Love in a time of Roe v. Wade
September 20, 2018 3:28 AM Subscribe
Jeanne Safer and Richard Brookhiser have been deeply in love for almost 40 years while being passionately committed to opposite sides of the abortion debate. [SLSlate]
Neither of them discuss the central question: what would have happened to their relationship if she became pregnant?
posted by matthewr at 4:14 AM on September 20, 2018 [22 favorites]
posted by matthewr at 4:14 AM on September 20, 2018 [22 favorites]
Ugh DTMFA
I so deeply do not understand this. Like yeah I can tolerate my close relative with terrible politics because a) he's not a citizen and can't vote and b) we do strongly agree on principals of personhood and free exercise of basic rights. And you don't choose your parents. But someone who I actually chose to be with and who so profoundly disagreed with me over my own bodily autonomy? Nope. Does not compute.
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:28 AM on September 20, 2018 [30 favorites]
I so deeply do not understand this. Like yeah I can tolerate my close relative with terrible politics because a) he's not a citizen and can't vote and b) we do strongly agree on principals of personhood and free exercise of basic rights. And you don't choose your parents. But someone who I actually chose to be with and who so profoundly disagreed with me over my own bodily autonomy? Nope. Does not compute.
posted by soren_lorensen at 4:28 AM on September 20, 2018 [30 favorites]
I was not surprised to learn which side of the issue the man and the woman were on.
posted by TedW at 4:41 AM on September 20, 2018 [49 favorites]
posted by TedW at 4:41 AM on September 20, 2018 [49 favorites]
I was interested to learn a little more about Brookhiser, so I found his website. He has written a number of books, but this one tells me all I need to know about him.
posted by TedW at 4:49 AM on September 20, 2018 [19 favorites]
posted by TedW at 4:49 AM on September 20, 2018 [19 favorites]
He has written a number of books, but this one tells me all I need to know about him.
...wooooow
posted by PMdixon at 4:52 AM on September 20, 2018 [9 favorites]
...wooooow
posted by PMdixon at 4:52 AM on September 20, 2018 [9 favorites]
TedW: "I was interested to learn a little more about Brookhiser, so I found his website. He has written a number of books, but this one tells me all I need to know about him."
Gee, that's not racist at all.
posted by octothorpe at 4:59 AM on September 20, 2018 [7 favorites]
Gee, that's not racist at all.
posted by octothorpe at 4:59 AM on September 20, 2018 [7 favorites]
Reading this was like reading a missive from outer space. I cannot understand the mental gymnastics required to say "politics are not personal! haha!" Constantly walking on eggshells around the problem of whether or not your significant other actually thinks that you deserve autonomy as a human sounds excruciating.
Dude speaks fairly patronisingly to his wife throughout the article as well, which is not endearing in the slightest.
And they say they've passed the cancer test, which is a big test. But they haven't passed the pregnancy test. He was willing to be there for her when she was sick with cancer, but would he be willing to stand by her if she had become pregnant? Or, an even harder question: would he be willing to really be there in the marriage, as a husband and as a father, if he had forced her to carry a baby to term that she did not want? I know very few men who truly step up to the plate and act as equal partners when there is a child or children involved.
And I think that this guy says something very telling when he discusses why he was able to be by his wife when she had cancer: you realize the sheer effort involved—showing up at the hospital, keeping track of meds and doctors, keeping track of the sick person’s ordinary life. Would he realize the sheer effort involved in being a mother? Based on my experience in the world, no. And having a child, for a woman, means that your ordinary life is forever altered. Men often fundamentally do not understand this. They do not go through the profound physical changes, for example. And again, most of the men that I know who are fathers do not alter their "ordinary" lives to the degree that mothers do.
What a life for a woman.
posted by sockermom at 5:32 AM on September 20, 2018 [21 favorites]
Dude speaks fairly patronisingly to his wife throughout the article as well, which is not endearing in the slightest.
