#DefundAbortion Report 2: MASSIVE Win for Sane Majority!

The Twitter air war between defunders and defenders started slowly with fetus fetishists using their supplied talking points from Campaign Lie.

FACT: Canadian taxpayers fund at least $80 million every year for the killing of children in the womb

FACT: There is a severe shortage of family doctors, nurses and funding for elder care and for treatment of autistic children across Canada

FACT: Abortion is an elective procedure that is not medically necessary

FACT: Over 96% of abortions are performed for convenience as a back-up birth control method

Are you ok with that?

Basically, we are buying birth control for slutty sluts with money desperately needed elsewhere for your parents and special needs children.

Conclusion: We must get abortion out of the healthcare system.

The defenders countered in classic hi-jack style, using the format and hashtag of the opposition.

#DefundAbortion = Make women pay, sometimes with their lives. https://t.co/mkjbX5S8kT

— U of C Freethinkers (@uofcfreethinker) October 3, 2013

This is my fave and probably went zooming rightover the heads of the defunders.

#DefundAbortion because churches are sick of all their tax dollars going towards it

— chris p cream (@chris_p_cream) October 3, 2013

Later, defenders got into counter-arguments.

Some defunders thought they were cleverly co-opting the language of the sane people and referred to abortion as 'choice' with the gotcha -- 'Well, it' my choice NOT to fund your choice.'

I tried this out to some success.

Do you have children? By choice? We all paid for your pre-natal care, their birth, their healthcare.

If we shld #DefundAbortion bc pregncy is not illness, then we shouldnt fund your babybirthing either. See? Stupid argument #DefendAbortion

— ray bb (@evamaud) October 3, 2013

When they tried 'the money is needed elsewhere' gambit, defenders replied with: yabbut, what about costs of surgical care for botched back-alley abortions, costs of birthing extra babies, subsequent healthcare, education for them?

That was greeted with crickets.

To the abortion is a conscience issue, I shouldn't have to pay for it trope, defenders responded with lessons on how taxation works.

Again, crickets.

If defunders didn't ignore defenders completely, they put up the typical and tedious last-ditch retort, shrieking 'abortion is murder' and quoting bible verses.

Throughout, the many defenders were witty, reasonable, and relentless.

Of the warring hashtags, #DefendAbortion was trending higher than #DefundAbortion all afternoon, joined later by #DefendChoice, which also trended higher than Defund.

This is particularly remarkable because the defenders usually used BOTH tags (to get their ripostes in the faces of fetus fetishists), while defunders used only their own tag.

So, even with a boost from defenders, the Twitter War was clearly won by the sane people.

Later, defunders posted pix and media reports of the on-the-ground effort, cleverly billed in advance as 'mini-rallies'.

Alissa Golob, the main organizer, called this one 'awesome'.

Organizers said as many as 13 people took part in the one-hour demonstration.

Others were less awesomely attended. Someone posted a photo of an event at Cheri DiNovo's office in Toronto where the protesters (5) outnumbered the stacked printed signs.

On Twitter, @HisFeministMama reported her one-woman counter demonstration there.



Here's her blogpost about the experience. Go read. This was awesome.

From most accounts, the 'mini-ralllies' would have been better labelled 'micro-rallies'.

Except at the Manitoba legislature (bold mine).

A pro-life protest against health-care funding for abortions in Manitoba drew more than their own supporters to a demonstration at the provincial legislature today.

Pro-choice supporters from the women’s rights and labour movement used social media to counter the planned event, and all together more than 200 people spent a noisy lunch-hour chanting slogans at each other over the polarizing debate.

Pro-choice numbers were easily three times the number of the supporters at the pro-life event.

And finally, I want to report on and laud a media report that demonstrates some sensitivity to pro-choice's complaint about media treatment of the abortion issue.

From a brief report by CBC also reporting on the Manitoba event.

Anti-abortionists assembled on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building on Thursday for a planned protest only to be outnumbered but pro-choice activists.

'Anti-abortionists'. Not 'pro-lifers'.

But best was the following sentence -- I repeat, in a very short piece.

Abortion is a legal, approved medical procedure in Canada and has been since 1988.

Beauty, eh?

That sentence, or one like it, should appear in every single report on abortion in Canada.

Legal, approved, medical, and settled for 25 years.

Or as we at DJ! might put it: 'Abortion is a done deal in Canada. Get the fuck over it.'

Final thoughts:
I think some eyes were opened by this exercise. Some people, both neutral on or largely ignorant of the issue, were surprised at the very existence of this tiny minority of extremists. All of whom were totally anti-choice/anti-women, NOT as they tried desperately to spin it, merely concerned citizens.

And some of the same people and others were shocked by this blatant neo-liberal attack on Canadian healthcare.

They recognized the unholy alliance of neo-libs manipulating idiots in the drive to privatize.

All in all, I'd say, this was a MASSIVE win for the sane people.

Canadians are not stupid. Fetus fetishists would be well-advised to stop treating us as if we were.


Part I of DJ!'s takeaway.