Monday, September 22, 2008

Progress of a sort

A new organization called The New Agenda has been launched. The goal, as far as I can see, is to unite women on other issues without getting hung up on abortion. But the way they put it in their FAQ made me laugh:

What about choice?

We welcome men and women of all beliefs regarding reproductive rights.

For real? That’s novel. Why?

Choice is an issue that’s been used to divide women from one another and take away our power. The New Agenda is about working together on the issues we have in common. For that reason, we take no official position on choice and don’t plan to make it part of our platform.


Now, I'm all for women setting aside the issue of abortion in order to achieve common goals politically. But it's also amusing that the founders of The New Agenda can't make themselves actually say "abortion". They have to dance around with "choice" and "reproductive rights". And the word "choice" standing all by itself is enough to establish that what you're talking about is abortion.

Ah, but it's about "being able to chose abortion". Yeah -- out of a plethora of choices open to pregnant women including the basics marrying the baby's father, staying single, breaking up with the baby's father, making a closed adoption plan, making an open adoption plan, planning a home birth, choosing a midwife or a physician, using perinatal hospice, planning a c-section to give an anencephalic baby a better chance to be born alive, trying an experimental treatment, et cetera.

Choice. God willing one day it won't just mean abortion any more.

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