moltz: “Snyderman: A white man deciding a woman’s...

moltz:

“Snyderman: A white man deciding a woman’s (deep breath)…deciding a woman’s responsibility in her own procreation. I mean I…I find it infuriating. I really think it doesn’t matter what side of the abortion issue you’re on, the fact that they are making health care harder and harder for women to navigate the system. I think it’s outrageous. Just outrageous.”

—

Dr. Nancy Snyderman quoted on Hullabaloo on the Stupak Amendment.

I got in a big (read: verbose) fight about this on Saturday with someone I really like and respect. We just keep talking about it so wrong.

From my worked-up emails:

We talk about abortion, in the public discourse, as though it were a pro/con choice. We assume that if it’s illegal, it won’t happen; if it’s legal, it will. This is not the reality. The only difference between countries in which abortion’s legal and illegal is the number of women who die. Abortion rates are not affected. The question is not “killing fetuses?”; the question is “killing women AND fetuses?”

…

The only thing I usually hear refered to as a “moral view” on “the” issue is the proposal that we restrict or criminalize abortion, which I think is patently immoral. What are we to do with your moral views? Make them into law? Shame women? I’m really confused about how this entitlement serves anything except a very abstracted sense of rightness. I’d like to see the “moral” grandstanding give way to real engagement with the experiential and practical complexities of people’s lives.

I find it so hard to discuss without spluttering.