And they say they've passed the cancer test, which is a big test. But they haven't passed the pregnancy test. He was willing to be there for her when she was sick with cancer, but would he be willing to stand by her if she had become pregnant? Or, an even harder question: would he be willing to really be there in the marriage, as a husband and as a father, if he had forced her to carry a baby to term that she did not want? I know very few men who truly step up to the plate and act as equal partners when there is a child or children involved.
And I think that this guy says something very telling when he discusses why he was able to be by his wife when she had cancer: you realize the sheer effort involved—showing up at the hospital, keeping track of meds and doctors, keeping track of the sick person’s ordinary life. Would he realize the sheer effort involved in being a mother? Based on my experience in the world, no. And having a child, for a woman, means that your ordinary life is forever altered. Men often fundamentally do not understand this. They do not go through the profound physical changes, for example. And again, most of the men that I know who are fathers do not alter their "ordinary" lives to the degree that mothers do.
What a life for a woman.
posted by sockermom at 5:32 AM on September 20, 2018 [21 favorites]
I could tell the man would be the anti-choice one before I even clicked the link.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 5:38 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitty Stardust at 5:38 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Wow. that WASP book. I've been reflecting recently on how fundamental the thesis of WASP-as-aspirational-archetype was in my upbringing. The idea that a certain set of cultural values, like the elevation of Real Literature and Real Music, or attending am Ivy League university, somehow imbue you with greater value as a human being. The emphasis on arriculate speaking as a measure of fundamental worth. It was all fucked and I am still un-learning it.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:00 AM on September 20, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:00 AM on September 20, 2018 [6 favorites]
This reads a lot like my parents' marriage. The best I can say about that is that a) I'm not in that marriage myself and, despite having seen a lot of it, I can never know all of it and something about it must work for them more than it doesn't work for them and b) growing up with it taught me some things about how I don't want my own romantic partnership to be.
posted by Stacey at 6:10 AM on September 20, 2018
posted by Stacey at 6:10 AM on September 20, 2018
Jeanne: The only Republican whom I was aware of growing up was my father. And he was pretty mainstream, actually pretty liberal on social issues. You really do live in an echo chamber in the world, and I had zero experience dealing with this. The Webster decision had a lot of personal meanings for me and I didn’t yet know how to use profound self-control. We were really wretched, both of us. We hardly talked for the whole day, which is the only time in all these years that that happened.
Richard: There was an acrid smell in the air like an electric fire.
Jeanne: Yes! That’s very well put. (It helps that I love the way you put things.) I think part of it was also that I was shocked because you’re generally less of a martyr than I am. At this point I had already lived with National Review as part of my world for years, but never in a personal way like this. And it really felt frightening to me. Did you feel frightened?
Richard: Yes, because here it was at the breakfast table. Again, you knew my colleagues. You knew one of them who was also the publisher of a magazine called the Human Life Review. But he had never brought this up in conversation with you, so you had never gone head-to-head with him or any of my other friends and colleagues on this matter.
Am I the only one hearing William F. Buckley's voice in my head with this schtick ("Oh! It's a shame you're upset! I've only been baiting you to wind you up for years! Now I will attack you for getting upset!")?
I'm also giving side eye to a tacit admission that amounts to: "I was fine with the National Review attacking other people, if you know what I mean. But this is personal!"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:10 AM on September 20, 2018 [8 favorites]
Richard: There was an acrid smell in the air like an electric fire.
Jeanne: Yes! That’s very well put. (It helps that I love the way you put things.) I think part of it was also that I was shocked because you’re generally less of a martyr than I am. At this point I had already lived with National Review as part of my world for years, but never in a personal way like this. And it really felt frightening to me. Did you feel frightened?
Richard: Yes, because here it was at the breakfast table. Again, you knew my colleagues. You knew one of them who was also the publisher of a magazine called the Human Life Review. But he had never brought this up in conversation with you, so you had never gone head-to-head with him or any of my other friends and colleagues on this matter.
