Words, You, And A Pink Elephant

If I tell you not to think about a pink elephant, have I determined your thoughts? It seems undeniable that I have. In fact, it appears self-evident that words not only influence thought; they determine it. If I step onto a commercial airline, seize control of the cockpit mid-flight and say over the PA-system, "We have some bombs!", do you think I mean to affect behavior? What if I walk up to a bank teller and hand him a note which says, "Give me all the cash in your cash drawer or I will shoot you in the head"– am I not predetermining an outcome? What if I walk up to a policeman, blood on my hands, and tell him that I've just killed my step-father? Will my confession influence the officer a certain way, and predetermine my fate and his responsibility according to the law? What if I walked up and said that the blood was from my attempts to stop a gang from murdering the mayor down the street? Again, will my words determine a set of responses that must follow my directions?

Why the barrage of questions? Because I am still struggling with the remarks of The Language Guy, whose essay, Language and the Abortion Controversy, is fully stuck in my craw.

Let me quote Mr. Language:

Implicit in the linguistic effort to force upon doctors the language "living human being" or even a less outrageous term like "baby" is a belief in the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, according to which language determines thought. There is no question that what something is called can influence thought (how could it not?) but it is a huge, easily falsifiable step to move to the strong form of this hypothesis that what something is called will determine thought about this thing.

I know this all seems senselessly academic. But it is important that we examine this kind of argument carefully. Mr. Language Guy, after all, is trying to determine thought–our thoughts– when he tells us that the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in its strong form is "easily falsifiable." (And note that Mr. Language Guy, a self-appointed thought-policeman, offers no documentation that anyone is trying to "force upon doctors" anything, or how "easily falsifiable" the strong form is.)

If our schools were to refer to "gays" as "perverts", will certain behaviors be determined? If I walk up to a group of African-American inner-city gangmembers knotted together in a lonely place and tell them "You're all a bunch of lazy n-words," might my fate be sealed? And if I were to stand in Mecca and declare "Muhammad is NOT a prophet!" or in the Vatican and remonstrate against the Pope and his alleged Christ–well, you get the point.

But one last thing: Do LIES determine thought? For if lying does not determine thought in those to whom we lie, then we would all pretty much stop lying instantly, don't you agree?

And if a lie determines thought; if a lie surely influences behavior in those who believe it, then how about just one word, two words, three? "Gay" is meant to determine a certain outcome; "Homophobe" is spoken in order to strike a different outcome. Surely the language of Hitler's Nazi Germany led to certain behaviors affecting Jews, no? In fact, was not Hitler trying to pre-determine behaviors in his co-patriots with the repeated use of certain words?

A Dizzying Read

I am currently reading the wonderful book, Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell cites numerous clinical studies that pretty much destroy The Language Guy's cavalier dismissal of the "strong form" of the aforementioned hypothesis. A few examples will suffice.

1. One study shows that if you take a group of people and have them consider what it means to be a professor, and then give them a test, they will do ridiculously better on the test than a group which first considered what it means to be a soccer hooligan.
2. One study shows that when African-Americans were asked BEFORE taking a standardized test to what race they belonged, they fared worse than African-Americans who were not asked that question. Apparently, reflecting on their own race–with all the unjust associations with it–adversely affected performance.
3. Another study shows that if, during an experiment, you are exposed to images of aging and mortality, you will leave the experiment at a slower walking pace than when you walked in.
   
4. One study shows that if you are treated rudely before entering a clinical study (being treated rudely is part of the overall experiment, but the test subject does not know that), the subject is much more likely to be rude AFTER the experiment (again, part of the test) than those who were treated politely beforehand.

Of course, none of this PROVES that thought determines behavior. But it surely proves that thought influences behavior–dramatically. In fact, Blink's author is so impressed by the clinical data that he writes:

They [the clinical studies] suggest that what we call free will is largely an illusion: much of the time we are operating on automatic pilot, and the way we think and act–and how well we think and act on the spur of the moment–are a lot more susceptible to outside influence than we realize. [Blink, Malcolm Gladwell: New York; Little, Brown and Co., 2005. Page 58]

In other words, if you are what you eat, you are also what you read, hear, and think.

Propaganda, politically-correct speech, The Power of Positive Thinking–each of these attempts to determine behavior, even if those behaviors are vaguely understood or inaccurately predicted. Stern warnings to a child determine behavior; as stories of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny determine that a child will be excited on Christmas Eve or Easter morning. And abusive speech surely determines behavior: abused children are more likely to perform poorly in school, commit crimes, and abuse their own children.

So then, it is not without either clinical or psychological support–not to mention social and philosophical–that pro-life supporters refer to the fetus as a human being rather than so much tissue.

The Language Guy and the mass of blind propagandists to which he unwittingly belongs are wrong.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes – All Rights Reserved.

Tomorrow: Bill Bennett in hot water for using words a certain way.

Photo: Grasshopper on milkweed. Camera: Canon A2. Lens: Sigma APO 300/4 Macro with EX 1.4 extender. Film: Kodak E100VS Exposure: unrecorded. Tripod and cable release. Click on image for larger view.

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women, Part V

[This series on abortion rights begin with Kicking At The Darkness. Hence, this is actually part VI, with Kicking At The Darkness serving as prologue.]

Perchance some readers who have pored through this series might conclude I lack sensitivity toward the plights and struggles of women, and the struggles facing babies born into families incapable of properly raising children. Let me make a few assurances:

Let it be said that I know what it is like living in a home where one is not wanted. I know what it is like to see mental illness ravage a family. I have seen a child who should have been surrendered to adoption agents instead be beaten and battered physically and emotionally. I have lied to the social worker who came to investigate such neglect. I have known what it is like to struggle through unplanned pregnancy; and to see the child's mother storm off toward the abortionist. I have fought to keep a child from the abortionist's hands; I have known what it is like to be a single-parent.

