What Being Pro Choice Really Means

Hey G Pie.

This thread from the archives of the feminist forum has some highs and lows of what pro-choice means.

Please see remind's excellent words at post #17.

An excerpt:

Thanks, Maysie!  That's exactly what I couldn't find.

And I just noticed!

Merry Christmas, Remind. 

Please email or PM me.  I want to talk to you.

I disagree and it's not often that I disagree with Remind.

Yup.

Yup.

So how do you feel, then, about women being given abortions without their consent?

Could a mod fix my post, please?

The conversation is between me and Remind at this moment.

The last two lines are askew.

"The bottom line ..." is Remind's not mine.

I have been a legal secretary for a decade and carry a huge amount of responsibility when I'm at work.  Yet I cannot successfully edit my own posts.  That would seem to indicate a problem with your software.

Hey G., if you Edit your post and put [ /quote ] after the word "self-determine.", it should format correctly. Of course, drop the word spaces in [ /quote ] when you type it in.

A woman cannot be compelled, by any means or form, to give her body into the service of another,  just as men have always had the right to personal autonomy, so too do women.

...is what it means to me.

Hey Merry Christmas GPie....wish I was on VIsland for Christmas would go see you!

And oops, I opened this thread long ago and wrote a response, but got called away from the comp so was late in responding, meanwhile maysi posted even better words of mine.... Must be getting briefer as I age. ;)

Thanks maysie...

GPie, that is a very diffcult question, as yes, I agree with you it is a nuance of sorts.

On first blush, I would say I am completely against any type of forced abortion.

Though there would/could be nuances for me to consider, if I were in the legal position to have to make such a detemination on the behalf of another.

Yah, you'd do pretty well on a psych ward, Remind.

(Kidding.)

Merry Crispix to all my fellow babblers!!!

Crispix.

It's the Festivus for the rest of us.

The Goodbye Pie:  Cleaning up the Internet since before Al Gore invented it.

Bless you.  Post is now fixed.

So I gather you're not too shit hot with slavery, either.

Can you boil it {our philosophical position} down even further, Remind?

I can't stomach "available always, for any reason."  I'm more "safe, legal and rare."

Incoming:  Did you know that Jerry Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis are *not* the same person?

I'm trying to tell a joke about Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin and it keeps bombing.

Always blindsided.  Always the last to know.  Great topic for an essay, right there.

My position on abortion is consistent with mental health legislation; that is, there is a need for it.  But, my God, use that power wisely.  Coercion in either direction must be trampled.  I had an oops when I was 17, as did many girls I went to high school with.  But we were from South Oak Bay in the 1970s and we were not allowed to keep our children.  That's why I have empathy, but not sympathy, for the rabid pro lifers.

We will prevail because we have the law and natural justice on our side.  There can be no mechanism by which any person (especially a man!) will dictate my body or, especially, my mind.

After he took from you everything he could steal.  How does it feel?  Like a Rolling Stone.

Oldgoat, I'm getting a little woo woo.  Please shut me down until New Years.  Tx.

Done.  Thanks for picking up on that.  Looked up woo woo in the DSM, couldn't find it.

......

susan, I know you and remind disagree around sex worker issues, and while there are connections and overlaps with what "choice" and "women's bodies are our own" mean, please do not derail this thread.

I don't see it as a derailment at all actually Maysie, respectfully.

If one is for women's autonomy over their own bodies in recognition of the SCC decision then I do think the two are not only related, but deal with the very same issue at core.

Susan's question is one in which I would also like an answer for. This isn't about animosity or rival opinions. This is about choice. Full stop.

I'd have to agree with Star: personal autonomy would include actions of which other women may disapprove.

good bye rabble

Susan Davis, please give it a rest.

There is, according to my more radical friends, a thing called psychiatric rape.  I don't use the term, myself, but I understand what it means.

Skdadl writes on this subject beautifully.  Look it up, if you wish.

Stay away from my private parts, including my mind.

That was totally uncalled for G. Pie. Susan didn't say anything about you or your mind nor attack you personally. She did not mention rape of any kind. Why the attack? It was unnecessary.

