Now we haven't exactly ignored the 'new wave' of anti-choice/anti-feminist sites like Signal Hill, aka ProLife BC, and ProWoman ProLife, but I intend to pay more attention to them, starting a little while ago with PWPL's endorsement of the abusive, violent, father's rights guy Greg Fultz, aka The Billboard Guy.
These new wave efforts (mostly) eschew the old blame the
PWPL is more interesting than Signal Hill/ProLife BC because it tries a lot harder to pretend that it is a real blog and not an astroturfed initiative by a fundy religious group.
It claims that its goal is not legal recriminalization of abortion but moral and logical suasion. Its motto is 'Canada without abortion. By choice.' (Note co-option of our language; there's a lot of that.)
From the site's The Story page:
…Pro-woman because we are pro-life…
The idea that abortion is a woman’s right was always just an opinion. There’s no basis in law, in logic or in our constitution. And there’s certainly no basis in early feminist thought.
The early feminist thought bit is true. Early feminists were, sensibly, more concerned with voting and property rights than reproductive rights. First things first, after all. Margaret Sanger was herself anti-abortion, a fact antichoicers omit when they are excoriating her for her (quite progressive at the time) views on eugenics.
More from The Story:
The idea for ProWomanProLife was developed by founding director Andrea Mrozek. “It’s not a woman’s right to have an abortion,” says Mrozek. “There’s no such thing as a right to an abortion, not for women, not for men. It doesn’t contribute to women’s rights and freedoms at all, because having an abortion is, put simply, not a right.”
That's a bit twisty, innit? Doesn't contribute to rights and freedoms because it's not a right? Well, if one considers bodily integrity and autonomy a right -- as sane people do -- then it bloody well is a right.
More:
* ProWomanProLife is a home for all women who believe that being pro-life is compatible with women’s rights and freedoms.
Trans: PWPL is for women with the ability to hold diametrically opposed opinions at the same time.
* ProWomanProLife celebrates women’s legitimate choices, freedoms and rights.
Trans: 'Legitimate' as our lords and masters decide.
* ProWomanProLife believes abortion is bad for women and that women will be integral in removing abortion from our cultural landscape.
Trans: For 'bad', see 'legitimate' above.
DJ!: Fine, remove it from 'cultural landscape', whatever that may be, as long as it is left in the medical landscape.
* ProWomanProLife desires to bring an end to abortion, not by coercion, but by choice.
Trans: See? We worked the magic word 'choice' in again.
* ProWomanProLife believes abortion is a human, social issue, not a religious or faith matter, whereby women and men of any faith or no faith at all can stand up in support of women’s rights and life, at the same time.
DJ!: That's just a great big porky pie. See below.
* ProWomanProLife understands the fetus is a new and unique human being from conception, separate from, though dependent on, the woman.
* ProWomanProLife believes that the fetus is deserving of protection.
Trans: We reserve the right to display gory fetal pr0n anytime we get backed into a corner.
Here's the porky: From The Women section:
Andrea [Mrozek] currently works at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada as Manager of Research and Communications.
That Institute is the wholly owned subsidiary of the evangelical, Xian Focus on the Family.
Focus on the Family Canada is "committed to helping families thrive." Its mission is to "encourage and strengthen the Canadian family through education and resources based on Christian principles"; its purpose is to "love God and our neighbours by serving Canadian families and encouraging them to pursue a growing relationship with Jesus Christ"; and its guiding principles include the preeminence of evangelism, permanence of marriage, the value of children, the sanctity of human life, the relationship of church, family and government.
The other Women are painted as young, dynamic career women, who just care so darn much about (benighted) other women that they devote their spare time to
Since they're all about respectful dialogue, yadayada, they are not so quick with the 'delete comment' button. I've posted comments, usually with pertinent links and usually ignored, over there. Viz, their Billboard Guy post. And Mrozek's belated and evasive response.
More recently, I chimed in on their latest attempt to appear relevant, in this case on the Saudi women's campaign to drive.
Commenting on true infringements of women’s rights is something PWPL likes to do.
'True' infringements like a ban on driving. In a Muslim country, note. Many more 'true infringements', in their view, seem to occur in Muslim places than Western places, but no matter about that.
Another new post over there (sorta) takes on the gender imbalance caused by sex-selective abortion in some parts of the world. Just to show you how serious they are, they quote Kathy Shaidle who SHRIEEEKS about how such an imbalance is imminent in Toronto because of all the -- you guessed it -- Muslim immigrants.
Anti-feminists/fetus fetishists love sex-selective abortion. They consider it the ultimate Gotcha! If feminists defend it, Gotcha! The evul feminazis are condoning killing 'unborn women' (no shit, that's how they refer to female embryos). If feminists don't condone it, Gotcha! Evul feminazis believe there should be some restrictions on abortion. If feminists don't address it, Gotcha! Haul out the 'where are the feminists?' refrain. (There is a new book about this generating some comment. I'm working on a response.)
So. An invitation from DJ! to like-minded readers: pop over there occasionally. Leave a (respectful) comment, with irritating links to facty-sciency stuff.
Let's show them some love.
Maybe a coupla iterations of the 'you know, you DON'T speak for me' refrain that anti-feminists love to throw at feminists wouldn't be outta line either.
(It's gonna be a loooong four years of The Harper Regime. I'm trying to find some fun where I can.)
4 comments:
"That Institute is the wholly owned subsidiary of the evangelical, Xian Focus on the Family."
The pinch was in a few years ago when I linked to them for something or other and started getting return hits from them that were labelled "wp-admin" (wp = wordpress, "admin" is a logged-in blog administrator) -- on Focus on the Family IPs. (I think I still have screenshots of the sitemeter stat details on my other computer.)
No religious nuttery involved, not at all. Hahahhahahaha!
Suzy is boring these days, you're right. I don't go there anymore.
Andrea Mrozek has become far more amusing. She really needs to make new friends.
SUZY CAPSLOCK
I like that!
I'm glad other feminists have started keeping tabs on Mrozek. Her appropriation of feminist rhetoric is particularly irksome. Pro-life is pro-woman, fancy that. My blog was directly inspired by her psudo-feminist nonsense.
But why hasn't she commented here yet? Or is she going to whine on her blog?
I criticized her once on my blog and after she found it, she linked to it and I got 400+ views in one day! I considered that good publicity :)
prowomanprochoice: Dunno why she doesn't comment here. I link to blog when I comment there. And sometimes to specific DJ! posts intended to get up their collective nose. I don't think she/they have linked to us here, but we get some hits from my comments. Not that any enlightenment ensues. . .
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