I have known the friend who, with his wife, counts the birthdays of their first child which they aborted for a reason neither of them can ascertain, three happy children later. I have known the friend who turns snide and cruel at dinner parties, angry at the pro-lifers in attendance, defensive of her abortions, though no one has mentioned abortion at all during conversations; nor does anyone sit in judgement upon her. I have known the sorrow of a woman and man desperately seeking pregnancy, who seethed with anger when contemplating the millions of women who treat pregnancy like so much bad make-up, like a bad hair day with cramps. And I have known the anger of a co-worker who once told me, right outside my office door, how she had separated from and divorced her unfaithful husband, with whom she had had three lovely children (all nearly fully grown), and yet, upon discovering she was pregnant with their fourth child just days after she threw him out, chose to abort that baby. "There was no way I was going to bring that bastard's kid into the world," she said.

And I have seen the parents and siblings of unimaginably handicapped children gathered round them at birthdays and graduations, smiling and crying and beaming at some small connection or achievement, cameras clicking away at light impossible to see.

And I have asked, "Which is better: To live and suffer, and at least have the possibility to say 'yea' or 'nay' to life's difficulty, or never to exist at all?"

Recently I read a news report about a man who murdered his wife because she wanted to cuddle after intercourse. He just wanted to watch a sports event on TV. Cuddling was too difficult. No doubt she'd be alive right now if she had been more male in her sexuality, you know, sex without all that other stuff, all the frills and tassels and details women generally desire. Screw, and then kill her. It's been done millions and millions of times, it's just that many men murder their lovers' hearts. They leave the body for someone else. Boys, being boys, no doubt.

This news story shines a dim light in the darkness of our sex-without-consequences culture. Women should be more masculine in their sexual propensities, and everyone will get along just fine.

The other day I visited a blog where the young woman writing was asking for advice how she could REALLY please her boyfriend sexually. She wrote that they had "done the PiV thing, the anal thing, the oral thing ..." but she really wanted to blow his mind. "Any suggestions?"

Just think about what she has written. She has made reference to the PiV thing, the penis-in-vagina THING. Could there be a more reductionistic statement about sex? Could she have possibly drafted a blog that dripped with more indifference and joylessness? Could she have sucked the life out of sex any more proficiently, or thrust upon us a more ennui-laden view of her world?

Any suggestions, she asks? Yes, I've got a few. How about turning your boyfriend on, not with premarital sex, but premarital love? How about turning him on with the wild fantasy that you'd like him to impregnate you; that you'd like to try using your body for what it is so clearly designed to do, and that you'd like him to do the same, in the sacrament of holy matrimony? Or would that be just too boring, too much of the baby-in-utero thing; too much like real living and not the abyss from which you beg advice from internet strangers, the hundreds who tell you how to misuse your soul and body even more? And I further suggest that you consider two things: Your husband is most likely out there, somewhere, perhaps clicking through the internet. What sort of person will he find when he finds you, at your oh-so-progressive website? Think that'll be good for your relationship, your sexual past made public? And what of your future children? Surely this sort of website is the kind of thing you will hide away from them, no? Or is it a shining moment of your utterly self-defined womanhood?

You see, the climate is rife with efforts to divorce women from what their bodies and emotional needs actually are. In other words, there is an existential estrangement not only between men and women, there is one between a woman and her womb. For most women have been duped into believing their wombs are mere playthings, mere jungle-gyms for cute men. In other words, they've been seduced into being something other than female.

And no other seducers are more dangerously anti-feminine than the pro-choice batterers of the sacred female. Essentially the pro-choice model is entirely one of redefining a woman's body. For the message is this: Go ahead, be indifferent, casual, even reckless with your womb. Divorce it from who you are, deep, in your soul. If you want to entertain men, if you want to experience PLEASURE, go ahead. And if the outcome is not quite what you think, we can help you, we can send in other men with tools and poisons and anti-biotics, and we will dispense with the problem in a manner professional, casual and yet sensitive to your needs. So what if this may lead to women being perceived as objects more thoroughly, more fully, than ever before. We can help with the problem. Trust us.

THE COLOR OF WATER

If you have not read James McBride's The Color Of Water, I urge you to do so. It is a brilliant biography/memoir of dirt poor black children (you'll see what I mean) raised by their very-white mother in Brooklyn's projects. It is a stunning piece of storytelling, and it is a stunning view at what life can be when life is affirmed and chosen, with all its risks, rather than the death and abandonment associated with the choice of abortion.

Let us concede: There are harrowing issues facing people every minute of every day. There are children treated brutally every morning, or at bedtime, or even during evening prayers. But, such living is to be preferred over non-existence, is it not? Surely we should leave the choice of a life's value to those who are living that life? Surely each of us is entitled to life itself, and to make our own decision whether death or life is the more glorious option? For that, I believe, is the point of so many poignant and powerful stories, like The Color of Water: Life is a choice one makes for the benefit of others, so that they may make their own choices.

What is the most important thing a person can do? Is it to cure cancer? build a cathedral? create a new energy source? Or is it to create a child, and to actively and consciously choose to raise that child? For what is the cure of cancer, if there are no people procreating to enjoy such treatment, or to applaud such accomplishment? What is the beauty of a cathedral, if it is not to awe and inspire the living and their progeny? Why create alternative fuels, if no child benefits from its efficiency and cleanliness?

No doubt all these things are important, as are the many things people do. No doubt there are those who cannot procreate, for all sorts of reasons, reasons mostly deemed tragic, unnatural, or abnormal (such as deformity, injury, illness, or birth defect). And there is no doubt that Nature has given us a message in the very behaviors of most of the highest verterbrates: procreation is a powerful, joyous, beauteous and inspiring act and responsibility. It is fraught with purpose, depth, meaning, redemption. There is no alienation in nature (except that caused by predation or competition due to scarcity) observed in mammalian parents: they do not wonder about purpose, or "relationship" or meaning, precisely because they embrace life exactly as it is, male and female, and do not treat life or sex as sport or recreation or some other casual dalliance or hobby. Sex itself is purposive, and, if we could just get on with treating our bodies and souls as they are defined by nature, we would find that men and women could bridge the alienation inherent in wrong living.

