Pro-Abortion Activism: The Most Dangerous Type

All Apologies, Again.

Many apologies to BAMF readers. Both of our current contributors are working on long-form pieces that make consistently generating content in a timely fashion for BAMF challenging. Your favorite contributor, Dr. John Wolfe, is working on a theoretical book that I'm not authorized to disclose much about here while teaching Marxism to our potential future comrades. I recently finished my first novel and irresistible internal and external pleas and demands to edit it and send it out into the world to find its place call day and night. Now allow me to proceed. 

Oh, wait, one more preamble. We've established that the terms used in abortion rhetoric are outdated and ineffective, and, yes, I am painstakingly working toward an entirely new, updated, rhetorically effective lexicon, as previously proposed. Let's try a few terms and phrases on for size to see how they suit us. Feedback about the various terms and phrases employed is more than welcomed; it is solicited and appreciated. Please comment below on any of the many I throw around, as I flail and struggle to develop more useful, relevant terminology to describe precise and nuanced positions and procedures, thereby destroying the gossamer that obscures the actual function of abortion in our society* - which is not to punish some whore for having sex by forcing her to reproduce - but which is to terminate life-endangering parasites in a safe manner at the discretion of the host. This is a social good, as any leftist and/or logician knows. Okay, let's go.

Abortion rights activism is the most dangerous kind of activism.**

This said, there must be a distinction made here, early, between Being (Perceived As)/(Identifying As) Something - such as a gender, an ethnicity, a race, a threat, a nationality, a follower of a religion, an adherent to a political ideology - and Being Someone Attempting To Protect Someone/Something Who/That Is/Are (Perceivied/Identify As) Something. Do not mistake the point: Being a black man, wearing a burka, following Islam, being LGBTQ, being a woman, being a child, existing as an abortion clinic, and providing abortion in the US*** is more dangerous than attempting to protect such intensely persecuted groups/things. So, there are those who are in danger, are discriminated against, are casually murdered at a frighteningly accelerating rate, are stalked, harassed, kidnapped, held captive, coerced, raped, tortured; and there are those of us who notice, become aware of, and become passionate about creating and/or guarding a safe place for the persecuted to exist, deterring and confronting threats of encroachment upon these entities' being, existence, and presence. Here we will focus on the dangers of Being Someone Attempting To Protect Someone/Something Who/That Is/Are (Perceivied/Identify As) Something. 

While there is plenty of evidence to support the claim that pro-abortion activism is the most dangerous type of activism, particularly in this relatively new age of surveillance,***** which seems to have lead to heightened suspicion, fear, propaganda, and video evidence of the spectacle of violence and pain that we watch seemingly on loop, building callousness and numbing our empathy toward those being beaten, kicked, dragged down a street, shot dozens of times, immobile bodies lying around as mundane as chairs around a kitchen table. You've read and/or heard about the latest (and historical) atrocities against women and against abortion providers (because how could you not have?). I have faith in you, dear reader, comrade reader, under-informed reader, male reader, misogynist reader, Reddit brocialist reader, liberal reader, overeducated underpaid academic reader, and all the rest. You know, if not exactly then at very least generally, what's happening to those some of us try to protect. The information about these incidents surround us, permeating the culture we cannot escape, everything we see, hear, read, absorb always already contains it.

The vested interests that protect the control of women's reproductive choices and bodily autonomy (as well as that of nonhuman animals, which we ought to revisit another time) are the powerhouses of capitalism. They rule the world. The military needs disposable bodies to exploit. The tech world needs disposable bodies to exploit. The fast food industry needs disposable bodies to exploit. The Church, all sects of Christianity, and all other religions need disposable bodies to exploit. The propaganda disseminated by these mega ideological superstructures is unparalleled - excluding that of the meat, dairy, and egg lobbies, which is older by 25 years or so and therefore may have a little more pull if the two were ever to bump heads, but luckily for both the contradictions between them are obscured and indeed absolutely integral to the perpetuation of capitalism as we know it in the West because they all rely on exploitation of others' reproductive systems, forced gestation and natalism, and disposable bodies capable of perpetuating the cycle, i.e. viable female reproductive systems.

Casual Pro-Coerced Natalism vs. Pro-Coerced Natalism Terrorists: Thin Line or Nonexistent Line?