I bloody well hope she isn't leaving.

No one is trying to mess with anyone's "private parts".

Please don't leave Susan

This thread has a specific topic.  Susan butted in and derailed it.  I didn't attack her; I respectfully asked her to leave my thread alone. Don't we have enough threads on her subject?  

I would consider mind a private part, but that's just me.  If you want to blame me for Susan's predictable flounce, by all means, fill your boots.  You can change your story but you can't change the facts.

This thread also has nothing to do with psychiatric rape, but you mentioned that. Clearly a thread derailment no? These narrow agenda's have to go.

You have a point, Stargazer.  I might have been excessively over-protecting my thread.  If you read this, Susan, I apologize and hope we can just carry on.

Is it possible to discuss both secular and religious rights and values seperately, any more (or less) than it is to both empathize and judge, simultanously? Just as one may value certain rights, she may also have a right to certain values.  It depends on where one places the conditional (are there any absolutes, here?).  While I think it's important to understand how our rights and values originate and establish themselves, in both fact and law, I don't believe that they're mutually exclusive, even if most would disagrree.  Do we choose our entitlements (including the right to choose), or are certain individual rights inherent and inalienable, whereby choice is rendered moot?  How do we decide?  Can anyone enlighten here?

autoworker, your questions are interesting. 

I actually despise the discourse of "choice" at the theoretical level, but I'll get to that in a moment.

The language of "choice" in the North American context has been about women who seek abortions, for whatever reason, that they have the choice to continue the pregancy or to terminate the pregnancy. Terminating the pregnancy must happen in a safe, free and medically sound manner. To be clear, I completely and utterly support this framework, and access to abortion services.

In my view, however, this should not in fact be framed as a choice, but simply, as you've put it autoworker, a fact. "It's there for whoever needs it". In the Canadian context there is far more than "choice" at work however. Access, or lack of access to abortion counseling is a huge issue, as well as parental consent for minors, the age shifting rapidly from 16 to 18 to who the hell knows where it is now. As well as physical access for women in rural communities, women in provinces in which one or no hospitals will perform abortion procedures and so on. So in my view, choice, with respect to abortion, is only the tip of the iceberg.

Since the abortion debates of the 80s framed "choice" as the be-all and end-all, it's since been corrupted. Now women can say "I want botox, it's my body and my choice" with a straight face. Well, perhaps a strained tight face that can't smile for a few days. This, to me, is not the spirit of what "choice" meant.

The larger question is, are human rights up for debate or majority vote? I say no, since most of the time, history has demonstrated that the majority will vote for the status quo, and against the marginalized. Larger systemic understanding of inequalities and inequities, as practiced by grassroots activists, some brave and radical lawmakers, policy makers, and yes, the rare politician, is what changes our society. Abortion, and many other issues are framed as "social" or "moral" issues. At the systemic level they are not. In that way, "choice" is irrelevant.

Maysie:

I suppose my concern is with the entrenchment of Charter rights (notwithstanding the Notwithstanding Clause)  In that context I agree that choice should be irrelevent, but, as long as we allow our legistatures to override rights that should be guaranteed by the Constitution, then any rights issue will be open and vulnerable to political expediency. 

Overriding judicial Charter decisions leads us down a slippery slope where we risk creating a hierarchy of rights, dependent upon the the political contingencies of the moment. 

I agree that issues such as abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment should not be thrust into that environment, but, as long as the Charter is flawed by the Notwithstanding Clause, all rights are vulnerable, and remain a matter of political choice at the ballot box.

Addendum to last posting:  I should acknowledge that access to abortion is not a Charter right, nor does the fetus enjoy the status of a person under the Charter.  My point is that even with judicial clarification, rights, especially de facto ones, remain 'notwithstanding'.

This is a complex matter for me personally.  Politically, not so much.

The most slippery slope facing pro choice right now is the movement to include the death of an unborn child within homicide charges when a pregnant woman is killed. 