Do not believe what you see and hear in the machine of media and information: we are not gods and goddesses who can live life in blithe indifference, a human safety net spread beneath our recklessness. We are fallen gods and goddesses, in need of a solution. And that solution is simple: We need to start being real men, real women. Our children are calling out to us from near and far, pleading with us to change.

And a change needs to take place. Be radical. Look at your genitals and understand: They are not toys. There is a purpose beyond superficial stimulation. Let the birds and the bees show you what it is, for they know better than the high and mighty among our own very confused species.

Contratimes

To finish this series, read here.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women, Part IV

[This series on abortion begins with Kicking At The Darkness.]

Perhaps it's too easy to ask, or too trite, "Why can't we all get along?" Perhaps it's too much to expect from people, with each person oft taking sides, identifying with his or her tribe, to the detriment of civility. Abortion rights discussions are rarely dispassionate; are rarely objective and enjoyed in the cool calm of civil discourse. I doubt I could ever get a member of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League, see note below) to read any of this series with an open mind. Similarly I doubt an Operation Rescue activist would likely sit still through a NARAL protest speech. We are each (myself included) quick to link arms with friend in order to shun foe. It is hardly helpful. What might be helpful is if we could only listen well; to be quick to hear, and slow to speak.

In the spring of 1984, after being drafted in a spontaneous enlistment during breakfast in my college dining commons, I traveled by bus to the Massachusetts State House (in Boston) to join a pro-life protest group. It would be the first, and last, rally I would attend as a participant. What I was technically attending was a counter-demonstration to a large pro-choice rally inside the capitol building. Admittedly I was vague about the event, and I was a bit concerned about losing valuable class and study time marching away the day on the edge of the Boston Common.

As we disembarked from the bus, each of us was handed a sign, a placard, and directed to march clockwise at the foot of the stairs leading to the State House. I particularly liked my sign, with "I support the rights of unborn women" painted in bold print. My girlfriend grabbed another sign, and we were off. (She and I would eventually see ourselves on the front page of the Metro section of The Boston Globe, in the center of a wide-angle news photograph.)

During this 'peaceful' demonstration, bands of pentecostalist-type folks (mostly women) would occasionally mill around and break out with scripture-laced, quasi-prophetic utterances directed at pro-choice passersby. Sometimes these religious would raise hands toward the State House and speak in tongues. One woman, a very large and intimidating woman, would belt out "Repent! The kingdom of heaven is at hand!" Shouts of "Sodom and Gomorrah!" would also occasionally ring out.

At one point, each of us was permitted into the State House foyer, where we could hear various pro-choice speakers address their fellow Roe v. Wade advocates. To my consternation, the pro-lifers around me would erupt in a cacophony of doom-laden rebukes, citing scripture, while the pro-choicers would rebuff them with wild insults. But it was the pro-lifers that set me on edge. The "spiritual warfare" in which they were engaging struck me as dehumanizing and heavy-handed. Even my girlfriend disliked it, as she started shouting "Listen to them! Let them speak!" in a plea that courtesy be shown to the pro-choice speakers.

I left my girlfriend and headed outside, where she later joined me in the slow, marching circuit.

Suddenly, from nowhere it seemed, a man appeared in front of us in full Nazi uniform, a hideous rubber mask over his head. The uniform was perfect: red, black, swaztikas on arm bands, jack-boots. Everything looked authentic and complete. He held up a sign with his left hand which read: "Women of Choice I salute you." And then he held up his right hand in salute.

"Heil Hitler!" He shouted towards us and the State House. I believe he even clicked his heels.

Needless to say, this character sent a wild rush of confusion through my whole being. I wasn't sure what he meant: I had heard pro-lifers referred to as Nazis in their tactics and dogmatism, and alleged fanaticism. Was he directing his mockery at me?

I moved closer toward the man, but only moments after the pentecostalists, prophets and preacher-types hastened their way to him. As I drew closer, the gang of prophets circled the man, and started rebuking him, hurling prayers and exorcisms, hands raised toward heaven. The large woman started shouting, "The Devil is among us, the Devil is among us!"

Through the din I could hear a muffled sound, so I moved within inches of the man and, looking into his eyes – the only flesh of his I could see – my own eyes were opened: The man was elderly, and scared out of his wits, eyes bulging in panic. And from under the rubber which was his mask (he never lifted it up, which to this day stumps me), I could hear his muffled shouts at his accusers: "I am on your side! I am on your side!" He fixed his eyes on mine, as if to beg that I make his position clear.

I turned to my girlfriend, told her what I had heard, and turned away from the scene. I searched my soul for what I was feeling, and what I wanted to do. "Is this the way?" I kept asking myself, "Is this who you are?" After a few minutes I turned around to look at the protesters I had earlier joined. A semblance of peace had been restored. The prophets were back holding their signs, the circuit complete. And there, at the bottom of the steps to the State House was the Nazi-impersonater, once the devil incarnate, now saluting pro-choice women as they left the building.

"I am done," I declared to my girlfriend. I leaned my sign against the wall near where the news photographer had stood earlier in the day. "You can join me, if you'd like," I said. She smiled, a little sadly, I thought, though I knew she was not sad with me. She leaned her sign against mine, grabbed my hand, and, sensing my lead, ran with me at full speed toward the Boston Common. I pulled my hand from her's as I leaped over a park bench, her mirthful laugh filling my soul with pride. And then we joined our hands again, losing ourselves in the city, each having made a choice, both so full of life.

***

We do not get along, it seems to me, because we refuse to understand. And we refuse to humble ourselves enough to understand what is being said, and why it is being said. We are quick to love our own rightness, and slow to love the rightness of others; or we are too rough to properly correct those who are indeed wrong.