The requirements to oppose uterine autonomy for women are minimal. Christian. Muslim. Parent. Man. Woman. Humanist. Child. Woman who has had an abortion. Person who wanted to coerce a woman to gestate and reproduce their own genetic material but she terminated the dangerous parasite. Person who wanted to force a woman to gestate and reproduce someone else's DNA but she chose uterine autonomy instead. The statistically nonexistent woman who has had an abortion and regretted it for various nuanced reasons, apparently often tied to how "planned" the menstrual interruption was. A woman who wanted to gestate and reproduce but subverted the life-endangering reproductive condition due to any number of circumstances. In short, the criteria to be ideologically pro-forced gestation and pro-forced reproduction are very few. 

Interestingly, not alternately but additionally, the requirements to be a danger to repropponents/repro-opponents are only slightly more stringent. The differentiating factors here seem to be:

1.) An unquestioning, unwavering belief that embryos and fetuses are equal to a reproductively capable woman based on some esoteric value scale (probably and usually based in the  teachings of Christianity but not necessarily actually addressed in any version of the text on which their claims are ostensibly based) and, therefore, the subversion of a nonconsensual germination is equal in moral Wrongness to murder,

2.) An extreme sense of entitlement to impose those beliefs by any means necessary on anyone perceived to be defying them, often embodied by a small-town sheriff mentality with an inner dialogue similar to "Welp, if no one else is going to handle this blight on our reputable little town, then I'll saddle up my horse, ride in and shoot those bandits myself," and

3.) A lack of fear of consequences. 

As we've seen numerous times, even as a pro-coerced natalism terrorist is cuffed and taken into police custody (never shot because he's always already a white man), he shouts, "I did it for the babies!" or some similar illogical claim, uncertainty of his actual motives somehow remains, manifesting in media coverage and widespread cultural sentiment. He is labeled mentally ill, an extremist, a loose cannon, an anomaly, a rare exception to the myth of the passive, silent supporters of nonconsensual hostism, when in actuality the passive, hidden supporters of forced hostism create and enforce the ideological conditions under which he is able to carry out these deadly deeds and meet these three criteria. This self-styled small town sheriff cleaning up the bordello whores who must be forced into natalism to rectify their engagement in sexual intercourse only has the three elements that distinguish him from the pack of passive pro-forced birthers thanks to the passive supporters themselves. The ones who donate to the innumerable pro-forced insemination organizations; write articles and books on the evil of anti-natalism; silently pray in self-righteous groups outside of clinics alongside bullies who shout at and stalk pro-uterine autonomists (and who are prone to turn into terrorists) without ever reprimanding or questioning their aggressive tactics; give pro-forced reproduction speeches at churches; distribute anti-uterine autonomy propaganda; and utter negative, inevitably slut-shaming words about a woman who removed herself from a toxic reproductive situation. These are the ones who build, maintain, and encourage the conditions for the terrorist to develop the three necessary elements that set him apart from the gentle lamb of God innocents. Meanwhile, many of them (sometimes not so) secretly praise him and consider him a lifesaving hero. Scott Roeder is a hero to them, and I'm willing to bet something of value to you his commissary comes in as quickly and thickly as George Zimmerman's bail money and support fund did. Why fear consequences when there is a (sometimes not so) silent army of supporters out there ready to watch your horse gallop away to boldly battle a grave evil that could turn our hellbound world around and set it on the Right track?   

What's at Stake

Anyone who dares defy the unending threats are targets in constant danger. Our spouses, children, homes, vehicles, employment, personal information (as far as that exists in this Surveillance Age), and our very lives themselves are perpetually in imminent danger, and we have no way to predict when an attack might happen. As though the ever-present pro-forced birth ideology that permeates all aspects of our culture weren't an effective enough threat, the Internet has made the stalking and murder of interrupters of reproductive labor far easier than in days of yore, or even since the advent of social media. This causes providers to flee from state to state to protect their ability to help women obtain critical and safe medial termination of unwanted parasites, to guard their loved ones, to save their own lives. Clinicians are often bullied and intimidated into quitting jobs, making their lives and livelihoods precarious, as well as causing high turnover at clinics, one of Operation Rescue's stated goals since at least 2004, disrupting the availability of anti-germination services women need. Clinic escorts - volunteer or compensated - are frequently frightened out of helping comfort and protect patients after encountering one of the many threats. So while seemingly scripted and staged legislative battles over defunding major non-natalist and women's healthcare providers and other skirmishes over rules, buffer zones, age limits, waiting periods, and so on might seem important and interesting intellectually, abstractly, from afar, the Real Battle is in the trenches. And every Leftist should be involved in this trench warfare, presuming solidarity is still one of our core shared values, something I deeply hope we all deem necessary for any kind of movement toward communism.  


