I was reading through some of my old posts (as I like to do from time to time) and I went back to my first fight with the Pro-choicers in the ADT.
Some of you who have ever seen me get into it with them in the ED may have seen them trundle out the "he called abused women damaged goods!" line. It's funny how the ratio of people who have "reminded" me of that versus the number of people I directed it towards and was even thinking about -- is about 90:5.
In reality, I made the comment to one person (whose name I don't know if I can say here) who started off by telling me that him/her thought I was wrong for being pro-life. OK, fine. Then they started justifying her position by telling me all of these really private details, like that they had been abused, had GID, couldn't have children or they would die (which I didn't entirely buy), and a few other details that I thought really had little to do with the debate at hand.
In the process of debating with them, I realized that many of the strident dissenters all had A) history of abuse, B ) no desire to have children whatsoever, and/or C) the idea that it's OK to put a bridle on childbirth, but not on sex which causes pregnancy. To top it all off -- and I know I'm not alone in this -- a lot of them had and still have stank a** catty attitudes.
When I called them "damaged goods", I was saying, wait a minute, you guys are giving me all this grief for my fairly even-handed opinion on the matter, you're flooding me with responses where I have to answer the same post three different times, you're making all these snide remarks...but YOU GUYS are the ones with the mental and emotional problems? Are you serious?!
Now it's spun as me saying that any and all women who have been abused are damaged goods. Not the case. If you've got a bad attitude, no moral compass, and little regard for natural order (sex, pregnancy, child), and don't see the point in even mentioning how people shouldn't abuse sex...yeah, I'd go waaay out on a limb and say you're damaged.
Our experiences make us who we are. If you've been abused, that can affect your opinion on issues like abortion, because you will likely see it as a bodily rights issue. If you KNOW you never want kids, that will affect you because you will likely want the privilege to abort your child just like these hypothetical people that get mentioned.
That's not to say abused people and people who don't want kids are always wrong, but that IS to say these people need to have some perspective on their position and the position of others. I don't know why people refuse to ascribe reason to their thoughts and opinions, but they should. That way they won't just think because someone feels differently than them, that they're just bad and mean and anti-woman or whatever. Knowing how to examine yourself and criticize yourself, intellectually, is how you elevate your reasoning skills and understanding of the world.
If they had just been passionate, I probably wouldn't have said it. And the thing is, what kind of debate did they really think they were going to get when they knew they weren't going to change their opinions on anything? That's the part I really hate about this debate.
See, with me, I call myself Pro-life, but I've acknowledged an exception to rape and instances where the mother (or child's) health is at severe risk. I still hate the idea and practice of abortion, but I'm not completely heartless. Like I said in a thread, I've bended. I've also seen other Pro-lifer's bend the same way.
But many of these "pro-choicers" who, by the way, would shun the idea that they're pro-abortion, don't bend in the least. They don't even concede the point on the idea that MAYBE we need to reform our views on sex and children, and the abortion issue could work itself out. There are plenty of girls I've debated with who claim to be pro-choice, claim they never want kids, and will have an abortion if they get pregnant. So basically, since the only outcome of sex is pregnancy, these people are effectively having sex to risk an abortion. Or, as the non mealy-mouthed version goes, they're having sex to have an abortion.
I'm really going off on a tangent now. Ugh. Sorry.