I am guilty. I know my sins. They are legion. But I believe that I am called to understand that which is hardly understandable. I am called to find the common ground, the humanity and the tragedy of humanity, and to be a peacemaker in the midst of tribal strife. I am called to be a healing salve, not a wounding sword. I am called to be a friend, not a foe. I am called to life, not to death.

I am called toward the Common. Come. Run with me.

Contratimes

[I am not finished, so bear with me]

To continue with this series, read here.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

[NARAL is in the midst of a controversial ad campaign in which Bush Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is described as a proponent of bombing abortion clinics. See story here, and the challenge to it here. Then ask yourself whether the most powerful abortion lobby in the US is honest. Talk about tribalism!]

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women, Part III

[This series begins with Kicking At The Darkness.]

In this, the fourth of a series on abortion rights in America (inspired largely by the pending confirmation hearings of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court), I refer the reader to a statement in my last essay. There I stated that pro-lifers are not anti-choice. And I believe that I defended that statement ably. But now I want to examine whether pro-choice people are anti-life. And I would say that pro-choicers are as passionate about living as the most strident pro-lifer. Such passions are not without their contradictions, as most pro-lifers support the death penalty for serious crimes, whereas most pro-choicers do not. It is hard to be consistent; it is hard to be balanced. But here, we try.

I once sat on a New Hampshire porch talking with a woman who worked as a professional therapist. She was, and remains, 30 years my senior. She is what one might call, "New Age"; a radical feminist progressive, a vegetarian full of mysticism and, of course, opinion. Our friendship began when I was fresh out of college when Gail (not her real name), hired me to be her house painter and perennial housesitter. But once, while sitting watching a summer thunderstorm roll in from the southwest, Gail and I engaged in a conversation about hunting and abortion. The two topics were not directly connected; it's just how our conversation fell. And I can so clearly recall that conversation because of two opinions she offered passionately, her passion all the more fierce because I was an incongruity, at least to her: I was pro-life through and through, anti-death penalty, and (the shock!) also a vegetarian. I was anti-war, anti-hunting, anti-road kill. I was chockful of love for all living things.

But Gail wandered off into some truly strange territory. On the one hand, she clearly and vociferously opposed hunting. In fact, she had nearly severed all ties with her only son, solely because he was a hunter. She could not fathom how anyone could eat anything that did not grow on a vine.

To say that Gail was New Age is a bit of an understatement. She was all crystals and yoga and meditation, enhanced with a little marijuana. She and I even once attended a conference at Hampshire College in the New Age shangri-la of Western Massachusetts for a conference organized by psychotherapists for world peace and harmony.

So later in our conversation Gail expressed her feelings, in mystical overtones, about abortion. A believer in reincarnation, Gail proclaimed that her advice to would-be mothers facing the choice of abortion was to point out that it was not the baby's time.

"I tell them to say to the baby, 'You've come too soon, you're not welcome here. Try again later, when the world is ready for you.'"

Gail never heard my response to her admission. I am not one to trounce a sensitively-held religious ideal in the midst of a debate. But if I had said anything, it might have been something profound, like "What the hell?"

You see, Gail, passionate about life, was quite reckless about death. And she was ridiculously hypocritical. For it takes no great leap of mind to see that Gail's advice could be said by any hunter to any unfortunate deer, moose or elk: "I am sorry to do this, but I must send you back. Your time has not yet come. You are not welcome right now. Try again."

That Gail would offer this kind of apparently sympathetic advice to a woman about to kill a baby, and yet not grant that kind of grace to her son who wants to shoot a deer, is quite telling.

Moreover, Gail's view is rooted in pantheism. It is not merely rooted in sentiment, but in the pervasive New Age spirituality of most radical feminists. Such feminists renounce the "patriarchal" religions and attendant deities of "male-dominated" religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (as they are perceived). Such feminists almost always embrace a deity that is female, if they embrace a deity at all, and that female is usually associated with the Gaia, or the Mother Earth (or some such derivation or variation).

Thus, such feminists can and do take a cavalier approach to death, at least fetal death. For as the Mother Earth controls her body with her own types of abortion (earthquakes, disease, monsoons, landslides, pestilence), so too do women control their own bodies. Gaia can always give her "souls" another chance; another incarnation.

Can the reader think of a more threatening idea toward life than this? I can. It is the idea of reincarnation in general, irrespective of feminism and gods and goddesses. For it is easy to see how a tyrant or a murderer or an oppressive political system could easily slide into large-scale genocide. If everyone is to be reincarnated ad infinitum, or even once, why then fret about their deaths at all? Why NOT thin the herd, so to speak, for the good of the many, especially when the many are "not ready" or "not yet welcoming?"

Honestly, the patriarchal religions of the West (if they are patriarchal, which is debatable), especially Christianity, could never be so cavalier about life or death, as in that religion each person is unique and timely, and has only one shot at living. In fact, science is far more Christian in this sense than Hinduism or various reincarnation systems, as science pretty much concludes that one life is all one gets.

Hence it is possible that being pro-choice is to be pro-life, but what view of life is it that countenances death of children as a solution to a problem? At least the hunter is trying to feed a family. What does the death of a child actually give us, better lives?

A BROAD STROKE

Let me posit something I've nothing more than anecdotal evidence for believing. I believe that abortion and child abuse (as well as the abuse of women) are correlated. Granted, prior to Roe v. Wade children and women were abused. But I believe that Roe v. Wade moves us farther from and not closer to a solution of those problems.

Let's stipulate that abortion proponents support life, but their position is not life at any cost, but life that is worth living, a life of quality. Let's further stipulate that some children will today be born into families that should not be allowed to even care for a pet fish. But it must be asked, does accepting Roe v. Wade make for a better world?

I don't think so. If a father and mother can kill a child one minute before it is born, why can they not kick a baby around a bit one minute after it is born? If a mother can abort her child one week before delivery (partial-birth abortion) because of threats to her mental health, then why can't she drown that child one week later, when her postpartum depression proves her mental illness? You see the picture.