Am I the only one hearing William F. Buckley's voice in my head with this schtick ("Oh! It's a shame you're upset! I've only been baiting you to wind you up for years! Now I will attack you for getting upset!")?
I'm also giving side eye to a tacit admission that amounts to: "I was fine with the National Review attacking other people, if you know what I mean. But this is personal!"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:10 AM on September 20, 2018 [8 favorites]
If America had been settled and founded by Frenchmen or Spaniards, as it might well have been, or by the Austrian Empire or the Ashanti Empire, to be purely hypothetical, it would be a different place now. And a worse one. This book will make that case.I don’t think Brookhiser is a very nice person, y’all. I have a feeling that he gets something very different from the relationship than Safer does. I know at least two couples that are very conservative man-reasonably liberal woman, and I really struggle to understand them. I know that each relationship is its own thing, but I don’t know how they work when there’s such a gulf between two people on fundamental values.
posted by wintermind at 6:13 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
They are politically similar if they only care about issues that affect them and the only difference is in which issues affect them.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:18 AM on September 20, 2018 [28 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:18 AM on September 20, 2018 [28 favorites]
Phil Ochs took a run at explaining how that sort of detente is possible by pointing out how American liberals aren't quite as left wing or progressive as they frequently hold themselves out to be:
"In every American community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:19 AM on September 20, 2018 [14 favorites]
"In every American community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:19 AM on September 20, 2018 [14 favorites]
I was not surprised to learn which side of the issue the man and the woman were on.
Polling doesn't show much of a gender gap:
Legal in all/most cases Illegal in all/most cases
Women 59% 38%
Men 55% 42%
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:25 AM on September 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
Polling doesn't show much of a gender gap:
Legal in all/most cases Illegal in all/most cases
Women 59% 38%
Men 55% 42%
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:25 AM on September 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
Polling doesn't show much of a gender gap…
But I would bet that in relationships, especially marriages, where there is a difference of opinion the results skew much more towards men being anti abortion. Would definitely be interested to see any research that has been done on that, but have no idea if it exists or where to find it.
posted by TedW at 7:09 AM on September 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
But I would bet that in relationships, especially marriages, where there is a difference of opinion the results skew much more towards men being anti abortion. Would definitely be interested to see any research that has been done on that, but have no idea if it exists or where to find it.
posted by TedW at 7:09 AM on September 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
Am I the only one hearing William F. Buckley's voice in my head with this schtick
Brookheiser is/was very much of that circle. NR published him when he was like in high school and he was pretty tight with him for the remainder of Buckley's life. As I recall, he occasionally sat in for Buckley on Firing Line.
And, yeah, there's no plumbing the depths of another's relationship, I guess, but the "agree to disagree on a topic we passionately oppose each other on" baffles me, too. It's hard enough for me to imagine living with someone I agreed with; I can't imagine living with someone I really disagreed with.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:19 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Brookheiser is/was very much of that circle. NR published him when he was like in high school and he was pretty tight with him for the remainder of Buckley's life. As I recall, he occasionally sat in for Buckley on Firing Line.
And, yeah, there's no plumbing the depths of another's relationship, I guess, but the "agree to disagree on a topic we passionately oppose each other on" baffles me, too. It's hard enough for me to imagine living with someone I agreed with; I can't imagine living with someone I really disagreed with.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:19 AM on September 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
When I was more center-right Liberal, I was in a relationship for several years with a "Libertarian" (in reality bog-standard Republican) who, despite being "enlightened" enough to believe all drugs should be legalized because the government has no right to tell you what to do with your body, nonetheless was vocally anti-abortion. Surprise surprise. He often liked to declare that he would "stop" me (somehow) from getting an abortion if I got pregnant. Not that he was interested in being a father. His overtly stated plan would be to give the resultant child to his elderly mother to raise so he could continue his pursuit of a 12-year slow ramble toward a master's degree. My response was a resolve that if I was even late, he'd never know about it, and that if it came to it, I had a plan to travel to the closest liberal urban enclave for an abortion without ever informing him.
