laceblade | About that.

So I think it goes without saying that it really sucks that some asshole shot a guy in a fucking church because the dude performed abortions.

But I've seen lots of LJ posts/comments where people are all, "OMG pro-life people are so stupid, failsauce."

People like

tammy212 (Tamora Pierce), who posted here.

They demand the right of life from an organism that cannot express an opinion, while they take it from those who can not only give opinions, but act on them. They claim to love the "preborn," but do nothing for them when they are born into bad conditions, attend underfunded schools, and receive inadequate healthcare, and preach hate for those who oppose their supposedly religious views. They preach disobedience to the law of the land, and then pretend shock and horror when capital crimes are committed in the name of their cause.

FIRSTLY, who the fuck are we to say that people don't deserve to live just because they can't express an opinion?! What a ridiculous line to draw! Especially for an activist! I can't let that one pass without a WTF. How many oppressed people throughout the ages have been denied their own voice? Why would you use that feature to make your point? I don't know what to say except for WHUT.

Secondly.....you know what, you can't paint so broadly with one brush. Some people, like me, do happen to be pro-life, but believe most passionately in health care for everyone, for funded schools, for separation of church and state, for accessible birth control for everyone who wants it. And yeah, being a supporter of LIFE, I am certainly not "pretending" shock and horror when someone opens fire on the other side: that shit is real.

A hateful thing happened. Can we not be assholes, and not further fuel the cycle of hate?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

FIRSTLY, who the fuck are we to say that people don't deserve to live just because they can't express an opinion?!

Ugh. This right here. WTF.

And yes to pretty much everything else you said. I'm pro-choice, and I see how polarizing this is, but I think we've had it pretty clearly demonstrated that we're not getting anywhere by demonizing the "other side".

I haven't addressed this in my own LJ because I just don't have the words. But thanks for saying this.

Can we not be assholes, and not further fuel the cycle of hate?

Srsly. There are people flaming each other right now on mailing lists I'm on that have Nothing To Do With This Topic and it's frustrating me. This is a difficult issue and wow, the generalizations sometimes on both (all??) sides scare me.

Tammy could use this pointed out to her in person via her own journal too, I think.

I have pingback turned on, so I figured that she would see the post, but maybe I'll cross-post my thoughts there after work, too.

I find it sad that the reaction to a hate crime (which is what it is) has been to spew hatred and venom and voice extreme biases. Not that EVERYONE reacting is doing that, but it's been very difficult to not defriend some people automatically.

What's exceptionally irritating is the way people refuse to realize that there's a difference between a woman's (AND a man's, it still takes two, and I believe that men are just as responsible) LIFE and their LIFESTYLE, and ignore the fact that sex itself is a choice (when it isn't, or isn't between consenting adults of sound mind, it's a different story).

I am trying to understand where you're coming from, but I honestly feel like this response is a bit of a derail. Dr. Tiller, who has become something of an icon for the pro-choice movement, was murdered: of course that is going to make a lot of people hurt and very angry, and scared. I honestly think that their commentary isn't directed at people like you, but at the groups within the pro-life community that actively seek to restrict other peoples' legal rights in ways that border on abusive, and that openly advocate violence. If you want to call for an end of cycles of hate, then I would honestly suggest speaking to people in the pro-life community that perpetuate violent crimes against people at abortion clinics. Right now, people are grieving and worrying about the ramifications of Dr. Tiller's murder. Asking us to bear the brunt of depolarizing the situation is really, really unfair, when we are the ones on the attack.

ETA: Going back to actually read Pierce's post, it seems pretty clear that she is explicitly talking about the anti-abortion organizations that demonized Tiller.

Edited 2009-06-02 17:07 (UTC)

Firstly, I'd like to take the time to appreciate the fact that you called me out for derailing a discussion, as I understand that that's not an easy thing to do a friend.

Of course, for the rest of my comment, I will disagree with the fact that this post of mine was a derail, but I figured I'd open with the warm-fuzzies, and a reminder that you are my friend, la-la-la, hand-holding goodness.