I understand the emotional side of the issue, and certainly if a woman is murdered and is at a point in her pregnancy that the fetus could live outside the womb, then I can see the ethical value of such a change in law.  However, those who would ban abortion outright would use this as a stepping stone to declaring a fetus a person with Charter rights. 

While I can't say I immediately reject the idea that a fetus has rights at some point, at which point does it grow from a potential human being to a human being?  Anti-choice advocates would say at the moment of conception.  I, on the other hand, would say that a collection of rapidly multiplying cells does not constitute a person, merely a potential person. 

I am, and always have been, pro choice.  To me, pro choice means not imposing one's individual values upon another when it comes to carrying a pregnancy to term or not.  But I am very strongly against abortions conducted past the first trimester, when there is no medical need (health of mother, rape, other extenuating circumstances), for many reasons - ethical and otherwise.  I know, later termination of pregancies are very rare, and more often than not involves a stillborn fetus or one that cannot possibly survive the entire gestation period.  Regardless, this is a personal issue, one that I would not impose upon another.

I'm also concerned that medical technology has extended the ability to keep fetuses born as early as 28-30 weeks gestation alive outside the womb.  I don't have any general objection to this, but our technology hasn't advanced to the extent that we can accomplish this without significant damage to the infant.  I feel that the advance of this particular life-saving branch of technology is done at the expense of the parents and their premature infants.  Yes, it's important to preserve life, when possible.  Yes, it's important to advance medical technology.  But at what cost?

I don't have definitive answers, and I suspect there are none.  But I think these issues are worthy of debate, at the very least.  Thoughts?

I wish we lived in a society where women would never feel compelled to terminate healthy pregnancies.  Is such a world possible?

I dunno autoworker, is a world in which the marginalized aren't exploited, in which racism and oppression don't run rampant, in which the poor are no longer blamed for the greediness of the bankers possible?

That's a very dicey question to ask in the feminist forum, in a thread about choice. Just letting you know.

I highly doubt it. Until the entire system changes and women are not second and third class citizens I doubt it. Ièm guessing that when men have the ability to get pregnant we will see more abortions not less. This is a womanès issue. I know men should have some involvement personally but in the grand picture it is us women who carry the baby for 9 months, then breastfeed, take the children to school, make sure their needs are taken care of, and on and on and on. Frankly we know we cannot rely on most men to help us out, even though they were involved so why should anyone have the right to remove the choice from us.

I still say that if men could get pregnant there would be no debate around abortions. None.

IMO, such a world will only be possible when birth control is 100% effective and available to everyone.  Until then accidents will continue to occur and some people will continue to choose abortion.  This includes women with money and good jobs and good spouses and good mat-leave policies available to them.  Some people just do not want babies. 

To answer G Pie's OP:  to me, being pro-choice means accepting (or even better, agreeing) that access to abortion is an important human rights issue and that each woman is individually free to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy or not.  It does not mean you have to like or agree with the choices other women make. 

I wish we lived in a society where no person felt the need to believe in some bullshit divisive brain-deadening religion (which, in my personal opinion, describes all of them, to a greater or lesser extent). Is such a world possible?

Maybe, maybe not. In the meantime, we recognize, uphold, and fight unremittingly to defend each person's absolute freedom of conscience. We argue for or against ideas, but we never put in the slightest question individual rights which are sacred.

I think you're addressing the obverse side of the same question.  As for the issue of choice, I think we agree that the term itself is problematic, in the sense that it is now an issue that is often discussed in isolation from the conditions that necessitate it.  If asking that question leads to a larger contextual analysis, then it may be worth the risk. 

If the original question is what is meant by pro-choice, my question is: in what context are women's individual decisions being made?  I'm not a psychiatrist, so I'm not trying to get into women's heads.  It's their externalities that I'm addressing.

In other words: what is to be done?

Unionist: I don't take individual rights for granted.  Either we have them or not, in law.   I believe that all argument is moot without that established fact.

Nothing from the position you are coming from

From position, woman's access to abortion/day after services and other health care services needs to be enhanced across the country.