Obviously, he was emotionally abusing me in many other ways, which I was unable to see at the time because reasons. But if you want to know how a pro-choice person tolerates such a relationship, I can only explain that I never really expected solidarity from him, and knew that I would do what was right for me regardless of his stated wishes, even if it meant getting a secret abortion. The anti-abortion thing was just one manifestation of abuse, control, and dehumanization that came out in other very subtle ways, which I excused for a number of invalid reasons. I would not be surprised to learn that the guy in the OP also attempts to gaslight or control the woman in other ways throughout their relationship.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 7:49 AM on September 20, 2018 [18 favorites]
Obviously, he was emotionally abusing me in many other ways, which I was unable to see at the time because reasons. But if you want to know how a pro-choice person tolerates such a relationship, I can only explain that I never really expected solidarity from him, and knew that I would do what was right for me regardless of his stated wishes, even if it meant getting a secret abortion. The anti-abortion thing was just one manifestation of abuse, control, and dehumanization that came out in other very subtle ways, which I excused for a number of invalid reasons. I would not be surprised to learn that the guy in the OP also attempts to gaslight or control the woman in other ways throughout their relationship.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 7:49 AM on September 20, 2018 [18 favorites]
Ugh. That should say "center-left Liberal". I did not pay much attention to politics beyond "Bush sucks," basic comprehension of feminism and pro-atheist issues. My knowledge of deeper structural critiques of racial, gender, and class hierarchies was undeveloped. Now I can recognize & articulate the dynamics of our respective political positions more clearly. I mention this only because basic center-left liberalism is so focused on meritocracy and individualism that it can obscure the real power structures, so it is really quite easy as a woman with a few privileges (education, career, some legal protections) to think it unfair that other women can be denied an abortion, but to not really feel solidarity with them because you know you could always get one.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:15 AM on September 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Kitty Stardust at 8:15 AM on September 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
Oh this "core fight" series again. Last time we talked about this I went in thinking it would be "put the socks in the hamper" not "I married this man despite a complete incompatibility because deep down I don't value myself as a person and think this is the best I can do/think I can fix him."
posted by muddgirl at 8:24 AM on September 20, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 8:24 AM on September 20, 2018 [7 favorites]
Well, at least these people found each other so nobody else has to put up with them.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:49 AM on September 20, 2018 [17 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:49 AM on September 20, 2018 [17 favorites]
Well, at least these people found each other so nobody else has to put up with them.
That seems to be the take-home message in pretty much all of the articles in this series.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:19 AM on September 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
That seems to be the take-home message in pretty much all of the articles in this series.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:19 AM on September 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
If America had been settled and founded by Frenchmen or Spaniards, as it might well have been, or by the Austrian Empire or the Ashanti Empire, to be purely hypothetical, it would be a different place now. And a worse one. This book will make that case.
New Orleans was settled and founded by French people and Spaniards. And while New Orleans has its share of problems, its Creole heritage is not one of them. (Would it be a tourist destination for the WASP Quarter? I don't think so.)
Brookhiser can take a long walk off a short pier.
posted by Gelatin at 11:27 AM on September 20, 2018 [12 favorites]
New Orleans was settled and founded by French people and Spaniards. And while New Orleans has its share of problems, its Creole heritage is not one of them. (Would it be a tourist destination for the WASP Quarter? I don't think so.)
Brookhiser can take a long walk off a short pier.
posted by Gelatin at 11:27 AM on September 20, 2018 [12 favorites]
Well, at least these people found each other so nobody else has to put up with them.
