- 
> and been freed by the activist and conservative Supreme Court 5 to become 
> even more dominant in the political process -- we can expect <pro-life> 
> policies and restrictions to flourish more and succeed more.
> 
> Bob
> 
>