Well, you must be aware that the Supreme Court of Canada held in 1988 that a woman's right not to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term was guaranteed by Section 7 of the Charter:

That's good enough for me, and indeed for Parliament, which has not tried to legislate restrictions on this right for the past 21 years.

So what, exactly, is the problem you're addressing?

I don't see what there is to debate, it's a womans right.

I am not 100 percent comfortable with all aspects of abortion, very late term abortions for reason other than the mothers safety being about the only one, but that really doens't happen anyway.  It also doesn't matter what does or deosn't bother me, its not any of my business, why can't we just leave it at that.  Im sick of the debate, and it wont ever be a decision i have to make, i can't imagine how tiring it must be for women, the decisions have been made, let it be.

The Notwithstanding Clause.

I always thought pro-choice meant that someone believed that what a person decided to do with their own body was completely their choice, no ifs ands or buts, so imagine my surprise wehen I found out that there were a lot of self-described radical feminists like Julie Bindel, Janice Raymond, and our very own Ghislane (I think using tra**ie when cis and to limit the definition of woman definitely applies,) seem to think that the only people who are allowed that agency are cis women. Trans men must obviously be deluded and we have to protect their womanhood despite their protestations that the only womanhood you see is the kind others have imposed upon them, and trans women? Well, we're not really women are we? Certainly we've never been raped, juggled around by a doctor who feels he knows our own body better than we do to the point of denying us the basic tools of transition or even blood pressure medication (for a 150 over 92 BP BTW, but that's my own story and your mileage may vary.)

I'm pro-choice, absolutely, always have been, since before I came out to myself, though I'm rather disturbed when pro-choice comes to mean cis women only... and only when they're terminating a pregnancy, but not when they're acting in a way you might not personally approve of but which physically (remember we're in a no-metaphor zone here, so my existence assaulting your sensibilities rings hollow...) assaults another person.

PS: I probably would have pointed this at the Lu's pahrmacy debate (which thankfully is over,) but those threads were closed.

I understand your points and I agree RTG but this thread is specifically about abortion.

I understand your points and I agree RTG but this thread is specifically about abortion.

Stargazer:

"I understand your points and I agree RTG but this thread is specifically about abortion."

"I consider myself pro choice. Yet I'm sometimes rattled by stories I read and hear. So could somebody please articulate what "pro choice" means?"

Nowhere was abortion mentioned in the opening post. And I'm saying for some it means a cis-centered, definition of abortion only, which, in and of itself, has trans misogynistic and misandristic and ablist, (to name a few) implications.

Um, what?

OFFS

Actually, I disagree that this thread is specifically about abortion: it is specifically about the meaning of "pro-choice". I grant that, to a lot of babblers, "pro-choice" is about abortion. But some babblers have argued, here and elsehwhere, that the meaning of "pro-choice" has to do with something broader than the question of abortion: something along the lines of personal autonomy or control over one's own body. From this perspective, the issue of abortion is just one issue under a more general pro-choice umbrella of autonomy or personal bodily control.

Other issues then fall under this general pro-choice umbrella:  Does the state have any place interfering with the drugs I choose to ingest? Does the state have any place interfering with whether I get sex-reassignment surgery? (If not, should the state fund sex-reassignment surgery?) Does the state have any place interfering with whether I decide to sell or donate my organs? Does the state have any place interfering with whether I decide to provide sexual services for a fee? Of course, Canada does interfere in each of the above decisions, but one might ask whether Canada engages in inappropriate interference in my control over my own body.

Leftists disagree quite strongly about the above issues: we've witnessed that several times on babble. But it might be fruitful to think of abortion in the broad context of personal autonomy and control over one's own body, to see where the arguments lead.

That said, one might also have reasons to support choice on abortion for reasons other than personal autonomy: one might argue that abortion is a special case, where the state has a special reason to uphold personal autonomy and a special reason not to interfere with my decisions concerning my own body. Such an argument might leave room for state interference in other bodily decision, e.g., drug ingestion, organ donations/sales, sex work, etc.

The original post used the words 'pro-choice', but she did clarify later on that she meant it in terms of 'right to abortion'.