"It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four." — Samuel Butler
posted by octobersurprise at 11:36 AM on September 20, 2018 [10 favorites]
"It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four." — Samuel Butler
posted by octobersurprise at 11:36 AM on September 20, 2018 [10 favorites]
this man sounds horrible and i hope he is eaten by those flesh eating bees that i think do actually exist in the real world and not in skyrim but i don't care enough to google
posted by poffin boffin at 11:52 AM on September 20, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 11:52 AM on September 20, 2018 [5 favorites]
It’s in Slate. DRTFA (didn’t read...) but the venue and milieu are all most people need to run out the thread of this premise. It’s a common enough relationship to be a tired stereotype. I’m certain given the time or column inches we would discover many other performative forms of peacock masculinity, like some over the top stunt cooking or a completely unexamined hatred of something misidentified as feminine, like sweets or a rando color.
If it were WIRED we might get the old switcheroo and if it was any other subject Slate just loves serving that pseudo contrarian clickbait.
posted by zenon at 12:36 PM on September 20, 2018
If it were WIRED we might get the old switcheroo and if it was any other subject Slate just loves serving that pseudo contrarian clickbait.
posted by zenon at 12:36 PM on September 20, 2018
Am I the only one hearing William F. Buckley's voice in my head with this schtick
Brookheiser is/was very much of that circle…
Absolutely; any respect I had for Buckley and National Review as “intelligent conservatism” evaporated when I read “Why the South Must Prevail” (National Review, 8/24/57). No wonder Charles Pierce refers to it as “America’s most respected journal of white supremacy.”
posted by TedW at 1:24 PM on September 20, 2018 [5 favorites]
Brookheiser is/was very much of that circle…
Absolutely; any respect I had for Buckley and National Review as “intelligent conservatism” evaporated when I read “Why the South Must Prevail” (National Review, 8/24/57). No wonder Charles Pierce refers to it as “America’s most respected journal of white supremacy.”
posted by TedW at 1:24 PM on September 20, 2018 [5 favorites]
One time I had a months-long flirtation with a guy who wasn't anti-abortion, but he was a libertarian who (having passed the point of assuring me that what was important to me, was important to him) eventually kept insisting, "Nothing's going to happen to abortion rights! It's settled law! Nothing! Will! Happen!"
"My bodily safety is at stake. You admitted I know more about the issue than you do. You admitted you'd never thought about what it would be like to not have autonomy over your own body, not until I asked you to think about it. And you still insist that nothing's gonna happen to abortion rights and you'll still vote Conservative?"
"Yes!"
Lately I've been thinking that if I run into him again, first thing I'll do is snarl at him, "Hi! Still think nothing's gonna happen to abortion rights? MY BODILY SAFETY IS AT EXTREME RISK THANKS TO YOU AND PEOPLE LIKE YOU."
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 3:08 PM on September 20, 2018 [5 favorites]
"My bodily safety is at stake. You admitted I know more about the issue than you do. You admitted you'd never thought about what it would be like to not have autonomy over your own body, not until I asked you to think about it. And you still insist that nothing's gonna happen to abortion rights and you'll still vote Conservative?"
"Yes!"
Lately I've been thinking that if I run into him again, first thing I'll do is snarl at him, "Hi! Still think nothing's gonna happen to abortion rights? MY BODILY SAFETY IS AT EXTREME RISK THANKS TO YOU AND PEOPLE LIKE YOU."
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 3:08 PM on September 20, 2018 [5 favorites]
the "agree to disagree on a topic we passionately oppose each other on" baffles me, too.
I married my husband the year after I had traveled to other states to campaign for Republicans and he had nearly gotten arrested for being a member of a black bloc. We fought, hard, over Occupy Wall Street. This article is very relevant to me.
What I can say is it’s complicated: loving someone with opposite views really forces you to think really hard about why you have your own and how you think about people who hold them. And sometimes that changes you. In a lot of ways we started coming towards each other and then crossed - now I work harder for some stuff on the left than him, and he’s become more right the more secure and stable we are.
