50% the week, 50% despairing about Roe

[flexagon]

YNAB is proving useful from time to time, even though I don't really embrace its philosophy. This month it helped me notice that I hadn't gotten a direct deposit from stock sales like I usually do near the start of the month, and I tracked down the place a setting had gotten lost and fixed it; that should be good for the next year.

Also in even more adulting/paperwork news, it seems that the bug and I both have found lawyers and have a first draft of a postnup agreement in hand. Look at us with our ducks all getting in a row, huh? I have a sneaking suspicion that we're going to want to update our wills after this, but they're old anyway... in fact hmm, they're almost ten years old and my tangible property addendum still mentions Nala, so okay okay okay. One paperwork thing at a time though.

I've been reading a lot, and also played several hours of Celeste with the squirrel. It was one of those weeks where each day felt like a different day (Monday holiday, date night shifted around, etc). Did a bit of internal activism at work.

And THEN of course, I got a day where none of that mattered because the Roe vs Wade shoe dropped. I'm a sterile-by-choice lady in a blue state where abortions will still be accessible, and still triggered AF by the thought of forced breeding. There's something terrifying about women being valued less than their fetuses. Even if I did think fetuses were people, making abortion manslaughter, I'd be in favor of women being able to get abortions in approximately the same way it's legal to shoot a trespasser. And it's tempting to be grouchy right now with my male partners who've been vaguely considering (but putting off) vasectomies... if there was ever a time for men to step up and take full shared responsibility in pregnancy control, it was OH WAIT, ALWAYS but also right now. Women are officially second-class citizens again in the US -- maybe we never weren't, but we got to fake it really well for a while -- and need allies.

I already had the talk with my bio-kid about being careful what state she goes to grad school in, and thank goodness she was way ahead of me on that. And then there's the silver lining of knowing what to do with my donation money... hahahahaha. I can't believe that just a few months ago I was considering donating to research, and now it's all refugee aid (from the big land war in Europe, you know) and people who will otherwise be forced to give birth (or, very possibly, die). I really am starting to feel survivor's guilt. I got so impossibly lucky, and was paranoid enough to play my cards well, in a timeline that I have less and less optimism about.

Must attempt to work out, and then go frolicing off to see the Monk and his wife. Maybe a day out in the sun will help.

Comments

[wotw]

Added after the below was typed: I intended at first to respond specifically to your trespasser analogy, but then ended up rambling on a bit, perhaps beyond the point that's appropriate on somebody else's journal. If you decide to delete all or part of this, I fully understand and support that.

That said:

I like your trespasser analogy and I'm sympathetic to it, though I think it's both stronger than it appears in some ways and weaker in others. On the one hand, a fetus living in your body is a hell of a lot more intrusive than a guy walking across your lawn, which makes your analogy even stronger. On the other hand, I think there is probably very little support in the law (and certainly in public opinion) for shooting trespassers who you are aware landed on your property without any conscious intent to be there. The moral so far is that this is a hard issue, where almost all analogies fail in important ways, and in both directions.

I want abortions to be legal and readily available, and I will do my small part to work toward that end. But others have the opposite preference, and I believe most of those others are motivated by a sincere desire to protect what they perceive as defenseless human beings. (I also believe that some of those others have more reprehensible motives, like the opportunity to wallow in moral superiority --- just like some pacifists, some environmentalists, and some of any other bunch of people you care to name.)

And I don't think I know of any objective standard by which my preferences are better than those other people's --- because I don't think there's any objective standard about exactly when a mass of cells becomes a human being who deserves the protection of the law. All I know is what feels right to me, and what apparently feels right to them, and that the two are in conflict.

That, I think, makes it appropriate for this to be fought out in the political arena --- i.e. in the state legislatures --- where each side gets an opportunity to be heard, to draw its imperfect analogies, and to have those analogies deconstructed by their opponents. Count me, then, as both pro-choice and probably anti-Roe. ("Probably" because I am sure I have not yet fully thought this through.)

I am sure that overturning Roe will have tragic repercussions, largely (but not entirely) for women with limited resources. I am also sure that overturning Roe will prevent a lot of abortions that don't seem terribly tragic to me, but do seem terribly tragic to a lot of good and thoughtful people whose worldview merits just as much respect as mine does. And I am inclined to think that those people should have the same opportunities to be heard and to influence policy that I have. In other words, I am inclined to think that overturning Roe was the right thing to do.

There are good and reasonable objections to everything I've just said (some of them involving analogies to issues like slavery). I think there are good and reasonable responses to most of those objections and then good and reasonable counter-responses. And I expect that further consideration of all those arguments could make me see all of this in a very different light. The one thing I feel certain of is that there are no easy answers.