I really don't think my post is a derail. I think the act itself is a derail. Pro-choice and pro-life (or anti-choice, whatever you want to call it) camps discuss the issue of abortion all the time. It gets discussed in courts, as it should. And then some asshole brought a gun out and shot a guy participating in the debate by acting upon his beliefs. That's a derail. Taking the discussion about abortion and saying to Tiller that he doesn't deserve to be alive any more ends the conversation from Tiller's personal perspective. This week, people aren't talking about the ethics of abortion; they're talking about Tiller being murdered, and why some pro-life people are assholes. The conversation has already been derailed.

And if people make posts in their LiveJournals that broad-brush one side of the argument, further fanning the flames of hate? Yeah, I'm going to respond to that in my own journal, and I really don't think it's a derail. I'm still talking about abortion, and I'm still talking about the people involved in the debate.

To me, a derail is a white person saying, "Oh, me and my poor hurt feelings!" when the conversation was originally about people of color.

Tamora Pierce's post was originally about pro-life people, and so was mine. I fail to see how my response was a derail.

If people want to be hurt, angry, and scared, that's fine! I think it's scary, too. And I'm angry that it happened, and I'm hurt that someone who claims to be "pro-life" could perform such a heinous act. I don't have to give people permission to be hurt, angry, and scared, but it's totally fine with me if they do it. That doesn't mean I'm going to ignore them acting like assholes if they choose to do that, too.

You suggest I seek out people in the pro-life community (which, for me, includes my family and my church) who perpetuate violent crimes against people in abortion clinics. I can honestly say, hand to God, that I have never met any. It's actually perplexing to me that you suggest that I know who these people are, or where to find them.
It's not like I can sit down and be like, "Say Dad, we both believe the same things; let's get along and stop shooting people in the face."
Even if I knew these people, I would probably do my best to stay the fuck away from them, as they clearly have issues.

I've been pretty open in my LiveJournal about my joining a women's group that claims to be feminists (but fail so hard) at church, and I'm not shy about telling people what I think when it comes to how not to suck at life.

I'm not asking pro-choice people to "bear the brunt of depolarizing the situation," I'm just asking them to remember that we're all complex people, and making blanket statements like "pro-life people don't do anything to stand up for children after they've already been born!" is not helpful.

I really appreciate your response, and you as a person being willing to air out this stuff with me. When I said your response was a derail, it was because to me, the bigger WTF here is that a doctor who was doing something legal based on American law was killed in his church. Pierce was expressing her rage at the pro-life communities that support violence, even if she used a short-hand to talk about them. Like I said, it was pretty clear to me that she was talking about the organized pro-life communities that advocate violence, that make doctors like Tiller a target. When I said that you should speak out against them, I didn't mean that you knew them personally. Rather, I was disappointed that, when this happened, your first response was to feel attacked and put upon by people legitimately expressing their hurt and anger, instead of saying "I am pro-life and I find this heinous." Because I don't think it goes without saying: I think it needs to be said.

I felt that you were redirecting the "wtf," as I mentioned earlier - to me, the bigger wtf is the crime itself, not how people are responding to it. Especially when we both seem to agree that it IS legitimate to be critical of organized, violence-promoting groups. And I agree that the act itself does derail the discussion, but at the same time, I felt that your choice of response was to take something as a personal attack that I at least don't think was directed towards you, which I found frustrating and disproportionate to the actual awfulness of what happened.

You're right: people are individuals. I do think that there is a larger rhetoric around the abortion debate that gets thrown around, probably without a lot of deep thinking, but it bears looking into. I do really think, though, that it is possible to separate people like you, and my little sister, and Barack Obama, from groups like Operation Rescue.

Now, aren't you glad you don't have a certain someone on your FL anymore?

Why, I can't imagine who you might be talking about!

Ahahaha, thank you for the laugh!

About that.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

For some levity...

Re: For some levity...

Re: For some levity...