I was planning to write about roller derby today. I’m afraid, though, that you’re going to have to wait a little longer for rhapsodising about the joys of knockin’ people over on eight wheels. I’m letting you know this because just as soon as we sort out reproductive rights for all and dismantle the kyriarchy, everyone will get to blog all day long about their favourite things. I’ll turn this into a food and derby blog, write reviews of my favourite books, and yarnbomb my balcony. I’m not sure what you lot will do, but it’ll be great.
In the meantime, though, we have to keep doing this. Sorry ’bout that. Might as well get to it, though, eh? In the wake of my post the other day on antichoice responses to BPAS in the Irish Times, I’ve had a few conversations here and on Twitter. This morning I woke up to this in my inbox:
@divreg @Abortion_Rights @flyingteacosy Now that ur safe ,u and the likes of U are pro -abortion 🙂
— gary banner (@gary_banner) November 4, 2013
There are a lot of flippant responses I could give. Let’s take a look at the premises behind this one, though, and see what comes out of it.
1. That we would be horrified at having been aborted ourselves
Continued over at the Tea Cosy’s new home. See you there!
considertheteacosy.wordpress.com 
And because desperate women have abortions anyway, anti-abortion laws just create a lot more death.
Oh, yes. The choice isn’t between abortions or no abortions. It’s between safe abortions and pregnant people being traumatised, permanently injured, or killed trying to end their own pregnancies.
I also feel like this comeback from prolifers seeks to capitalize on those stories of people who claim that they “should” have been aborted for some medical reason, but they’re so glad to be alive and that is somehow an argument against abortion. Some of those stories involve people with severe disabilities, whereas some use the horrible “what do doctors know anyways” trope… you know, the “doctors told my parents I’d never survive/never talk/never live independently but my parents ignored them and look at me I’m just perfect!” bit.
A lot of pro-lifers simply cannot wrap their brains around the idea that prochoicers may not be moved by these stories, and I find that infuriating. Great, there are people alive that have conditions that were diagnosable in the womb and could have led to their abortion, and some of those people are happy they lived. Great, sometimes doctors and/or diagnostic tests are wrong, and fetuses that appeared to have serious medical problems turn out to be relatively healthy adults. Why should either of those facts erase the rights of a pregnant person?
Exactly! Again, it’s this equating of an adult (who, yes, gets to enjoy their life and be happy they have it!) with a fetus (who is not yet a person).
It’s also insulting as hell to use people with disabilities as props in a fight for women and trans* men’s bodily autonomy- the worst kind of ‘divide and conquer’. I wonder how many people there are who (were thought to) have disabilities that were diagnosed in utero and their parents decided to continue with the pregnancy.. who grow up to need and appreciate their own reproductive rights? Just because someone has a disability doesn’t mean that they’ll never have to make their own decisions about pregnancies!
This also made me think of an article I read last year, by a woman who could honestly say it would have been a better choice for her mum to abort her.
“Lynn Beisner explains the difference between the two phrases “The best choice for both my mother and me would have been abortion” and “I wish I had never been born.”” http://www.rolereboot.org/culture-and-politics/details/2012-08-i-wish-my-mother-had-aborted-me
After reading this post, it made me consider one thing I’ve never considered before. Would banning abortion just make someone not wanting to be pregnant say “Oh, I can’t get an abortion, guess I’ll just carry this baby for 9 months and once it’s born raise it for 18 years…” I guess if I honestly had to answer that question, I would have to say no. If they truly did not want to be pregnant, they would find a way to end it. Well written Aoife. (P.S. Can I ask how your name is pronounced? It’s very unique…)
Exactly, James! Banning abortion here in Ireland didn’t lead to less abortions. It’s led to Irish women travelling outside the country for abortions (fortunately we’re a small country), and where they can’t afford that, to resorting to buying medical abortion pills online. Again, it’s actually lucky that we live in a time where there are doctors who will prescribe abortion pills online after online consultations- not because that is ideal, but because the alternative is that pregnant people go to desperate measures to induce miscarriages. The difference when abortion is legal is that the people who would end their pregnancies anyway, can do so safely.
And my name is pronounced EE-fah. Kind of rhymes with TREE-fah. It’s a very common name here in Ireland 🙂
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I love my mother, and the thought of me being something forced on her for a “pro-life” agenda makes me sick.
Hey, that’s something to throw back at them I guess: “Wouldn’t you be willing to die for *your* mother?”
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