Notes:
* There are likely other functions of abortion in our society, which seem worth examining another time. 

**There are two probable exceptions to this claim: Animal rights activism and environmental activism. This is due to the nature of governmental infiltration and surveillance of those two aforementioned types of activist circles, a phenomena non-natalists have yet to systemically experience (that we know of). Small town police harassment and other such diffuse, annoying, largely uncoordinated efforts often impede anti-natalists' work, but any comparison between that and the intense scrutiny and demonization faced by animal rights and environmental activists, respectively would be inaccurate. Here are some links if you need proof: http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/about/
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/june/ecoterror_063008
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/24/schuster.column/index.html

*** It should always already be assumed that this post (and blog in general) focuses on conditions in the US, the place with which I am most familiar and within which I am most aware of the dangers, biases, daily life, and other nuances that even as a citizen of the world, a traveler, and a reader, I cannot speak as accurately about.

**** A historically unprecedented surveillance of women, as revealed here

***** We are not presently addressing the common (liberal) cop-out of "exceptions for rape and incest" that exhibits an absence of critical thought with which were are sickeningly overfamiliar. BAMF should address that at some point. 

A somewhat of sad/ironic/meta sidenote on this post: There is a two to three paragraph narrative-style section missing from the middle that concretely describes exact circumstances and encountered tangible threats, as well as the consequences and outcomes thereof. However, due to the topic of the post I removed it because it could possibly reveal "too much," thereby endangering myself and others, our livelihoods, our very lives. J. Wolfe said, "It is less strong in the sense that the personal narrative gave the piece greater rhetorical weight. The argument is, I think, not affected." That comforted me to an extent, and I hope he is correct. Perhaps this sidenote bolsters any "rhetorical weight" that may have been lost due to the omission.

Toward a New Abortion Rights Rhetorical Strategy and Lexicon

There is a vacuum of relevant leftist rhetoric about abortion. The left has no cohesive abortion stance.

We call for more militant feminism, we hold safer spaces workshops, we volunteer at abortion clinics, we contact legislators, we wave signs, we share our abortion stories, we do what we can in a climate in which even the words that we use to describe abortion are empty husks referring to a battle we are constantly chasing, never initiating, never advancing, never winning. When it comes to abortion rights and access, the left - and I mean you, comrades - is severely lacking a unified, cohesive, effective rhetorical strategy. Patriarchal state control over reproductive power and the degradation of women is fundamental to the accumulation of capital and necessary to the proliferation of neoliberalism (Federici, Caliban), yet we can't seem to agree on how to talk about, much less mobilize around, abortion rights. This is a problem that must be remedied.

"Abortion" is an imprecise term that obscures various situations, numerous definitions, and individual stories. It's an abstract concept, alienated from the individual physical body and the social body.

We use the term "abortion" to refer to an an elective* medical procedure that ends 21% of pregnancies in the U.S. However, medically and practically, "abortion" refers to numerous ways of ending a pregnancy, intentionally or unintentionally. Most people are unaware of the term's vagueness. Here I will list a few types of abortion to illustrate of the vast number of procedures covered by one vague term. 

A "medication abortion" or "medical abortion" involves taking two pills that terminate a pregnancy that is less than 49 to 63 days along with what can be compared to a heavy menstrual period. The first pill is taken at the clinic and the second at home (or wherever one may be). It is simple, safe, and relatively painless. Then there is suction curettage or, in common parlance, "surgical abortion," which involves anesthesia and suction and is usually used to end pregnancies 6 to 14 weeks along. Induction abortion was applied to later pregnancies with great skill and compassion by the late Patron Saint of Abortion Rights Dr. George Tiller, so much so that doctors from around the country sent their patients to him. Then there is IDX or DNX, which was outlawed in the U.S. in 2003 thanks to Rick Santorum, George Bush II, and a bunch of other misogynists. Of course, since the procedure is occasionally necessary, doctors must find loopholes for those who can't afford to hop a plane to get the health care they need.** 

Another type of abortion that can be elective or non-elective is miscarriage. Miscarriage, or "spontaneous abortion," often happens automatically before the twentieth week and usually before anyone is aware of the pregnancy. "Stillbirth" refers to this phenomenon after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Other times, unctions and herbal concoctions are used to cause miscarriages and stillbirths when abortion is culturally, financially, or otherwise inaccessible. Miscarriages and stillbirths can also happen when the pregnant person is brutalized or poisoned. There are many other politically-loaded terms that refer to nothing, to an idea, or to something that means something else (e.g. "partial birth abortion," a phrase invented by a man in the National Right to Life Committee in 1995, "back alley abortion," and "feticide"). It is impractical to identify all possible applications of the term "abortion" in this article due to my limited knowledge, your presumed ability to perform research online, and self-imposed length limitations. And this is the point. The word "abortion" contains so many variances that its fullness becomes emptiness. The term "abortion" hides the reality of numerous, varied, and complex realities, obfuscating what is actually at stake: women's control over their own reproductive labor power and state enforcement of gender (and obviously always other) hierarchies.