[jadia]

My body, my right to it. Your "both sides" are blegh and really just boil down to "my right to bodily autonomy is not something you think is fundamental". Blegh! No thanks!

[jadia]

Hey let's make you donate a kidney, it doesn't hurt you and will save a life! I don't care if you object! It will SAVE A LIFE and you don't actually need 2.

[aatish]

I am told you are intelligent - an academic of some caliber. I am struggling to figure out how anyone who thinks for a living could have concocted a post so utterly insipid.

I could take on your weak sauce argument here. For example, I could point out that this ruling does not represent the views of the majority so even if you have respect for the opposing viewpoint, even contemplating that its is okay for a lack of access to presently become THE LAW OF THE LAND in 26 states, implies an utter lack of respect for the foundational elements of democracy. Most importantly the ruling represents an even lesser minority of the opinions of the women whose bodies it governs (even in several red states) and they are going to suffer and keep suffering while our lightning-fast "political arena" (of which you clearly approve so highly) dicks (sic) around. I’ll leave you to find those citations, what with you being such a very smart academic dude.

You will do your “small part”? Your small part??? You are a wealthy, white, massively privileged academic with an educational pulpit and a congenital penis. Do a large part, asshole. Do it for the considerable list of women you’ve fucked all of whom are getting screwed by this decision.

Oh my god. But hey, let’s forget your crap argument (you know the one that entirely missed the point of bodily sovereignty except for some oblique reference to slavery until the end). Let’s call it a bad day, a moment of internet stupidity. Happens to all of us.

But then let’s visit the fact that AS A PERSON WITHOUT A UTERUS for you to post a contradiction of how someone with one of those feels about what just happened, someone whose past has contained meaningful actions that the repeal would have jeopardized and who has explicitly said she is being triggered, for you to do that at all is so utterly tone deaf it boggles the mind. And all the while you spend the post talking about how poorly thought through it is (the only thing you got right here, btw)

So why did you post it asshole?? Because you were so full of yourself your ego could not take another minute without spewing itself on the internet??

AND THEN YOU PUT THE EMOTIONAL LABOR OF DELETING THIS POST ON flexagon??? Thanks for your gracious permission to do so btw. So generous.

Asshat - she does not need your permission to delete this drivel regardless of whether your poor ego would or would not be wounded.

And finally, from me and purely from me to you - go fuck your self. Get really good at it. It is possibly the only fucking you are going to get once this post makes the rounds.

[flexagon]

EDIT: to other readers -- I'm figuring out whether this warrants a serious reply. It's sophomoric in the extreme, but this person is moderately influential in some communities and if he will LISTEN then a reply might actually have benefit to other women. Watch this space and feel free to leave your own commentary.

[heisenbug]

Have you thought this through? Maybe it's the first time you've seen a post on this topic that had a "reply" button? It just sounds extremely naive. I'm not sure what reaction you were expecting.

[wotw]

I'd thought I'd said pretty clearly that I hadn't thought this through. I was struck by the trespasser analogy and wanted to make a brief comment about how it works better than intended in some ways and worse in others. This led me to ramble on a bit about the slipperiness of analogies on issues like this, and how that relates to my discomfort with Roe. It's not the first time I've rambled a bit in a DW comment. I never expect a reaction.

[heisenbug]

You're right, you did say that. I suggest that you think through whether you should post things without thinking them through. Also it's kind of amazing if you hadn't thought through abortion rights in these terms long before this post was made.

[wotw]

I've responded by private message.

[flexagon]

WHEN SOMEONE SAYS THEY ARE TRIGGERED and the topic is of current trauma, you need to get beyond the attitude of "I never expect a reaction." Your words do in fact have consequences. This topic is in fact serious.

[flexagon]

You sound like someone who's literally thinking this through for the first time. If we were on reddit I would assume this came from a teenager.

On the one hand, this "beginner mind" stance is pretty baffling coming from a grown man who presumably values women in his life. On the other hand, it's an opportunity -- one I didn't ask for -- to educate someone who then may be able to educate or help others. On the gripping hand, you are an educator and a coordinator of social events, and you owe your community better understanding of the issues it faces than you're demonstrating here. Because that community has been kind to me in the past, I will respond to you.

To begin with: please read about the "Comfort in, dump out" principle. The overturn of Roe v Wade is a disaster for many people, and your vague philosophizing is not a socially appropriate response to a post that literally discusses terror, triggering and the need for allies.