I guess I'm saying that a broader discussion about pro-choice would be useful and interesting, but it isn't what this thread was intended to be about. Maybe start another one?

From my reading she further went on to discuss abortion, and abortion almost exclusively, and I think, Angella, that underlines my point rather neatly and that there are very clear hypocracies in a construction of pro-choice to allow termination of pregnancy on demand, (which I strongly support) and then to argue against, among other personal decisions, hormonal transition on demand.

I started this thread. I intended it to be about abortion, specifically, what the limits of "pro choice" are.

Most of us would draw the line at killing our children, I'm sure.

And we've all agreed to pretend that life begins at birth which is just a convenient guideline to keep Rush Limbaugh et al out of my vagina.

But what does pro choice really mean?

RTTG, since we drifted ...

I do not support transition on demand.

All but one trans person I know I met on a psych ward.

And from what they tell me (weepily), they had everything invested in a gender switch. Then they did it. Then they found out it didn't solve their essential problems. Tragedy. No going back. It's like suicide.

Do you support suicide?

How 'bout mine?

Think I should hang myself tonight?

Why or why not?

Autonomy is a wonderful thing.

But it's meaningless if it comes with diminished capacity.

Should I have the right to take my own life? Of course.

Should I be persuaded not to? Of course.

Yeah, I'm a big ol' hypocrite, all right.

Conversation over if you don't smarten up soon.

First, under what circumstances did you meet this sample set? Do you have a special transdar that lets you detect trans women when they're out and under the harsh light of day? And, by the way, congratulations on knowing so many of the 0.2-2% of those who transition that purport to regret their decision.

I did write a little article about that, basically that when you put transition in the hands of the psychiatrists, you'll create a system that makes mental patients out of women deciding what to do with their bodies.

And further, advancing a fundamentally inconsistent idea does not make you a hypocrite. Asking for my definition of pro-choice and then claiming that I didn't answer your question with the correct limitations on what pro choice is, on the other hand... You asked, I'm answering.

And the only time I've ever seen a trans woman in a psych ward was me, in a mirror, when I had to go to the only doctor in the city who will prescribe a forty cent pill that reduces my testosterone and blood pressure. I left after getting said prescription. That was after a 5 month wait. For blood pressure medication. That kind of BS will drive a girl crazy, trans or no.

Thanks for writing a "little article."

I've devoted my adult life to the psych revolution.

As I said, I met these people on psych wards.

Knock it off with the snarky and I'll come back tomorrow.

I knew they were unhappy because they told me so.

I knew they were trans gender because it was patently obvious.

Please don't lecture to me in my own thread on the struggles that psych patients face.

And to be honest with you, what little you have displayed here tells me it's not working out for you, either.

If I want to be male, I'll be male.

I don't have to Rage Against The Machine for the rest of my life.

I don't have to insult and deliberately offend my natural allies.

I don't have to wrap myself in academic snot.

I can't believe that you would come onto this board, jump into a good thread and make it ugly.

Enjoy your temper tantrum.

Some of us have better things to do.

Please, in the name of all that is Steadfast & Holy, tell me you're *not* presenting at PsychOUT in May.

I have never met one transgendered person who could pass *and* who had not been involuntarily hospitalized under an MHA.

Guess I just have an uncanny ability to sniff out that 0.2 to 2%, right?

My guesstimate on regret would include the suicidally depressed and would be in the range of 2/3 to 3/4.

That's my observation over the years.

If you don't like it, you don't like it.

Didn't.

Didn't.

You bore me and the conversation is now over. Congratulations on wasting another ally. 

So in your honest 8-post opinion, I'm a failure as a trans woman... well then. I don't know how to reply to this because I don't know enough latin to translate ad hominym. But still I will try.

Given the forum for your contact with transsexuals you seem to have quite a selection bias built in.

Regret and suicidal tendencies are not one in the same. Gay people are also more suicidal than heterosexuals. Does this mean that we regret acting on our orientation? And thus are more likely to kill ourselves? Or, more likely, is it the discrimination, and ostracization that we face that leads us to think that society doesn't care whether we live or die? That feeling is, by the way, the most reliable predictor of suicidal tendencies.