"Abortion" and "Work": A Brief Interlude

Like capitalism uses the term "work" to cover up many different types of work (e.g. forced labor, indentured servitude, debt slavery, work done by undocumented immigrants, child labor, "consensual" work, sex work, etc.) to make the large-scale inequalities and abuses within "work" tolerable, acceptable, and ostensibly necessary, the broad, inaccurate term "abortion" obscures complicated realities surrounding the numerous methods and situations causing the end of pregnancies in order to strategically decontextualize "abortion," making it seem simple and abstract, an act to be accepted or rejected, judged right or wrong, in toto. The term "abortion" hides all of these nuances so that the utter necessity of state control over women's reproductive ability and the enforcement of gender hierarchies to the functioning of capitalism, as argued by Federici in Caliban and the Witch, remains hidden and therefore unexamined. 

While pregnancy and birth always seem to be part of a story - a single working woman struggling to raise her child alone, the immature 20-something man who suddenly becomes a responsible father, the heart-warming adoption story of a heterosexual couple who could not procreate but ended up with a houseful of children, the accidental teenage pregnancy from prom night, the urbane lesbian couple who used a friend as a sperm donor, even the virgin who is impregnated by God himself and bears the child who will save us all from a fiery eternity - abortion is an isolated event meant to be forgotten and written out of history for all involved, personally and socially.

Because the terms "abortion" and "work" have been so often drastically contorted and misused by everyone who uses either term, we now tacitly accept them at face value. This is a critical strategic error."Abortion is wrong," "I have to go to work," "Abortion should be the woman's choice," "Work is boring," etc. It is not possible for any of these statements to be true because of the vagueness of the terms "abortion" and "work." 

The right is winning the battle for control over reproductive labor, women's bodies, and gender hierarchies with domestic terrorism and successful use of rhetoric.

We could all take notes from anti-abortion propagandists. These people are savants. From "partial birth abortion" (not a medical term) to "personhood" to "fetal pain," these wizards know how to persuade an audience. They have succeeded in manipulating search results to the point that anyone seeking facts about abortion can become confused. They have polluted the main point of access for working class people seeking information about abortion - the Internet. The imprecise umbrella term "abortion" and its toothless cousin "pro-choice" are perfect accomplices in this muddled mess.

"Pro-choice" is an empty phrase that is rhetorically weak, outdated, and useless.

Like "abortion," "pro-choice" means so many things to so many people that it ends up meaning nothing. Some believe it means "pro-abortion," others believe it means "whatever a pregnant person wants to do is none of my business." I suspect the mainstream understanding of the phrase is something akin to: "It's up to the woman if she wants to carry the pregnancy to term or have an abortion. It's none of my business or yours. Plus, the Supreme Court said so." As the most widely-recognized term that signifies acceptance of a person's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, "pro-choice" (like "abortion") is the term I will use throughout this article and elsewhere until the discourse around abortion rights and access are re-evaluated, reframed, and reinvigorated/reinvented.

The liberal stance on abortion is apologetic at best, which is a concession to anti-choicers' moralistic condemnation of abortion and campaign of terror on abortion providers and seekers.

We expect liberals to be reactionary. Planned Parenthood is defunded; Obama will veto the bill. The last clinic in a rural state is attacked; donations are made. Hillary's view that abortion should be legal, safe, and rare is accepted. Some powerful, disgusting misogynist says yet another degrading thing about women, rape, and/or abortion, and memes are shared and scathing Facebook rants are written. Sexism is called out on Tumblr. It is not enough. The current abortion lexicon is useless, outdated, weak, and reactionary. It is our duty to remedy this.

Liberals are immeasurably more visible than leftists. They have an identifiably cohesive "pro-choice" stance. Therefore, theirs is the default "leftist" stance on abortion rights and access.

