Jezebel 
Enter your username and password.
-
posts about #susanbanthonylist more → The Disturbing Dilemma Of Pro-Life Kids
New York, 9:45 AM
Sat Dec 19
73 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Anna Holmes
| Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Dodai Stewart
| Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor:
Tracie Egan Morrissey
| Twitter
Contributing Editors:
Anna North
| Twitter
Sadie Stein
| Twitter
Reporter:
Irin Carmon
| Twitter
Editorial Assistant:
Margaret Hartmann
| Twitter
Contributors:
Rich Juzwiak
Email | Twitter
Latoya Peterson
Email
Jenna Sauers
Lizzie Skurnick
Interns:
Katy Kelleher
Twitter
Weekends/Commenter Moderator:
Hortense
| Twitter
| posts about #susanbanthonylist more → |
The Disturbing Dilemma Of Pro-Life Kids |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/06/09
My friend brings her daughter, who is about 6 or 7, to her pro-choice protests, and I feel very uncomfortable with it. I don't feel like her daughter is pro-choice because she understands, but because Mama is. I feel like that child is used as a pawn in the pro-choice/pro-life argument. Protests are not the place to learn about the other side - they are too polarized and shouty.
I can't put my finger on it, but children at political events make me very uncomfortable, like they're being indoctrinated. #prolifekids
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/07/09
11/07/09
So, it's good to hear the other side, too :) #prolifekids
11/07/09
There's also the fact that protests can sometimes be dangerous. Sure, you may think this one won't be, but what if things turn bad? Maybe it's because I lived in Saudi Arabia as a child and saw home video of the very famous massacre of Shia protesters when I was about 10, but the images of terrified children and other children on the other side revelling in the violence have stuck with me, and I'd never take a child to an event where they might potentially be witnesses if things were to go bad. #prolifekids
11/08/09
11/06/09
Most of the time you see kids who are vaguely political, it's unformed, or mostly personally related. Teenage girls may identify as feminist, and how that specifically relates to their experiences (I think most activism comes from a personal experience with discrimination, which is then broadened to more global injustices).
It's not that I don't think kids can legitimately believe this, or come to these ideas on the their. But it's just so focused and relies on a lot of very sophisticated rhetoric. Hence the videos appealing to emotion, and in a lot of ways exploiting the fact that its kids making them. It's really manipulative.
Maybe I'm just not giving kids a lot of credit, but I don't see too many kids organically deciding to get this involved in this issue. They can't possibly understand the complexity. #prolifekids
11/06/09
11/06/09
Imagine that someone decided to kill you. Imagine that they had planned to rip you apart. And you could do nothing about it. You didn't even have anything to say.
From the mother whose fetus puts her in a life and death situation,
From the mother who was violently ripped apart and almost killed while being raped while she couldn't do anything about it,
From the mother who is figuratively being killed from the perpetual disadvantages that she faces everyday because of her age, gender, race, and social class.
Hey Kid,
Can you imagine as a pre-pubescent male how PERSONAL this choice is for a woman?
From Me.
I don't care what people want to do with their bodies and their babies. I DO CARE about those people who want to make it illegal for me to do what I want with my body.
11/06/09
Because then, Pro-choice would be telling women what to do with their pregnancy, and I guess both of them are more like opening ways and not giving instructions to women. #prolifekids
11/06/09
11/06/09
Being Anti-Choice is all about restricting all women's access to even having any options, so yes, therefore it is telling me, you, and every other woman in the USA what to do with their pregnancy. Pro-Choice is precisely that, being Pro the ability to have a choice, not telling anyone what they should or shouldn't do with their embryos. #prolifekids
11/06/09
11/06/09
They are not, both of them. But they are sure expressing their point of view with a lot of passion, if their strenght is good or bad, I'm not the one to tell it. #prolifekids
11/06/09
11/06/09
"Pro-life" means nothing less than forced pregnancy. Pro-choice means giving women the option to terminate their pregnancy, or to go through with it. #prolifekids
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/06/09
And I get it: calling names to those who don't share one's perspective is totally the way to go. #prolifekids
11/06/09
The Anti-Choice position advocates for, and actively tries to limit or ban, any choice other than carrying to term.
The Pro-Choice position simply wants women to retain the legal right to decide whether they carry to term. It does not judge, advocate, or dictate what choice to make.
Pro-Choice advocate are only aggressive about retaining the right to choose. Not what choice is made. That is a huge and distinct difference than the Anti-Choice movement which is not interested in any other options other than carrying to term.
One group wants women to have options when it comes to reproductive decisions. The other does not.
That's the distinction. Anything else you're talking about is inaccurate.
If you're trying to say that both are just opinions being expressed, thats' also inaccurate. Anti-Choice groups work at trying to legislate their views. They don't just stand around with signs, they try to limit women's access to care both physically at clinics, and politically, by trying to have one possible choice banned.
I'm Pro-Choice and I care very passionately about the right for every individual woman to make her own decision over reproduction. My view doesn't infringe any one else's ability to decide what they what they want to do. That's the distinction. #prolifekids
11/06/09
I tried to answer to all in a new comment, but for some reason, my new comment appears hidden (lack of space, I guess), so there it is what I've wrote earlier:
Ok, It would take my whole evening to answer to all of you who replied -thanks for it- my saying, and because I don't know if there is such a tool on jezebel like 'reply to all'; to some of you I'll try and anser one by one, but untill then I'll answer here girls:
I guess the fight is not for abortion, but it's more for A)the right for women to do so in a more apropiate place, and not to put her lives in risk, B)not to feel persecuted by a conservators' witch hunting (wich I'm not) and C)not commit felony, and some other facts that I may not remember now but some of you sure will help.
Because let's say, a true fact is: women who actually want to abort, they find a way to do it. It must be as old as history. That's it.
And my point to Anna was that the blonde kid in the video is certainly not dicting the rules to a woman's life, but is trying to persuade them, and that's different.
And I may add that someone said earlier that the main difference would be women to keep the pregnancy against their will, and don't remember who said so, something I have clear is that few things could be worst that a child who came to this world from a mother that didn't really desired it's life. #prolifekids
11/06/09
...is what a child molester would say. Kids are beyond stupid when it comes to complicated issues that involve real life, like abortion ('Do you want to kill babies, Jeffrey?') and assisted suicide ('Do you want to kill Grandpa, Jenny?'). Some people grow up out of it. Pro-lifers don't. #prolifekids
11/06/09
Then I grew up. #prolifekids
11/06/09
I don't know her stance nowadays, but since she was almost disowned for being a lesbian I'm thinking it might be different. #prolifekids
11/06/09
11/06/09
Every time I see kids at pro-life rallies I think of this shirt from Tshirt Hell. It's wrong, what shirt on that site isn't, really. But it made me laugh. #prolifekids
11/06/09
ugh. if only some of my friends had been aborted. #prolifekids
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/06/09
Oddly, my church didn't seem too hung up on abortions. They were too worried about gays and the Catholics and those cultish Mormons.
*I decided I wasn't going back--I had a bad day in Sunday School that involved a) dismissing discussion of politics as inappropriate when I defended Dems after 10 minutes of bashing, which was apparently a-OK, b) Hillary Clinton being called a "Jezebel" (a horrible slur for the churchy-types) for, um, no reason whatsoever, and c) my Sunday School teacher wishing death on a Supreme Court Justice #prolifekids
11/06/09
This not only ignores the real debate, what with the sensationalism and completely different circumstances, but also devalues the real plight of the Jews in Nazi Germany.
Sick, sick tactics. #prolifekids
11/06/09
11/06/09
:) #prolifekids