The Justice For All anti-abortion exhibit is returning later this week to the annoyance of most of the student body, not in the least because the Women’s and Gender Studies Student Association (WGSSA) might once again also be back with their kazoos and signs saying “our campus not theirs” — a charming and pithy expression of the WGSSA’s take on free speech on campus.
Beyond the problematic fact that the student association of an OU department organized itself to support one side of a political debate rather than open dialogue, the WGSSA activists were obnoxious and overbearing. They did not seek to start conversations, but stifle them.
However, when approached by students, whether like-minded or not, several of the WGSSA protesters did discuss the issues rather than continue shouting, a credit to those of the protesters who came to speak as well as shout. But what was absent, at the fault of Justice For All as well as the WGSSA, is that while both groups spoke with unaffiliated OU students, I saw no instances of the two groups speaking to one another. These groups spent several hours a day standing (and marching and yelling) not 20 feet from one another, but in the two or so hours I spent talking with and observing both, they did not engage with one another. Perhaps this is a good thing, as it may have been impossible for both sides to tone down the rhetoric (“You’re pro-murder!” “You hate women!”) long enough for them to have anything resembling the rational discussions each side was carrying on with passersby.
This indicates a deeper problem. It’s no coincidence that abortion rights and anti-abortion advocates label themselves “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” These are code words that allow them to discredit the other side without having to go through the trouble of listening to them.
The anti-abortion side ignores the abortion rights side’s all-encompassing emphasis on trusting the decisions of pregnant women, while the abortion rights side will not consider for a moment the anti-abortion side’s arguments about when a person really is a person. To do so would be to think like the enemy, who is obviously crazy — they do stupid things like put up giant pictures of bleeding fetuses or march around with kazoos. Obviously, such people cannot be reasoned with, but only ridiculed.
I saw this refusal to try to understand the other side personally last week. When talking to a WGSSA student about the Justice for All exhibit, I asked whether the student believed that the intact dilation and extraction method of abortion (known colloquially as partial-birth abortion) should continue to be illegal. This procedure involves partially extracting a fetus, feet first, until only the head remains in the uterus. The doctor then cuts a hole in the fetus’ skull and uses a vacuum to suction out the brain until the skull collapses, at which point the dead fetus is delivered.
This procedure was not limited only to cases in which the mother or fetus’s life was in danger, but, as Roy Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, asserted in 1997, “In the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along.” The procedure has been illegal in the United States since 2003, and the Supreme Court upheld the ban in 2007. A 2003 ABC poll found that 69 percent believe the practice should be illegal, a belief shared by 60 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of liberals.
The student first began to talk about how Justice For All’s pictures are misleading, since a lot of them come from abortions in which either the mother’s or the fetus’ life was in danger, cases in which even the Justice For All volunteers would allow the abortion.
I pressed on with the question, asking when she would consider a fetus alive, if not during this procedure. The student resorted to the standard abortion rights logic that we need to trust women to make the right decision about their bodies. To consider that maybe there might be a point that we could all agree a fetus is truly alive would be the ultimate rejection of her ideals and must not be entertained.
I hope Justice For All and WGSSA can put down the kazoos and the brochures and talk to one another this Wednesday without calling each other genocidal or woman-hating. Consider how to weigh the freedom of choice of a woman against the human rights of a baby. Have a rational debate in which you come to some sort of consensus.
Who knows, you might actually learn something.
— Patrick O’Bryan, economics and letters sophomore
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toastergirl 1 year, 6 months ago
This was a good article
DancingTableLeg 1 year, 6 months ago
Agreed. The abortion rights side needs to drop the women's rights angle and seriously consider the question of when a human is truly human. If looked at from an anti-abortion perspective, it's like giving women the right to murder... just because giving a woman more rights is good thing?
Likewise, the anti-abortion side needs to start taking sentience into consideration. Why should we care about something that cannot think, cannot feel, cannot communicate or anything like that? We cherish life in society not for its heart beat or similar DNA- we protect life because it contributes to civilization and enriches our own experiences.