But also it’s hard, too - it’s sometimes hard because I am so personally against Trump and he kind of thinks he’s a clown and bad but does the “also Obama” thing. I feel like that’s kind of what the article got at by talking about the Carter and Clinton years - you get together when politics is able to be disagreed civilly about, and by the time it’s hot you’re already married?
posted by corb at 2:45 AM on September 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
I married my husband the year after I had traveled to other states to campaign for Republicans and he had nearly gotten arrested for being a member of a black bloc. We fought, hard, over Occupy Wall Street. This article is very relevant to me.
What I can say is it’s complicated: loving someone with opposite views really forces you to think really hard about why you have your own and how you think about people who hold them. And sometimes that changes you. In a lot of ways we started coming towards each other and then crossed - now I work harder for some stuff on the left than him, and he’s become more right the more secure and stable we are.
But also it’s hard, too - it’s sometimes hard because I am so personally against Trump and he kind of thinks he’s a clown and bad but does the “also Obama” thing. I feel like that’s kind of what the article got at by talking about the Carter and Clinton years - you get together when politics is able to be disagreed civilly about, and by the time it’s hot you’re already married?
posted by corb at 2:45 AM on September 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
My partner doesn't even actually differ significantly from me on any major (or even minor) political question and I'm struggling to keep connected with him just on the basis of "he is a man and does slightly less active agonized screaming than I do". I have no idea how these people manage.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:30 PM on September 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:30 PM on September 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
"But I would bet that in relationships, especially marriages, where there is a difference of opinion the results skew much more towards men being anti abortion. Would definitely be interested to see any research that has been done on that, but have no idea if it exists or where to find it."At least in general you've likely guessed backwards.
Historically there have never been statistically significant dichotomous differences by gender in the United States except in how women tend to be less moderate in both directions. Indeed, gender is one of the few factors that can be used to sort us but that cannot be used to predict views on abortion. Notably, there may be a recent small blip in college educated young women being more pro-choice than their male counterparts, which could easily be a result of failing to sample college educated women with more absolutist pro-life views, but if you were right you would expect to see a gender difference in Americans over 30 that does not exist.
The whole conceit that pro-life views are a thing that can be meaningfully described as male, or originating primarily from men, is repeated so often in liberal circles that it has this air of truth, or I guess received wisdom. However, it is unambiguously not the case, and can only hope to serve to drive us up our own asses. Pro-Life positions are not just held by women at the same rates that they are held by men, but pro-life advocacy is just as women-led as pro-choice advocacy, and no one outside of bubbles like this is fooled. If we are ever going to do more for women made vulnerable by anti-choice laws than wiggle about ineffectually like a collection of four legged meat doughnuts, we're going to need to grapple with how these narratives simply aren't true. The most effective pro-choice advocacy will always be both reality-based and honest.
posted by Blasdelb at 8:24 AM on September 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
The whole conceit that pro-life views are a thing that can be meaningfully described as male, or originating primarily from men, is repeated so often in liberal circles that it has this air of truth, or I guess received wisdom.
And you don't suppose this perception would have anything to do with the fact that the legislators who make the most direct impact on passing anti-choice laws are (mostly) male and rather more highly visible than the women who tend to dominate the grassroots, on-the-ground anti-choice harassment game?
No, surely not, it's just that pro choice women are lost up our own asses.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:22 AM on September 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
And you don't suppose this perception would have anything to do with the fact that the legislators who make the most direct impact on passing anti-choice laws are (mostly) male and rather more highly visible than the women who tend to dominate the grassroots, on-the-ground anti-choice harassment game?
No, surely not, it's just that pro choice women are lost up our own asses.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:22 AM on September 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
"And you don't suppose this perception would have anything to do with the fact that the legislators who make the most direct impact on passing anti-choice laws are (mostly) male and rather more highly visible than the women who tend to dominate the grassroots, on-the-ground anti-choice harassment game?Pretending that its a woman I am responding to doesn't make it so any more than pretending that the married couple we are discussing are legislators, or pretending that its the gender of legislators that predicts their views on abortion.
No, surely not, it's just that pro choice women are lost up our own asses."
