Mermaid Musings

Now that we can breathe a collective sigh of relief: the election is over, eight years of stone-age policies are coming to an end, and we can look forward to government policies that have more to do with reality than the visions of a minority fringe.

As one blogger stated, Roe is safe. It is unlikely that the Supreme Court will shift any further to the right and Obama is not likely to appoint any anti-abortion judges during his tenure. It will be interesting to see what the so-called ‘pro-life’ movement chooses to focus on. It would be gratifying if they decided that preventing unwanted pregnancies was a good strategy for reducing (or eliminating, because let us not forget that many of them wish to put an end to all) abortions. Personally, I’m skeptical. Not just because I don’t think the ‘pro-life’ movement is going to move in that direction but before I would be comfortable forging a coalition on preventing unwanted pregnancy with them, they would have to be really clear about their motives and strategies.

There are lots of ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy that I would see as anti-woman and anti-sex. They could pour more energy and money into preventing comprehensive sex education, attempting to impose more abstinence-only curriculums at the local level (since it’s not likely those programs will continue to receive much support nationally). They could engage in public ‘education’ campaigns to stigmatize young and unmarried women who have sex.

I think the reproductive justice movement needs to move forward with a pro-woman, pro-sex, pro-human rights effort to reduce the need for unwanted pregancy. ‘Pro-lifers’ be damned. If they want to join us in our efforts, fantastic. If not, I don’t see the need or the benefit of working in coalition with them. This is not the time to make concessions. This is the time to press forward into creating a culture and society that respects women, women’s sexuality and women’s reproductive decisions.