If you have a low view of a thing, you are likely to treat it poorly. If you believe dogs are scum, you are likely not to care for dogs. If you believe Jews are half-human, you are not likely going to afford them full human rights. If you believe babies in utero are the property of their mothers, and are only children if deemed so by their mothers (a standard pro-choice belief), then it is quite likely that you will not cherish children very much. (I am not stating that this is the outcome for all pro-choice mothers. But I think it is a dangerous underlying social current.) Violence against children in utero negatively feeds violence against all children ex utero to some degree. I don't see how that can be denied.

So where are we? We are here: Life is fraught with danger and oppression. Both pro-life and pro-choice groups attempt to overcome such dangers and oppression. But it is clear that being pro-choice is not enough to keep violence and oppression at bay. Pro-life approaches, though clearly flawed, thus foster a more convivial world and worldview. Any view that believes a high-quality of life is preserved by killing unborn babies is not much of a view.

(Again, I am not through here, so be patient.)

Contratimes

To continue this series, read here.
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

[Photo: Blue Jay in the rain. Camera: Canon EOS 3. Lens: Sigma APO EX 300/2.8 with 1.4 extender. Film: Kodak Ektachrome 100VS. Exposure: 1/30 @ f 5.6 Tripod and cable release. Click on image for larger view. All rights reserved.]

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women, Part II

So far in this series, which actually begins with Kicking At The Darkness, we have discussed whether the human fetus is in fact human, and whether abortion rights actually liberate women. We have concluded both that the fetus is indeed human, and that women are actually oppressed by abortion and its advocacy.

Today (and the next few days) I turn to some harsh realities. Each bitter pill is presented for context and to give us some guidance–along with honest understanding of the world–as we wiggle through the minefield which is the abortion debate.

First, recall with me the practices of former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was ousted in 1989. Ceausescu's attempt to create an abundant supply of citizens by mandating pregnancy created despicable horrors. Forced quarterly gynecological exams for women, even at the workplace, and vicious punishments for aborting a child, were just a small part of his heartlessness. Countless children were abandoned by frightened and already impoverished mothers, later placed and then neglected in hideously underfunded and squalid orphanages. There has hardly been a more grotesque abuse of children and the sacred mothers who, by nature and not by government fiat, are indeed equipped to bring those very children to life. It is enough to make the skin crawl and the soul crouch in a corner.

It is this horrendous historical fact that colors the abortion debate in our country for countless abortion rights advocates. Outlawing abortion, as Ceaucescu did, appears to many one small step, or even a large one, toward mandating pregnancy. It is a legitimate fear.

But there is a counterpoint to this that is equally horrible, perhaps to be revealed in its full brutality by social scientists ten, twenty or a hundred years hence. It is the horror that is entirely Chinese, and could easily become entirely American. That horror is forced abortion; the mandated termination of prenatal life. Just as a dictator may use anti-abortion sentiments to draft laws forcing women into pregnancy, a dictator could use pro-choice sentiments to force women into sterility.

Prudence would have us pause here and ask, Which outcome is more likely in America? Would a pro-life democracy, proud of its celebration of women and children, turn vicious and contra-natural, forcing women to be baby-makers for the state? Or would a pro-choice democracy devolve into forcing women to abort their babies, perhaps to abate population growth, also in a contra-natural imposition against women and children? Who knows?

My particular confidence is in this: Democracies are less likely to turn to drastic impositions. After all, forcing women to abort or to conceive are historical practices, not of democracy, but of communism (Romanian and Chinese respectively). And I hold particular allegiance to something perhaps viscerally and not rationally inferred: I don't believe a pro-life democracy is likely to force women into mandatory baby-making, largely for consistency's sake. For pro-lifers don't want to oppress either babies or mothers, or even potential mothers. But a pro-choice democracy already has a strike against it: If it can permit a mother to kill a child in utero, it is not too far from encouraging such killing. The distance between permission to kill and insisting on it is less than it is between protecting a child from death and forcing a woman into pregnancy.

How can I make such a claim? Because pro-lifers are not anti-choice. They recognize that any woman can choose to kill her baby, they just don't recognize that such a choice should be legal (and funded and protected by the citizenry, particularly those who oppose it). They don't want to prevent a woman from choosing to kill her baby any more than they want to prevent a man from stealing a car. Laws are not really preventative; they are punative. Speeding laws are not drafted to keep you from choosing to speed. They are drafted to punish you if you do. And pro-lifers recognize that most women, including the vast number of women who've aborted a child, nearly always have a choice: To have sex or not (or to have unprotected sex or not). The choice comes not in the consequences stage. It comes in the initial stage. And that choice is (usually) always free.

And what, if any, is the punishment for a woman who aborts a baby in a pro-life society? My guess is that it is the same as a pro-choice one: A woman has to bear the consequences of her "choice", which is the intentional killing of her child. This is not imposed in some sort of trial; there are to be no sentencing hearings for mothers who abort. There will just be self-loathing, sorrow, remorse. And these do not come from outside; they come not from church or country club. They come from within: The women I know who have had abortions punish themselves every day (and those who do not are largely in some sort of denial).

Let me try my hand at pointing out the paradox: The "punishment" for a mother's actions in a pro-life society, where abortion would be illegal, is to give birth, or to feel guilt for choosing not to; and the "blessing" of a pro-choice society is the legal power to choose to kill. But which society produces the harsher terms–the one where children are born, or the one where they are permitted to be killed? The one society claims to desire to protect life, and it does, making failure to participate in that protection the only painful thing. The other society claims to protect freedom, and it does, though its proof of that freedom is the freedom to kill. Which society do you believe would produce the least amount of suffering, the greatest amount of winners?

For sharper focus, think of the name of Planned Parenthood, the international non-profit organization committed to family planning. Think of what Planned Parenthood stands for: It stands for parenthood that is planned. Ironically, Planned Parenthood is hugely pro-choice. Why is this ironic? For this simple reason: planning for anything, like a vacation or a business venture or a wedding, should always include contingency plans for THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT PLANNED. What, pray tell, does a wedding planner do if she has not planned for a rainstorm spoiling a wedding under the stars? You get the idea.