No, its so much easier to deal with the views of pro-life women by pretending that they don't exist or by pretending that they don't matter politically. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans cannot be coherently described as consistently either pro-life or pro-choice, and they do not suffer from the same delusions. Anyone who interacts with pro-life advocacy in even the most passing way will see for themselves the women who dominate essentially every level of it, and will know precisely where you've misplaced your head if you insist otherwise. The tens of millions of American women with absolutist pro-life views, that hundreds of millions more have already listened to, simply will not be silenced by this conceit. Pro-life voices are women's voices, and that fact being rhetorically inconvenient in a simplistic way doesn't make it not so.
There is a very significant chance now that Roe v Wade will disappear, and that the quality and availability of healthcare that American women have access to will depend on our ability to interact with the real problems we actually have, rather than ones that might be simpler to contextualize.
posted by Blasdelb at 12:43 AM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
"But I would bet that in relationships, especially marriages, where there is a difference of opinion the results skew much more towards men being anti abortion. Would definitely be interested to see any research that has been done on that, but have no idea if it exists or where to find it."
At least in general you've likely guessed backwards.
None of the polling data you presented looks specifically at married couples; as I mentioned that is research that may not exist.
As an aside, I would also suggest that much of the perception, at least among those of us of a certain age, that anti-abortion sentiment is associated with men comes from the fact that the antiabortion movement was originally a largely Catholic phenomenon, part of the church's larger prohibition against all birth control. And the Catholic church, while made up of equal percentages of women and men, is unquestionably led by men.
posted by TedW at 6:38 AM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
At least in general you've likely guessed backwards.
None of the polling data you presented looks specifically at married couples; as I mentioned that is research that may not exist.
As an aside, I would also suggest that much of the perception, at least among those of us of a certain age, that anti-abortion sentiment is associated with men comes from the fact that the antiabortion movement was originally a largely Catholic phenomenon, part of the church's larger prohibition against all birth control. And the Catholic church, while made up of equal percentages of women and men, is unquestionably led by men.
posted by TedW at 6:38 AM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
Anyone who interacts with pro-life advocacy in even the most passing way will see for themselves the women who dominate essentially every level of it, and will know precisely where you've misplaced your head if you insist otherwise.
I have been a clinic escort for 15 years. Neither the omnipresence of women among the most vicious and appalling of anti-choice voices, nor the imminent danger to actual humans from the loss of Roe v Wade, is a surprise or a mystery to me.
But the people who are on the news, hollering about "personal responsibility" and "the abortion pill" and characterizing the anti-choice movement to Average Folks Who Don't Think About Abortion Much, are very nearly 100% male. The representation of anti-choice women in the media is largely as silent groups of young white women -- like, teenaged white women. They are simply not portrayed as the ones in charge.
You don't have to be dumb, delusional, or willfully blind to have this perception. You just have to be on the periphery. Most people do not, as matter of fact, interact with anti-choice advocacy in anything resembling the passing way you seem to think they do. Until they need some fucking healthcare and can't get it.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:48 PM on September 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
I have been a clinic escort for 15 years. Neither the omnipresence of women among the most vicious and appalling of anti-choice voices, nor the imminent danger to actual humans from the loss of Roe v Wade, is a surprise or a mystery to me.
But the people who are on the news, hollering about "personal responsibility" and "the abortion pill" and characterizing the anti-choice movement to Average Folks Who Don't Think About Abortion Much, are very nearly 100% male. The representation of anti-choice women in the media is largely as silent groups of young white women -- like, teenaged white women. They are simply not portrayed as the ones in charge.
You don't have to be dumb, delusional, or willfully blind to have this perception. You just have to be on the periphery. Most people do not, as matter of fact, interact with anti-choice advocacy in anything resembling the passing way you seem to think they do. Until they need some fucking healthcare and can't get it.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:48 PM on September 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
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I guess she might be nice, and I’m glad she’s happy.
posted by Etrigan at 3:42 AM on September 20, 2018 [18 favorites]