Edit after reading the last post in that string of eight to read: And further 'allies' who don't believe what I do with my body is my choice, and that trans women are all a bunch of mental cases, I'm pretty sure, we can do without.

You're a failure as an advocate.

For all I know, you're an awesome trans woman.

I just don't think you're a valuable babbler.

Sorry.

And my "selection bias" was stated from the start.

And it doesn't have to be either/or on the suicidality thing, you know. Could be a combo of both. Usually is.

Please don't explain suicide to me.

And have a good day. I'm outta here.

Please don't explain transsexuality to me... and I thought you said this conversation was over.

Muffin, to me, the "rare" part of "safe, legal, and rare" is morally loaded, which is why I reject that formulation. I understand why Clinton uses it (came up with it?) -- she's a politician in a country where a significant number of people don't entirely grasp their own Bill of Rights and are given to extreme moralizing, so she has to sound pious on this and a number of other turfs in order to get elected.I don't know what Elizabeth May is doing, although she is fond of importing Clintonisms into Canadian politics.

No state and nobody "gives" us human rights. Human rights are inherent. The Charter is not a granting of rights; it's a codification of the rights all living persons just have. It may be a work in progress; it may not be a perfect codification; and we are still not all that good at living up to the ideals, but it should be a teaching tool, and it should be a defence for anyone who is being discriminated against, or under the illegal control of anyone else. We're still working on those last parts.

To me, what the Supremes did was simply to recognize that adult women are fully human. That's what choice means: I'm as much a human bean as any man is, so why do some of them think they have the right to any power over my private life at all? Or why would some women think that, come to that. People have a right to their opinions, of course, any silly opinions they like, but that's it.

People say that we have no abortion law in Canada, and in a narrow sense that's true. Abortion remains a medical procedure, though, so the doctors have codes of their own they must answer to, provincial/professional codes and then the oath they take, which I consider sets an even higher standard than most laws (although a lot of doctors aren't that bright philosophically and can't necessarily be trusted to understand human rights without moralizing). I don't believe that any doctor in Canada would kill a viable baby the day before it was due just because a woman decided she would rather get her nails done; that just doesn't happen and can't, although it's the scenario that a lot of the moralizers would like to scare people with.

Of course transgendered people have the right to decide what they do with their own bodies. No one is stepping in to stop, say, a woman who decides she wants her labia trimmed or whitened (to go with the Brazilian wax, you know). You and I might have opinions about that; you might have psychological theories about why women would do that; but a woman going for plastic surgery also has the right to tell you to sod off, and she has the law behind her, as she should. Why should she be subjected to your theorizing? This is just more of the moralizing noise we make at one another, and I sure don't like it. Trans people are in a similar situation except for what I consider better reasons, and I'd be ashamed to try to impose my fantasies of correct identity or correct mental health on them. Liberty is the only fantasy I go for.  *wink*

I do draw the line at commerce in organs. People do have the right to give up an organ -- that happens fairly often within families, eg, and the law doesn't stop it. I do think it's right, though, to ban trade for money in organs. If people are selling their kidneys, then we have begun to farm people, essentially, and obviously I think that's wrong.

Sorry RTTG, didn't mean to get on your bad side, and I won't be joining in on the pile up below, The fact is cis women are the only women who get pregnant (unless there is some medical development I am completely unaware of that allows women/men with no uterus to become pregnant). I'm unsure of how abortion itself can be misogynist. Women have abortions, men don't. Period.Unless I am misreading you I would be honestly interested in how or why you consider abortion, or speaking about abortion, as trans-phobic.

I consider your body yours, to do with as you see fit. It isn't mine to make decisions about or over or to construct theories as to why you will be, or have or are transitioning. I fully support your choice to transition, and I welcome you as a woman. I think it is important to realize we are allies, not enemies.

That said, making abortion about something other than a woman's right to chose is problematic, for me anyways and I suspect for many other women.