Well, here's Planned Parenthood's contingency plan for parenthood that is unplanned: Something could always be killed–in the name of freedom, of course.

Clearly, that is no plan at all.

(I am not through yet, so be patient.)

Contratimes
To continue this series, read here.
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

[Photo: Nesting tree swallows contend over mate and nesting box, Hancock, NH. Camera: Canon A2. Lens: Sigma 300/4 APO Macro with Sigma 1.4x EX APO extender. Film: Fujicolor 400. Exposure: 1/1500 @ f5.6. Monopod. Click on photo for larger view. All rights reserved.]

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women, Part I

Before our foray into the topic at hand, permit me one small divergence, though this aside bears a tangential relationship to what I will be discussing today. Various plaintiffs, most notably the New York Times, have lamented President G.W. Bush's "recess appointment" of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. It is no small appointment. And for those of you who do not know what a "recess appointment" is, it is nothing more than a presidential appointment that occurs when the Senate is in recess. Ideally, the Senate would confirm a nominee. But if the Senate stalls or threatens to stall its procedural obligations, the president is constitutionally permitted to appoint someone, in this case Bolton, to a post while the Senate is out jet-skiing off Nantucket. It is not an act of demagoguery.

Do you know how many times Bill Clinton exercised this executive privilege? Once? Twice? Three times? No. He exercised this power 140 times.

***

[This series actually begins here.]

Contratimes' readers know without me telling them that the nomination of judge John Roberts to the United States Supreme Court is almost entirely controversial because of Roe v. Wade. If confirmed, will Roberts vote to overturn women's right to abortion, or will he protect that right? It is a good question. But what I want to focus on here is why the right to abortion is so important to pro-choice Americans, particularly why it is so important politically.

I can sum the whole thing up in one word: equality.

The political aspects of 'equality' are important, and thoroughly essential to the pro-abortion lobby. I will discuss this further in a moment. But first, my thesis: Abortion rights, or "reproductive freedoms", do not liberate women. Abortion oppresses women.

DEFENDING MY THESIS

The political attractiveness of the right to abortion is in abortion's alleged power to liberate women from the tyranny not only of nature, but men in general. Women gain equality in having the power not to be enslaved to nature's majestic rhythms, and in having the power to determine their reproductive fate on their own terms. Abortion provides a "level playing field" for women, ensuring that they can pursue education and career and all that life has to offer in a planned and deliberate way. Abortion makes men and women equal in the workplace and in the workforce, as women can "choose" to be freed from the burdens nature places on them through pregnancy, and thus follow their career without detour.

Here's a question: Does abortion make men equal to women, or does it make women equal to men? Think about it for a moment.

Now, this question. What can women do better than men, by definition? The answer is simple. Women can produce babies better than men, infinitely better than men. Hence, let us answer the question I asked a moment ago: Abortion makes women equal to men, but it does not make men equal to women. I apologize if I am stating the obvious, but there is power in the obvious, particularly when we have forgotten the rather plain facts.

Let's put this all another way. Abortion rights advocates are not trying to protect a law, or certain abortifacients, in order to make men like women. They are not insisting that Roe v. Wade commands men to have babies in order to guarantee equality between the sexes. No, abortion rights activists want to ensure that women can be like men: Women can have sex and not have to deliver a child. Ever.

What do we know about sex that is as plain as the genitalia that comprises sexuality? We know this: Men transcend the consequence of sexual intercourse. Men cannot ever get pregnant after ejaculating in the wondrous womb that is the incubator of all human life. Men can hit and run, so to speak. And they don't have to worry if their period is late.

Women, on the other hand, are completely different in the reproductive dance. They can be literally transformed by the relatively simple act of intercourse. They are not transcendent; they are not "outside" the post-coital experience. They, by their very natures, must be part of what happens next.

Can you see where I am going with this? I hope so.

Abortion masculinizes women. It gives them a medical, man-made option to be something other than a woman: It gives them the power to be like a man. In short, they can have sex, all the sex they want, and not HAVE to bear forth the consequences of the pursuit of so much endless pleasure. They can have sex and not fret about career, or education, or the annoying things associated with pregnancy. Women can be like men.

And you know what? Men love abortion for THIS very reason: It means that women can be reduced to sex objects all the more. It means that men can also have all the sex they want, as long as they find pro-choice women who will be complicit with them in their wanton lust for pleasure. It means that men are more likely to find sex easier and more available (it is) because women, now freed economically and reproductively (like men), and accessible in the workplace (again, like men, where the men once dominated), can participate in sex that does not "mean anything" (or as much), as it once did (or was supposed to).

No wonder (and here's a fact) more men than women support abortion rights! It gets men off the hook sexually. It sets them free to seduce and conquer. It sets them free to reduce women to well, men with vaginas and breasts. Amazingly, the post-modern woman even embraces this reality (as depicted in shows like "Sex and the City"), where women, long unable to do so because of the constraints of biology, now celebrate casual sex as empowerment. (I recall a moment in Animal Dreams, a novel by Barbara Kingsolver, when the heroine, doing spoons with a man she's been having sex with for weeks, responds with surprise when he suggests more depth to their relationship. "I never led you on," she replies. Feminists everywhere shout a triumphant cheer: Women can be shallow too! Such power!)

The fact is this: "Reproductive freedom" for women means that women can choose to define themselves in a male way in a male world. There is nothing feminist about this idea. The idea is entirely masculinist.

A true feminist, in trying to rescue women from hordes of caddish men, would call women to do what they do best, and create a nursery out of the world. Women, instead of participating in the post-modern, male-dominated sexual morés, should do what their very bodies do better than anything on the planet: they should make the world a place where every child is IN FACT wanted, by women, and bring forth all the children they can. And that, I declare, would bring men to their knees. That's the revolt we need, led by fecund females everywhere.