Most of the U.S. thinks "the left" means liberals; we don't even enter the public consciousness when they think of "leftists." Therefore, for all practical purposes, the liberal stance on abortion rights is the leftist stance. Their dominance in this narrative space has resulted in relentless usage of terms that have not been critically re-evaluated in decades, at least not in a mainstream or effective manner.*** 

This must be redressed, which is possible with a cohesive, united abortion rights rhetorical strategy and a revamped abortion lexicon. We cannot continue to hide behind the outdated, apologetic "pro-choice" stance. However, the failure of leftists to have clearly differentiated ourselves from liberals in the U.S. may be advantageous when reframing abortion rights discourse and introducing a new abortion lexicon because if a whole new set of terms were rolled out, it would follow that it would be by a wholly different kind of left. 

Everyone supporting current reproductive power relations accepts the current stagnation of abortion rights discourse. All feminists and leftists should be calling for free, safe abortion on demand, as well as working toward a new abortion rights rhetorical strategy and lexicon.

By the important but necessarily limited criteria discussed in this post, European women may have had more control of contraception, reproduction, obstetrics, and abortion in the Middle Ages before the loss of the commons and consequent Church and state imposition and enforcement of gender and racial hierarchies than (U.S.) women do today (Federici, Caliban). Because capitalism requires constant accumulation and new sources of labor power and because control of the reproduction of labor is a necessary element of capitalist accumulation and expansion (Federici, Caliban), failing to actively challenge the existing state restrictions on abortion is compliance with and approval of the entire capitalist system. If you support the destruction of gender hierarchies, access to free healthcare for all, dismantlement of the patriarchy, and, dare I say, abolishment of private property, you must support safe, free abortion on demand, no excuses, no shame, no harassment, no guilt, no barriers.**** 

I will think about and attempt to develop some accurate, meaningful, relevant terminology to potentially replace the outdated "pro-choice" "abortion" discourse in use today. I challenge you to do the same. As always, feel free to point me toward something potentially productive. All suggestions for terms, as well as references to other feminists, theorists, philosophers, and linguists working on a similar project, would be greatly appreciated. 

Notes:
• Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Witch. https://libcom.org/files/Caliban%20and%20the%20Witch.pdf

• Statistics cited in this article are accurate as of the posting date. I highly discourage readers from consulting Wikipedia.org for any abortion-related information unless you're going to edit the articles for accuracy; every entry on abortion I could find on that site are biased and sexist, and many are inaccurate. This is unsurprising but disappointing because readers know I often refer to Wikipedia for information on other topics.

*I'm using the term "elective" due to the limitations of abortion rights rhetoric at present. Many women's "elective" procedures do not involve much of a choice. Socioeconomic circumstances and systemic misogyny often force women into situations and decisions. Low wages, sexual assault, must I continue? 

**Rich women will always be able to obtain any type of abortion since they are not restricted by the financial barriers of travel, time off work, babysitters, and so on. Access to free, safe abortion is a class issue, a racial issue, and an LGBTQ issue, which always bears repeating.

***One can contrast this to the success of anti-choicers, who have had PR blitzes with unparalleled success. One can also contrast it to the success of the LGBTQ community's largely grassroots and surging online movement to reframe and address outdated issues surrounding the notion of sex vs. gender and many other issues. Both groups (lumping together here disparate groups that have had notable successes in reframing the discourse around dissimilar causes) have been adept at developing and implementing rhetorical strategies that have entered mainstream U.S. culture, and both groups are winning battles every day, as the "pro-choice" camp continues to stagnate and decay. This is not to suggest there is no important pro-abortion work occurring. However, I have not seen any concerted attempts at a large-scale assessment and overhaul of existing assumptions about and terminology used for abortion rights (from those who support access to "abortion"--I hear plenty coming from those against "abortion" access). Here I also would like to differentiate and applaud the success of transgender rights activists in creating an entirely new lexicon (e.g. CAFAB, CAMAB, etc.) that make thoughtful, nuanced differentiations and express very specific concerns. I encourage comments from my trans rights activist readers directing others to reliable resources so that they may educate themselves. For the purposes of this article I, as usual, use the term "woman/women" to refer to those who identify as such. This is not an attempt at erasure of those who do not identify as women but may still become pregnant, or women who need access to clinics for hormone replacement therapy. My post is an attempt to confront the current stale state of abortion rights discourse and to challenge the surrounding accepted rhetoric, without co-opting but while admiring the transgender rights activist community's successes in an often overlapping struggle. I hope I have achieved this goal as gracefully as intended.

****Also, abortion is a social good, which should perhaps be addressed in a future post and should further prompt leftists and feminists to act now in support of my pleas.