Pro-choice means women's choice as pertains to their own bodies. [...] [Bill First] knows the blather about babies is misdirection to conceal anti-choicers' true concern which is preserving male control over female bodies. [...] This [autonomy] is extremely important to the notion of choice. When feminists like myself talk about choice, we mean the most personal of all choices, which is the choice to control who your body is forced to incubate or not.
[...] if you look at [Frist's votes regarding stem-cell research] through the patriarchal lens, then those positions are not opposed but quite complementary. [Research using] Fetal tissue [from abortions] is wrong because women choosing not to finish pregnancies men have started is wrong. But stem cell research is alright because stem cells are the byproducts of men regaining their manhood and fathering children. Both beliefs presuppose that women's bodies are vessels and therefore they are entirely consistent.
Of course, Amanda is "shrill", so we can dismiss her as just another hysterical radical feminist. And William Saletan (who is usually sane) is perfectly accurate when he calls Frist "pro-choice".
1 comment:
All we've got here, Noumena, is a minor disagreement. We both support a woman's right to choose, and we both think that the concept of choice needs to be expanded to include broader elements of female autonomy.
The only thing that I disagree about is the idea that a person who doesn't support the broader autonomy position is, for that reason, not pro-choice, and that's because I'm devoted and loyal to using the term "pro-choice" in the sense that it has always been used.
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