Hear me, sisters! Your bodies are sacred temples. Stop letting men, and imitative feminists, treat your bodies like a toy or sports arena. Make a man EARN the right to enter your sacred halls. Stop letting the men–and the society they've created with your help–dictate the conditions when your hallowed sanctuary is open for pleasure. You do not open your womb because a man is cute, or has a nice car, a big wallet, a great job, or has made you feel good about yourself with flowers and gentle whispers. You do not open your cathedral because it might feel good, or end your loneliness. Nay, you open yourself when you find someone who can appreciate the cathedral, and is ready to help care for it when it fills up with life and responsibility.

It's time to transform the world. It begins with a choice, and that choice is to see a woman as a sacred being, as a sacrament. She is not to submit to the very male idea of equality and abortion, even when that idea is couched in terms of liberation and choice.

Emptying the womb does not set women free. Protecting it does. Legalized abortion is a chain around the neck of women everywhere, keeping them right where men want them. It's time for a change. A truly feminine one.

Contratimes

To continue this series, read here.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
[Photo: Bee-like Tachinid Fly on dandelion, Sharon, NH. Camera: Canon A2. Lens: Sigma 300/4 APO macro, with Sigma 1.4 EX APO extender. Film: Kodak Ektachrome 100VS Exposure: not recorded. Tripod. Click on image for larger view.]

Kicking At The Darkness

Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn sings in his angst-touched love song, Lovers in a Dangerous Time, that "Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight/Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight." It is a powerful image, full of spectral glory. And kicking at darkness is, in a sense, my very ambition. I'll spare the reader the metaphysical details, but the idea of kicking at darkness until it bleeds daylight carries with it all the spiritual force of Jacob wrestling with the angel; or Neo conquering the Matrix as Agent Smith fractures in supernova splendor.

A close look at my blogger profile reveals that I list among life's blessings the nearly ineffable beauty of babies. There is in each baby's perfect fingernails (always clipped to perfection at birth), or in its fresh-from-the-bakery skin, all the mystery of life in perpetuity, inexplicable in its power – a seed planted in the dark earth yielding the entire universe. For each child is indeed all the force of the cosmos (there is no life without the infinitely broad cosmic womb); each baby the incarnation of swirling suns and tidal moons. What does it take to make a baby? All the power and eons of the universe. There are no shortcuts, no sleight-of-hand, to master such impenetrable magic.

But images of light and tiny, gripping hands are not enough to save me today. For I am sickened this afternoon, here in the full light of August's sun. I find myself haunted by an image I saw not long ago while working at a New England prep school. During a photo shoot, I entered the school's computer lab unannounced. There were shrieks of disgust and shock emitted by a dozen or so students gathered around glowing computer screens, each student apparently unaware of my "adult" presence. And quivering in digital vibrancy on every computer screen was the source of all the tumult: It was a color photograph of a man seated in a restaurant booth – a napkin tucked into his shirt collar and a knife and fork in each hand – looking hungrily at the meal before him. What was on the platter? A roasted human fetus.

Kick at the darkness ....

I am sorry to pass along this violence against all that is meant to be pure, lovely, peaceful. But I share this for one reason: Do not be quick to conceive incorrectly that which is conceived in the fertile womb. Do not for a moment think that the unborn are so much superfluous tissue, or accidental bits of bio-mass. We must be provoked, we must kick our way toward the light of honest, simple truth.

Have you ever wondered why, if human fetuses are not human, do we not eat them? Why cringe at the thought of a fetus served to a wealthy connoisseur; or in soup kitchens to the hungry poor? After all, if the human fetus (all 40 million of them since Roe v. Wade) is not a human, have we missed a golden opportunity to feed countless mouths eager for food? In fact, could we not harvest such fetuses as crops, perhaps using petri dishes and sperm- and ova-banks for the production of a new nutrient-rich food source, a sort of veal for the open-minded?

Enough. I've said too much. The unborn are human. Prep-schoolers shrieking at a mere image prove it.

My point is not really about abortion. It is about our slow descent into carelessness. Trust me when I say this: there are and will be pro-abortion activists who will respond to my observations not with revulsion, but with a quasi-academic air of acceptance. They will wonder aloud whether it might be a tenable idea to eat fetuses, all in the posture of open-minded consideration. They will ask about biases against the Fetuses-for-Food program; and they will speculate as to how certain social structures condition people to react squeamishly; and they shall offer arguments against taboo. But their motives will not be one whit academic: Their motives are solely energized to keep abortion legal.

Was it not George Orwell who said that “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men"? Let me then state the obvious.

Each of us once kicked at the darkness. We pressed at it with our hands, even after we sucked our thumbs, the thumbs we didn't know we had. And we kicked at the darkness until it did in fact bleed daylight: The daylight of the world, bolting toward us like lightning, as we kicked our helpless, trusting way through the birth canal, toward the light which bleeds all around us, right now, with the full force of the cosmos pulsing in our veins.

The world felt us kicking, it felt us fighting to overcome. Shame that the very cosmos, which should be considered one giant nursery, with "Welcome" banners unfurled from star to star, has, at least for some, become a hostile place, with the brutal light of the abortionist's hand forced into the warm and safe dark; giant hands ripping out little ones.

Which hands are the more wonderful; whose hands the more welcoming?

Contratimes

To continue reading the series, go here.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

[Photo: Stained glass at All Saints' Church, Peterborough, NH. From the book, "The Stained Glass of All Saints'". Camera: Canon EOS3 Lens: Canon EF 28-105/3.5-4.5 IS. Film: Kodak Ektachrome 100 VS. Exposure: 1/60 @ f5.6. Click on photo for larger view. All rights reserved.]

Is this a Double Standard?

[I offer deep and abiding gratitude to David Horowitz for featuring this essay at his website, Frontpagemag.com, in April.]

