Abortion is not the problem, the anti-choicers are

Ta-Nehisi Coates is amazing, take a break from what you are doing and go read everything you can find by him, then come back. I have no love for Ross Douthat; I think he is at best a clickbaiter and at worst a bigot. Coates points readers to Eyal Press’ profile of Dr. Steven Brigham in the New Yorker, which shows the readers what back-alley abortions would look like because we live in a world where they already exist.

The profile gives a scary look at what patients have to endure to have a medical abortion. It presents the story of Dr. Brigham beginning in 2010. It lays out some rules physicians have to follow if providing an abortion to a patient in New Jersey after 14 weeks, which is essentially, take the patient to Maryland. The piece gives an example of a patient being driven from Delaware to Maryland with two physicians where an abortion was performed in an unmarked storefront in Elkton, Maryland. There were complications to the surgery where the woman’s uterus was perforated and her bowel damaged. She was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital. One of the physicians was Dr. Steven Brigham, who as an Elkton detective would come to find out was not licensed to practice medicine in Maryland.

The police got a warrant and proceeded to search the premises where they found some truly horrifying things. The dingy storefront had a freezer with red biohazard bags containing thirty-five advanced advanced-gestation fetuses, which hadn’t yet been disposed of. Several of the fetuses were past the viability mark. Dr. Brigham was arrested in December 2011 with ten counts of murder; he was released a week or so later after posting a half million dollar bail.

The story is a horror show. Brigham claims to be trained, but the people he says trained him don’t remember him. Additionally, he overcharged patients taking jewelry and personal property as collateral. Finally, he hurt women. Of course this makes us all think of Kermit Gosnell. Dr. LeRoy Carhart, 72, who worked with Dr. George Tiller, says there is a huge profit margin for abortion services when a clinic uses methotrexate. Dr. Carhart is based in Omaha and flies around the states to perform surgery.

Dr. Tiller’s murder left four doctors in the US who openly provide third-trimester abortions. Dr. Carhart also said, “When George died, that was the last time I had time off.” Abortion providers have declined, which Carhart attributes to the protestors. Carhart says, “Now you have two types of doctors doing abortions—the doctors who are totally committed to women’s health and are going to do them even if they never get another dime, and the people that just want to take advantage of the situation and milk everything they can out of it.”

Coates concludes that sometimes terrorism works, the murder of Dr. Tiller has encouraged physicians from practicing. Coates goes on to say that the murders in the 80s, 90s, and today are bad press for the anti-choicers, but I disagree. I think that is exactly the kind of press these zealots want. They want physicians, women, supporters to live in fear to believe you have to take your life in your hands when you enter a clinic. They are aiming to convert more violent zealots and what better way than to show the new/potential recruits how important they’ll be by murdering people. Pro-life, shenanigans! Read the fine print, Pro-life-if-you-live-the-way-we-deem-fit.

Of course, Douthat had to reply.

@AdamSerwer @jbouie Or: Over time, a profession that dismembers human beings tends to attract only misguided idealists and monsters.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) January 29, 2014

I find his response particularly disgusting. I would argue that the anti-choicers are the people attracting other misguided violent monsters and giving them cover. Also, Douthat appears to be absolving people who murder living breathing people. Sure, some zealots view fetuses as people who deserve more rights than the women carrying them, but surely we can all agree that a grown man is a human, yes?

I did read Douthat’s article, which is garbage, per usual. He believes marriage will raise people out of poverty, well son, we have about eighteen years of research on welfare that disproves that theory. Because you know, two incomes will raise people out of poverty, but only if both partners can find living wages. See, there was this great article about a married couple who lost welfare benefits after getting married. She had a low-wage job, and he, well he had a felony and couldn’t find work. But sure, marriage keeps people with privilege out of poverty.

Douthat pretty much says women (I’ll expand to all birth capable persons) taking control of their reproduction ruined marriage because men could choose to be included in the family or not. He actually suggests a second-trimester abortion ban. This man graduated from a ridiculous mockery of journalism to dangerous. He concludes with a statement about moral absolutes being understandable.

I don’t know why some people have columns

I think I wrote about this guy once before, and surprise, surprise the topic was misogyny. Ross Douthat has yet another inexplicable opt-ed in the New York Times, you know that liberal rag, yes, yes, that liberal rag. He’s very excited one study corroborates what he’s known all along, being a father of a daughter makes you a republican…my father would disagree, but we’re always being difficult.

So the study was cited by Pew, so it is good, factually speaking, “Study: Having daughters makes parents more likely to be Republican.” Back in 2006, this was not the case. I want to get this out of the way first. The Pew piece notes people may lean toward “conservative” values because they want more morally restrictive values…not the phrasing they used.

Douthat notes the war on women language that was thrown around. I read the Pew article, and skimmed the actual study, I got bored when I couldn’t find the n’s, what I like n’s. See they are using a rather dated survey, and without the n’s or the years they are pulling the data from, we don’t know who their sample was, but I digress. Regardless, Pew and the authors note that people might be drawn to perceived conservative values such as sexual purity, etc.

Douthat brings that home, “You can love your daughters, want the best for them, and find yourself drawn to…conservative ideas! Especially if you’re highly educated, which is where the effect was strongest! Better dust off a different set of talking points—maybe something about the family as the source of all oppression and how deeply international patriarchal norms make parents subconsciously inclines to tyrannize their female offspring and then we can argue about that.”

