The personal IS politcal

An SYTYCB entry

My inspiration for this post comes from this article. Another one that was sent to me by my brother. It’s about “partial birth” abortions and how Obama is a baby killer. (seriously) While this entire article is incredibly offensive, way over exaggerated and for the most part factually inaccurate (the entire website is all of these things), I’m not here to talk about the actual article. This subject has been blogged about aplenty and honestly I’m a little too angry to even deal with it right now. What I want to talk about is the title: “Since democrats want to keep talking about abortion (instead of the economy), let’s do it shall we?”

This title says an awful lot. First, she’s implying that abortion is a subject not worth talking about. Second, she’s implying that talking about the economy is much more important then talking about abortion. Now I’m not at all trying to say that the economy isn’t important. It absolutely is. I would even agree that politicians (on both sides, not just democrats) have seemed to be avoiding the subject. However, I think the topic of abortion is equally important (especially with all the constant attacks). The personal is political.

The concept of the personal being political is not a new one, but it is one that is so often ignored by politicians (especially those on the right). Human beings are political by nature. Everything from marriage to childbirth to education and to health (among many more) are political issues as well as personal issues. I think the main reason conservatives are so pro “small government” and against social services are because they don’t understand this. To quote Lauren Hill, “everything is everything.”

Women were granted the right to have an abortion in 1973 with Roe v Wade. This right is constantly under attack by conservatives. This is not an issue that should be ignored or thought of as “too personal” or trivial. This is something we should be talking about, SCREAMING about and fighting for. We need to stand up and say “the personal IS political ” and we will not step down or shut up.

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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