By the time the 1960's came to a close, I was in fourth grade, all of nine years old. I recall that the '60s scared me: that the Black Panthers, assassinations, riots, and even the epileptic screaming of Janice Joplin simply frightened me. Having been born in the middle of a war, I found Vietnam scary as well, though the allure of combat teased not only my imagination but the backyard play-fantasies of my New Jersey playmates (till I moved to New Hampshire in 1968). And there, in second grade, in what may have been my first gesture of bravado, I recall telling classmate Timmy Tyrrell, who already was planning on being a minister (his whole family was devoted to that goal), that I wanted to grow up to be a "heroin addict," a boast I completed with a pantomime of shooting up: arm on my desk, sleeve rolled up, pencil heading deep into my vein - and Mrs. Barden nearby. I would join the rebellion, I declared, and I'll have my hair as long as Rapunzel's.

Recently I've been reliving those times, in the trenchant and matter-of-fact analysis of David Horowitz' autobiography, Radical Son. It is a revealing book, prophetic in its disclosure, giving me an anchor for my wind-tossed anxieties about a decade deemed by some "the best of times."

I share this because I am more certain than ever that the causes for my anxiety have not been rebuffed or destroyed. The radicalism that pervaded the '60s remains, with the '60s youth now in places of political and social prominence, and their children and grandchildren, each breast fed on the idealized protestations of their '60s progenitors, now seeking their own Age of Aquarius. Horowitz reminds me of this, and though I am intellectually mature enough to rein in my emotion (most of the time), anxiety still wakes the soul at night. They are here.

They of course, are those who cannot and will not permit dissent from the party line that a "redemptive future", as Horowitz puts it, is possible; a future without poverty, inequality or any perceived injustice. This future is about emancipating humanity from the fears imposed by the Church; about liberating people from the incorporated capitalist greed bent on creating an unquenchable thirst in consumers; about tossing off the common sense shackles of sexual and artistic prudence.

Go back with me, for a moment, and relive the 1960s' radical beliefs about revolution in America. For example, relive the revolutionary conviction that criminals, particularly black ones, were really acting as liberators; that they were merely acting out as repressed people against an oppressive "system"; against "the Man." Recall that the Black Panthers were not merely victims, but liberators, fighting with clenched fist the classism and injustices of a tyrannical white enterprise. The Weather Underground, violent and aggressive; the property-smashing protesters in American university towns; even the Vietnamese communists exterminating the Party's transgressors; each of these received the compassion, mercy, even the all-out support, of American leftists from coast to coast. For these eruptive and confrontational movements, unavoidable according to Marxist-Hegelian theory, were allegedly symptomatic of a repressive, soon-to-die capitalist colossus.

So Horowitz tells in truly chilling detail and - with what cannot be described in any other phrase - he tells with nothing short of bravery. For Horowitz himself was a revolutionary, born into an American family of strident and organized Communists. But after decades of mounting a truly impressive assault on America with revolutionary zeal, Horowitz saw his ideals crumble into the realities of the gulags of the Soviet Union, and the failed socialist economies everywhere Marx was embraced.

Perhaps the single most important line in Horowitz' work is this, which he describes as the subtext for defending the left's moral failures: "No matter how bad my actions seem, my heart is in the right place." This defense, Horowitz argues, was deployed by leftists everywhere as they were confronted by the violent, murderous realities their actions and ideas supported.

It is an important line to remember.

THEY ARE HERE

Sunday, April 24, 2005, in typical fashion, Frank Rich of the New York Times writes of House Speaker Tom Delay that (and I quote Mr. Rich), "It's a lie to argue, as Tom DeLay did last week, that such a judiciary is the 'left's last legislative body.'" One wonders what Mr. Rich means. It is never a "lie" to argue, no matter how one argues. It is a lie to deliberately tell a mistruth. Arguing is not lying. Lying is lying.

Here's Tom Delay's full remark: "And of course, the leftists hate it when we attack the left's last legislative body." That Delay is referring to the judiciary is inescapable. But that it is a lie is hardly accurate; nor is it an argument, as Rich wrongly suggests. If anything, it looks like an incontrovertible truth: it is transparent that the left indeed does hate it when Delay (and others of his ilk) attacks the judiciary. Just look at how the leftist media have reacted to his remarks. They've aimed their guns at him. He's a "liar."

I share this small item for a very important reason. It reveals that the left, embodied by Mr. Rich, is blind to its double standard.

That double standard is this: The left rarely, if ever, inquires why the right, particularly the religious right, is so disenchanted with "the system." Moreover, the right is never offered the rather easy out granted to the left: Tom Delay, for example, will never be acquitted for his 'lies' with the merciful "we disagree with Mr. Delay's actions and words, but his heart is in the right place."

No, Rich never inquires, and I believe he has never inquired, why Delay and his colleagues feel so outraged by the US judiciary. Or why conservatives feel "oppressed"; or why radical opponents of abortion (the few that exist) have taken up arms and shot abortion doctors. Are conservatives' hearts in the right place? Never!

That Mr. Rich (and virtually every leftist pundit in this country) has never granted such tolerant understanding of the right indicates the clear line of demarcation between the two political wings. Leftist writers are much more willing to discern the heart of Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein than the person seated next to them on the train (unless that person be a member of MoveOn.org).

In Radical Son, Horowitz spells it out plainly for all to see. He recounts how the leftist media reacted to his defection from the left: with an onslaught of lies, vitriol and scorn. And he recalls how Garry Wills, protegé of right-wing William F. Buckley, was treated by the right when he defected for the left: He was treated like a human being deserved to be treated, with respect.

Horowitz also makes the claim that pundits of the left are expert in writing, not brilliant arguments, but brilliant indictments. Frank Rich's piece on Sunday, like most of his work, proves Horowitz' point. But Horowitz makes a more chilling claim, and I quote:

"Lenin said that the object of political debate was not to win a debate but to wipe one's opponent from the face of the earth."

Apparently Lenin and his distant relatives don't give a damn about whether one's heart is in the right place.

It's that sort of "understanding" of the revolutionary spirit that keeps me up at night.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.