Well, he’s right at the end, except I don’t think they are subconscious, I think they are social norms that value female purity above all things. Oh, structural oppression and self-policing. It is as if Douthat wants to reference Foucault, but doesn’t know how. Oppression is a cycle that reinforces itself. So our parents give us ideas about gender roles, and then we employ those roles, which impacts society and policy, which impacts the parental ideas and ideals about gender roles, and so on FOREVER. Of course, all of this is dependent on perspective such as race, class, sexual orientation (Douthat’s argument is framed in the heteronormative, and presumably upper class and white).

Douthat then invokes a fictional character as to why a parent might lean conservative. I haven’t read the book, it is on my reading list, so maybe next year. Regardless, the character, Nathanial P, from Adelle Waldman’s The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., he’s not the guy you want for your daughter; he isn’t a bad guy, but he is a toxic bachelor. The quote Douthat uses from Waldman about the character is, “Contrary to what these women seem to think he was not indifferent to their unhappiness. And yet seemed, in spite of himself, to provoke it.”

Nathaniel P sounds like someone who would annoy the hell out of me, and like most of the men I’ve dated. But I don’t think a fictional character should send fathers running to the Republicans because sex and marriage no longer walk hand in hand. Then Douthat notes that women are miserable because work and education…which fits in his argument if you know you want to raise Daisy Buchanan’s daughter, “I hope she’ll be a fool. That’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” Preach Daisy. Hey, Douthat opened up the literary references. Be glad I’m not dropping Emerson.  Douthat concludes with daughters provide an insight sons do not specifically that if marriage is the goal and as only something men can instigate women must using sex as a form of currency, though Douthat obviously doesn’t say that. I have to wonder if he realizes that is the argument he is making for his daughters.An argument some would say sounds a hella lot like prostitution, but there he goes with the unintentional Foucault references (sex even in marriage as a form of domestic work).

See my father is a feminist of sorts, he’s completely pro-life (anti-capital punishment etc), which I’ve mentioned before, but he wouldn’t risk my mother’s life for a baby either so there is that. I also know my dad doesn’t want to know who I’m sleeping with. We never talk about it and never will. That said, my father is a big supporter of my sisters and me. We can do anything and everything. He doesn’t know anymore who is a better parent, smarter, funnier, etc. As a collective we’re pretty damn awesome. My father also doesn’t care if I ever get married. He wants me to put my career and education first. My father and I have discussed the possibility of me not marrying. He knows my stance, and more importantly I know his. My father doesn’t believe in divorce, so marriage is permanent, end of story.

So let’s take a step back and think about how that study sample might matter. If the sample has young children, then purity and perceived safety might top the list of important things, but if the daughters are older than health choices and equal pay should top that list. The later top the list for my father. He doesn’t want me or my sisters to be dependent on someone else. My father’s concern isn’t just with our happiness, which Douthat seems to be preoccupied with. My father wants us to be capable and independent, and yes he wants us to be happy, but that comes a little later on the list. Happiness is great, but it isn’t necessary for survival and thriving.

The Root of White Resentment? Probably Not, But You Have to Start Somewhere

A friend of mine had a link this this New York Times article on her facebook page. It struck me as odd because of the title of the opinion piece, "The Root of White Anxiety," by Ross Douthat. It struck me for a couple reasons: 1. the plight of white people doesn't sound like something my friend is overly concerned with unless we are talking poor people, which is not alluded to in this title, and 2. the article begins by talking about Pat Buchanan and Harvard.

This is an interesting piece that talks about the dichotomy of elitism and bigotry, the American elite verses white Christians, to use Douthat's language. But for the sake of argument let's hear the argument about the discrimination of white Christians: liberal policies are giving too much to minority groups for discriminatory practices that happened to far back to render legitimate now. My interpretation of complaints of this vein is very simple people fear change. And while some are bigots and full of hate, I like to think that most merely worry exclusively about themselves and where they and theirs fall into a new world view. So less, white people vs. black people and more Molly Member (white, Christian, middle class) and family vs. change in world view that shifts conventional standards such as white people go to college to disenfranchised groups having access to college as well. A more individualist world view to a multicultural one. Not legitimate, but less large scale hate.

Regardless, the article argues that white people are nervous and just maybe there is some legitimacy to their concerns. Not that President Obama is a racist, but to the white poor/middle class young people may be at a disadvantage when being accepted to college. A study was put out a year ago entitled, No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life, by Thomas J. Espenshade & Alexandria Walton Radford from Princeton. The study finds that the admissions process favors potential students who would diversify the study body, e.i. ethnically diversify. Douthat asserts like Russell K. Niele that the most disadvantaged by this process is rural/working class white persons. Douthat connects this group with the "Real America" the Tea Party and Sarah Palin supporters. Douthat suggest that the "cultural divide" in America has been in the works for years, but universities can alleviate some of the gap through admissions.

I agree...but let's talk for a moment about white anxiety. I don't believe admitting more lower class white people will rectify the problems. I think it will help, but a cultural shift away from the individual might help too. Michael Kimmel wrote a book entitled Guyland, which I wrote about before, he provides another hypothesis: white privilege is the root of these anxieties and without removing this perception of specific resources belonging to an individual for no other reason than a perceived birthrate none of this will change in any lasting way. After all there are only X number of spots in Ivy League schools. But everyone having a better understanding of this situation and entitlement would assist in rectifying the problem. Perhaps a look at standardized tests would as well, after all they are racially, socioeconomically, and sexually biased. Maybe, we should go in another direction?