I want dialogue.
eightbitgirl 1 year, 6 months ago
"Partial-birth" abortion has been banned in the United States since 2003. You couldn't have researched that before writing this article?
eightbitgirl 1 year, 6 months ago
No, wait, I'm the dummy, I completely missed that paragraph. Also if you're the student I think you are, you talked to quite a few of the WGSSA students and they all told you that there is no point in talking to JFA because no minds are going to be changed and they would rather speak to students/people who represent OU.
mustafa 1 year, 6 months ago
Since the advent of ultrasound the pro-abortion Nazis have been forced to admit that the fetus is life and thus abortion is murder. For those of them who still have residue religious morality remaining from childhood, there are left-wing churches like St. Michaels and St Stevens, where they can find faux-assurance that they'll still go to heaven.
"It’s no coincidence that abortion rights and anti-abortion advocates label themselves “pro-choice” and “pro-life.”
Kate Michaelman's group actually brought a law suit to force pro-life groups to stop calling pro-abortion groups "pro-abortion," and to stop referring to themselves as "pro-life," and be forced to use "anti-choice." As usual the suit was laughed out of court.
sportsfan31 1 year, 6 months ago
So you went to a protest and there wasn't civil dialogue???
The reality that these groups are willing to openly confront one another in protest speaks to the fact that a civil dialogue has failed in reaching a mutually acceptable conclusion. What results is an impasse of values, with both sides searching for other tactics to resolve the conflict. Thus theatrics ensue.
caitlynlacy 1 year, 6 months ago
Cool! Another white dude talkin' about abortion!
eroberts 1 year, 6 months ago
There were many "discussions" between WGSSA and JFA, and I find it really unbelievable that a thorough observance of the two days during which JFA was here resulted in not seeing one. I had four different "discussions" with JFA representatives in my total time out there (about 8 hours between the two days) and there were two group "discussions" going on from 10-11 the morning of the second day. That's six different discussions and four of them were my own. We had at least six WGSSA members (or people who agreed with or viewpoint) out there at a time... so if you couldn't find a conversation going on, I am certain it had nothing to do with whether or not they were happening.
Since the morning is the time when the Oval has the least traffic going through, as students are getting to and from class and seem to be in more of a rush in the morning than around lunchtime and in the afternoon, WGSSA and JFA representatives were really the only people out there in the morning. I would think someone looking to observe interaction between the two groups would observe when there is the greatest likelihood of the groups interacting, but since you didn't hear any dialogue, you clearly weren't there at the most realistic time to hear it. How badly did you want to be a part of the dialogue, then?
Finally, these "discussions" you missed out on are not discussions in the way most people expect them. They're actually just circular conversations lead by trained JFA members in which they ask questions like "What's the difference between abortion and heroin use?" and "If you left a one year old in a house with all of the means to support itself, what would you call it?" Frankly, I'd rather talk to people who are going to be honest with me about their opinions and not insult me with questions that have nothing to do with reality, or the dialogue we're supposed to be having. The truth is, most WGSSA members did engage in dialogues with people who have opposing viewpoints and respectfully converse--but none of those people were affiliated with JFA, because they are not open to real discussions themselves.
SgtB 1 year, 6 months ago
What is wrong with "white dudes" talking about abortion? Last I checked, we (men) made up about 49% of the population and we are exactly 50% responsible for all human births in the world (when the sex is consensual, obviously I'm not including rape or muslims marrying off 12 year olds). So why can't we be involved in this discussion? If a man and a woman agree to have sex, they know the risk involved in the act. If a child is produced, does the man not then have as much a right to the decisions regarding the child? I say that we do. Everyone knows that sex leads to babies and that birth control is not 100% effective. So with that in mind, did both parties not agree to accept those risks? If the answer is yes, then both the mother and father (because those are the appropriate titles at this point) have the responsibility to provide for the child that they have mutually created.
Moreover, how is it not a crime to kill a father's unborn child just because the offense was committed by the mother? I just know that one of you will come back with the standard "it's a woman's body, so it's HER choice", but I don't really think it is. We aren't arguing about self mutilation, piercing, or tattoos here. We are talking about ending the life of a child, and I don't think the argument that an "embryo" cannot survive on it's own is a valid reason to say that it is still merely a part of the woman's body. If dependency determines whether or not a person is alive or just a part of another person, then children should not be considered people until they can support themselves. In other words, people wouldn't be people until they got a job and earned their own pay and food. If that were the case half of the students at OU would merely be their parents property.
This is obviously despicable and not where we should draw the line, but, so is saying that an unborn child is not a child.