If you decide to delete all or part of this, I fully understand and support that.

Dreamwidth lets me do that, with or without your support.

I like your trespasser analogy and I'm sympathetic to it, though I think it's both stronger than it appears in some ways and weaker in others. On the one hand... On the other hand...

I didn't make the trespasser analogy. The relevant sentence started with "EVEN IF I did think fetuses were people", which I do not. Yes, I find it darkly amusing that it's legal to shoot a full-grown adult human because they happen to be on one's land but not legal to remove a clump of cells that are in one's body, but the parallel is not a good one and my intended tone there was dark humor. Thus the "Even if", which you missed.

jadia's analogy to forced organ donation is far better and more to the point. Legal precedent says that you cannot be legally forced to donate an organ even if it would save the life of a recipient. Yet women here are being forced to "donate" tissue, time, the configuration of their bones, etc, in a way that's similarly invasive and disregards any notion of bodily autonomy.

None of these are topics I feel like getting into with you in any more depth.

I want abortions to be legal and readily available, and I will do my small part to work toward that end.

Will you? Great: donate here to split your donation between 90 different local abortion funds, making abortion more readily available. I look forward to hearing that you have in fact taken action. You are a wealthy man and can well afford to do so.

I am also sure that overturning Roe will prevent a lot of abortions that don't seem terribly tragic to me

This is where you lose me because YOU COMPLETELY FORGOT THE WOMEN. In what world is forced pregnancy, forced health risk, going through forced labor, "not terribly tragic" to you in and of itself??? These are risky undertakings, and they leave women's bodies and lives changed forever in the best of cases. There are many, many not-so-good cases, and these can kill people in the nastiest ways. But even in the best of cases you need to think about the pain of childbirth and then think about being FORCED to endure that for a baby you don't want, a baby that in some states may be the result of incest or rape. That is, in a word, torture, and the Supreme Court just decided it's a fine thing to inflict on women (and girls) who happen to be born in the wrong state.

And you just decided that you think that's a good thing, based on... some notion that those who wish to make the argument of fetus=human have been unable to speak and get their arguments out over the last 49 years? That is an exceptionally weak argument.

So is your claim that you "want abortions to be legal and readily available", given that you think it was good to overturn Roe just so that people can argue about it at the state level. You don't seem to have a stance you are willing to defend on either the philosophical or the legal level, but it is VERY CLEAR what you don't give a shit about: women's right to bodily autonomy. I know this because you don't mention it -- don't think of it INSTANTLY and as a primary concern -- and your silence on that point is deafening. It's worse because I've heard you champion women's bodily autonomy and right to say no in other domains, and your current (lack of) stance on abortion seriously undermines my belief in the sincerity of those statements. Please find a safe space, a much much safer space than this, and explore this some more somewhere else.

[coraline]

I almost didn't say something here because flexagon said it all much more coherently and eloquently than I would manage to. But I think it's important to tell you that I am also upset and disgusted by both the content of this comment (if your thoughts on this are actually that unformed and uninformed, then you are not the person I thought/hoped you were, and if they are not than representing them as if they were is a horrible choice) and by your decision to post it in this venue which is definitely not an appropriate place for philosophical faffing of this kind. I have often found you hard to understand, but I don't think I have previously seen you be this combination of seemingly unintelligent and cruel.

[flexagon]

Thank you for replying anyway! I think there is real information here for wotw in the number of people who are reacting, if he chooses to pick it up.

It definitely sucks to be lightly batting a topic around and then suddenly feel attacked/startled by people's responses, but when it happens across the board one can either assume it's all unwarranted or can say "gee, maybe I have indeed missed something here. What's the perspective from which these reactions are warranted?"

Also you're a community leader whose voice may be trusted here, more than mine is.

[aatish]

I am going to continue to be blown away that the person in question here is both an educator and a community leader and is actively defending themselves by claiming that a lack of thought on this issue is justifiable...especially given the context of the community said person leads. That just does not feel good.

Also here we are in yet another thread where multiple women are taking on the emotional labor of helping some dude figure his shit out while he actively resists owning responsibility.

As someone who has absolutely been that dude in the past and has not always done a good job of thanking the people who took the time - I just want to recognize the very real work that you (jadia, flexagon and coraline) are doing here.

[jadia]

Well, maybe the others are doing emotional labor to help someone get his shit together, but i want to clarify I'm not. i just am establishing my boundaries and making clear what *i* think is ok! We can't let people say whatever and not be challenged anymore, for our OWN sakes.

Kudos to people who are engaged in helping others, and also it is ok to just say "Nope!"