Thoughts on Pro-Lifers and Anti-Choicers

(cross-posted at UneFemmePlusCourageuse )

Background: back in April I went through training to become a pro-choice clinic escort.  We’re the ones who walk patients from their vehicles to the front door of abortion clinics and talk to them to keep them from having to hear the anti-choice protesters.  Although my training was months ago, I didn’t get to begin escorting until this past Saturday due to the fact that during the summer I was living with my parents, forty-five minutes away from the clinic.  (My school is quite a bit closer.)  It was…an experience, and I am thankful that I have the a.

I’ve said before that I was raised in a conservative household, a conservative extended family, a conservative school, a conservative church. People in the childhood of Genevieve were almost entirely pro-life. (And I call them this and not anti-choice because for these purposes I will be drawing distinctions between the people I knew growing up and the people I saw Saturday .) They had their delusions (as seen here at TMOG). But this was due to class privilege as much as it was to religious belief: of course all people should keep their babies, and it won’t be difficult for any of them! Right ? It came from a place of kindness, at least that’s what I see, looking back, and and see with them still now. A few weeks ago my grandmother basically said that to save a woman’s life, or in cases of rape, she wasn’t opposed to abortion. (I cannot for the life of me remember how or why I got into a discussion of abortion with my grandmother, but it turned out well at least; and I got to explain to one more person that the majority of late-term abortions were performed for health risk/life risk reasons. Oh, and I love my grandmother by the way, and if anyone wants to comment here criticizing her, that will not be tolerated.)

Anyway, so for the majority of my life, when I heard the words,
“pro-life,” I thought of nice Christian women who loved children and
God and if they had the time would adopt a million children. I mean, my
parents themselves did adopt a child, they were in a way walking the
walk. “Pro-life protesters” brought to mind people–mainly women in my
imagination, nuns in fact–praying for peoples’ souls. In a kind way.
And they were good people, because I myself was pro-life until I was
around seventeen. “All life is sacred” was the bizarrely paradoxical
(considering my diet) thought I had surrounding the issue for a long
time. I was innocent and naive and I just didn’t get it until I started
having sex, started dating a very pro-choice man (one of the buttons on
what I refer to as my ‘progressive scarf’ says, “I love pro-choice
boys.” It’s in honor of him), surrounded myself with feminism…and
confronted the ugly side of the pro-life movement. The anti-choicers.

My ideal ‘pro-lifers,’ those nuns, would not have bloody fetus
pictures. They would not have them mounted to big white vans. They
would not shout. They wouldn’t pretend to be speaking the ‘words’ of
fetuses in cruel mocking voices, they wouldn’t trivialize rape, they
would not make racist remarks towards Muslims, African-Americans, or
anyone else. They wouldn’t try to shove their pamphlets at people, if
they had pamphlets it would be to advertise places where women could go
for help, and I don’t mean Crisis Pregnancy Centers, I mean women’s
shelters, church groups, shelters, other things like that. People who
could provide actual resources. They’d listen , too. Not just talk.
Compassion and understanding. They would speak about Jesus and actually
represent the fellow fairly well. There would be no misinformation
given.

Anti-choicers are predominantly male (and white). They
glorify in exhibiting giant pictures of mutilated fetuses (which I’ve
read are from miscarriages, not abortions, as most abortions are
performed in the first trimester and therefore there is nothing
resembling a baby to be photographed; which adds another layer of awful
to this as the miscarried fetus was most likely being carried by a
woman happily awaiting a child who had her dream shattered, and they’re
exploiting her pain). They hate feminism. They trivialize rape, they
yell the word loud and clear and believe me, this week I wanted to
strangle them for it. They are racist, they accuse people of awful
things, they peddle misinformation, they aim to terrorize patients, not
help them. They do misrepresent Jesus. They are the simplistic views of
a twelve-year-old Catholic schoolgirl combined with fifty years of male
privilege and conservative echo-chamber idiocy, and loud voices which
they have been taught through either instruction or osmosis are useful
for intimidating women. If they have wives and daughters, I feel sorry
for them–in fact, scared for their lives–and hope they have the
resources to escape some day.

The pro-lifers I knew worked at
jobs. They went to school to prepare for their futures. They took care
of their children and cleaned their houses and made dinner and planned
vacations and read books and watched movies and did all the things
pro-choicers do. They had lives. On Saturday mornings, they went
swimming at the health club or went shopping or just lounged in bed
reading. Maybe they’d go into work for a few hours, watch some sports,
cook a big breakfast, do some chores. Nothing terribly important, but
the basic frivolities and duties of everyday life, on the weekend.

Anti-choicers plot murders. Anti-choicers make up chants about being
against abortion. Anti-choicers spend their Saturday mornings–four
hours every week, and for at least one of them every day –that they
will never get back standing on the sidewalk in front of a clinic
holding signs and yelling. They are not spending time with their
families or working to support their families, they are wasting their
lives terrorizing women who are trying to exercise their legal choices.

And they’re hypocrites, terrible terrible hypocrites. How do I know
this? By the fact that they are alive. If they want to argue that a
ball of cells should not be killed, then they have no right to eat
meat. A self-sufficient animal is far more ‘a life’ than a fetus. They
should not eat plants, either–hey, they’re all alive. Just as alive as
a fetus. No more stepping on ants, swatting flies, squishing spiders.
No more mousetraps, roach motels, et cetera. Do not hunt or fish. Do
not cut down trees to make room for houses, parking lots, et cetera.
Don’t mow the lawn. Don’t weed the flowerbed. If a bear runs into your
backyard and starts attacking your three-year-old, well, the bear has
just as much right to live by killing or maiming hir as a fetus would
to live and therefore kill or cause severe health problems to a woman.
If they want to claim that a child’s life/health is of more value than
a bear’s, then they must admit that a woman’s life/health is more
important than a fetus.’ At least the bear is running around and can
eat and care for hirself. If you move into a new house and find a
poisonous plant is growing in your backyard, you can’t remove it, no
matter how afraid you are that your curious two-year-old might eat it.
You’ll just have to be extra-vigilant or take your chances. If you
can’t stop your car in time to avoid hitting a rabbit, a bird, a
raccoon, a fly, whatever, guess what, you just ended a life, you’re
going to hell by your logic.

And yeah, I’m fighting.  I’ve been a feminist for over two years and
this is the first time I’ve had the chance to do real feminist activism
outside of my campus.  So I’m going to do my work, I’m going to vote
for pro-choice politicians (go Obama!), and I’m going to write. A lot.
Pen, mightier than the sword, far mightier than the words of misguided
lunatics.