Abortion & Radical Feminism

[simple]

Good time of day to you!


Must a person be pro-abortion to be considered a radical feminist?

Do you know of any feminist writers who are anti-abortion?

[pingupingu]

Think you have the wrong end of the stick.

NTIRK but it's about sovereign choice in respect to your own body. Not abortion itself.

[Z6IIAB]

Think you have the wrong end of the stick.

NTIRK but it's about sovereign choice in respect to your own body. Not abortion itself.

what's NTIRK?

[pingupingu]

Not That I Really Know

[Z6IIAB]

Not That I Really Know

that makes sense. english ain't my mother language.

[pingupingu]

Not That I Really Know

that makes sense. english ain't my mother language.

It's a personal habit of mine to shorten inconsequential disclaimers and qualifiers into an acronym. Not necessarily a good habit.

[simple]

Think you have the wrong end of the stick.

NTIRK but it's about sovereign choice in respect to your own body. Not abortion itself.

I understand that that's a common way to think. But abortion is of course a slightly more complex issue than let's say getting a tattoo, where it really is only about one's own body. The ambivalent question of when the fruit of the womb starts being a human person with its own dignity makes any fair discussion regarding abortion about more than just the right to choose of the mother-to-be.
I might have "the wrong end of the stick", but I think the free self-determination of the mother-to-be and the value of the developing life within her are always two things that have to be considered together, lest our views on abortion become too simplistic.

I asked my question since all feminism I encounter in real life is unequivocally for abortion rights. But all feminism I encounter in real life is also unequivocally pro-"transsexual men are women" and pro-"sex work is liberation for women". And after I encountered (through Sinfest) that certain strains of radical feminism are strongly opposed to those latter two viewpoints, I wondered if there are radical feminists who are against abortion as well. I ask this to further broaden my horizon about the flavors of feminism.

(I avoided the American pro-choice and pro-life monikers, as they are both intentionally and inherently tendentious, and I do not intend to discuss abortion here as such. All I am interesed in is whether someone here knows of radical feminist authors or thinkers who might be against abortion.)

[janelane]

Hey, Simple, the assumption you have that there are radical feminists who are pro-life is really not based in any sort understanding of radical feminist theory. Radical feminism is about addressing the root of women's oppression, which is that men want to control our reproductive capacity and will use whatever means necessary to do it. This means keeping us underpaid, underrepresented in public, etc in order to keep women reliant on men, the institute of marriage and childbearing to remain "useful" to men. Radical feminism is pro-choice, as in a woman's right to choose what goes in, out, on with her body. We don't see the female body as an object, a host, or something to be rented out or sold- we ARE our bodies. Control of our bodies is the bare minimum to being considered people. Don't confuse radical feminists with conservatives just because we don't ascribe to liberal feminist definitions of certain ideas. Our reasons for being anti-prostitution and non-compliant with trans activism are very different from that of conservatives.

[simple]

Hello, janelane. Thank you for your answer.

I did not confuse radical feminism with conservatives, otherwise I would not be interested in it, nor would I be posting here. I also did not mean to imply that there are radical feminists who are anti-abortion. I assumed the opposite, in fact, hence my first post.
I was just wondering if there is a strain of feminism hitherto unknown to me that has a critical view on abortion rather than holding the more "classical" feminist position you presented in your post, as I would have been interested in reading more about it. If there isn't one, then that answers the question I posed.

Thanks!

[Zhathil]

You're asking users to do some heavy lifting for you, when you could search on Google and find plenty of self-professed feminists that are anti-abortion and their writings. I don't believe that one can truly be a Radical Feminist and believe that a woman's life is worth less than a fetus, or that she shouldn't have the right to choose.

There's the whole other issue with sex-selective abortions being forced or pressured on women in some countries, to prevent the birth of female babies, but any criticism toward that is the same root issue; robbing women of their own reproductive choice, rather than it being against abortion itself.

[RikkiTikkiTavi]

So, the way you are wording the questions begs the question as to whether you are talking about morality or legality.

I can easily see a radical feminist having a moral dilemma about the life of a potential child and being 'anti-abortion' - as in let's do everything we can to make sure that an unintended pregnancy does not happen so that an abortion does not happen.

Who is 'pro-abortion'? Nobody wants to put themselves through that procedure. The only ones I know that might be 'pro-abortion' are those agencies who stand to profit from the business either in the money made from the women themselves or in the sales of fetal tissue. And let's not get me started on how I think the profit of the abortion industry is part of the oppression of women.

What an outrage we live in a society where birth control is so dodgy, unhealthy and expensive that abortion is so frequent a choice. How horrible women bear most of the burden of birth control. How horrible we still don't have a male birth control option short of vasectomy that is reliable.

Why is abortion a political topic versus a private medical decision?

Uh-oh... I'm losing all rational communication skills...I think my hair is on fire... better stop...

[Z6IIAB]

Hey, Simple, the assumption you have that there are radical feminists who are pro-life is really not based in any sort understanding of radical feminist theory. Radical feminism is about addressing the root of women's oppression, which is that men want to control our reproductive capacity and will use whatever means necessary to do it. This means keeping us underpaid, underrepresented in public, etc in order to keep women reliant on men, the institute of marriage and childbearing to remain "useful" to men. Radical feminism is pro-choice, as in a woman's right to choose what goes in, out, on with her body. We don't see the female body as an object, a host, or something to be rented out or sold- we ARE our bodies. Control of our bodies is the bare minimum to being considered people. Don't confuse radical feminists with conservatives just because we don't ascribe to liberal feminist definitions of certain ideas. Our reasons for being anti-prostitution and non-compliant with trans activism are very different from that of conservatives.

It could'nt be more cleary put than this ☝

[pingupingu]

Or to put it simply and clearly: it's about sovereign choice in respect to your own body.

That's the bare minimum threshold we're talking about here.

Conservatives like to argue pro-life not because they actually care about children (if that were so then all restriction of abortion would be backed up by massive commitments to support programs for mothers and children to ensure no child is ever born into poverty or disadvantage. This is the other side of that same coin and the fact that it is never even considered much less adopted shows it's a bullshit argument) but because it asserts the following logic:

1. Procreation requires male and female contributors; a baby has (on average) two biological parents.
2. Both parents contribute to conception therefore both parents have an equal claim on the subsequent zygote
3. As a person with a claim on a zygote inside another person's body, a man naturally must have rights over what they person can do
4. A man can tell a woman what she can and can't do with her body

This is why life must be defined as "on conception" - because putting it at any other juncture would dissolve a man's claim over a woman's body and what she can and can't do with it.

This is how you turn a single sperm into a system that denies and overrides the sovereign agency of a person to their own body.

[Akinesis]

Hello,

Pretty much nothing to do with radical feminism, but I've stumbled upon a great video about abortion (and why pro life is more "pro woman exploitation").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2PAajlHbnU