[apalogizes in advance for the drift]

Despite this thread's topic, which I contributed to on topic in the past, when I read this sentence, my first thought was "Diana Ross and the Supremes had this kinda of power? Maybe so.

You Tube Link: Stop in the Name of Love

[/end of drift with more profuse apologies]

Skdadl, I will read & respond to your post in full when I get back from work. But it looks great & I can't wait!

One tiny issue -- rights can't be inherent; that's a philosophical warp.

When the earthquake struck Haiti, did the survivors rush out and scream at the sky "Hey, what about our human rights?"

Human rights like animal rights or any other rights are an invention of a clever species to help us make sense of the world.

If dinosaurs ruled the world, there wouldn't be any dino-rights.

And on safe, legal and rare, isn't that just a catchy phrase?

Rare, to me, in this instance, means "not primary means of birth control."

Oh, and I did abort. At age 17. With my parents' (retroactive) blessing. And I did go through a period of mourning. And I got over it. And if I became pregnant now, I would have the child. I have no particular wish to be a parent, however, and don't intend to become pregnant ever again.

I was 17 back in the early 80s and it was a different landscape than we have now. The world's getting better.

I'm pro choice. Pro choice. I support the right of human teenagers to keep their children if they want to. I was coerced into my abortion. I don't regret it; I don't regret anything. My choices, both mine and those forced upon mine, made me who I am today.

Had I kept that pregnancy, my kid would be in his 20s today. Had I followed the same path, Social Services (or my family) would have been forced to remove him. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have followed the same path. A large part of the imagery and horror of my first psychosis was my abortion.

All I'm saying is that it's not just a routine medical procedure unless it's the morning after pill or some such. It's a morally loaded issue and it should be. It's just that the Republicans are dead wrong on the moral issues. So what else is new?

I've gotta go.

OT: Oh, gosh, I just love that performance. Think of all the girls who worked so hard on those moves. I can still do the "Stop!" part pretty well. 

They turned out to be kind of a sad story, but they broke through a few barriers on the way, which is a good thing, I guess.

It's true that this is a philosophical problem. When we talk about human rights, we're talking about humans trying to live in society with one another, which right away is not a state of nature. But those who claim we have inherent rights claim it on the basis of our animal reality -- I'm here; I'm alive; deal with it -- an argument from nature.

So yes, it's a turning-point between social/political thought and the argument from nature. I don't know whether it's a warp; I'll have to think about that. But the question remains: how do we build societies that make it possible, on the one hand, for us to stand to live together, to share, to co-operate, to keep the peace, etc, and yet maintain that recognition of essential animal existence and dignity? I'm a srs believer in essential animal existence and dignity, partly because I feel quite fierce about my own liberty and then partly because I've watched animals a lot. It's just a basic truth, something all animals will do: corner me, and I'll rip your guts out or die trying. No social theory can go anywhere without recognizing that truth.

It's a common, and most here would agree, fair criticism of those who identify as pro-life, that their movement's spokesmen often don't support post-natal care, supports for the homeless, etc, or as comedian Mike MacDonald puts it, "Right to life until you're born and then here's a piece of cardboard... good luuuuuuck!"

I'm asking those who identify as pro-choice if they're really and logically in favour of choice. Being pro-choice means a lot more than believing in the right to terminate, or have fully supported, a pregnancy. Abortion's not transphobic, but the following is: Those who loudly claim to be pro-choice until it's the choice to express my gender identity and avail myself of medical transition; who expect me to submit to a battery of hurdles, requirements, and red tape that would be considered by them to be a criminal level of restriction were I choosing not to bear an infant instead of not to bear an artifice; who claim that what they do with their body is an inalienable right; and who somehow forget all the justifications they just used proclaiming their bodily soverignty when it comes to letting me excercise my bodily soverignty, that's transphobic. I'm saying my definition of pro-choice has to include, among other choices, transition, by sheer logic.

Nobody is going to force a person to be a victim of willful non-treatment of their biology because it makes elements of society more comfortable and then be allowed to proclaim, without rebuttal, that they are pro-choice.

Think you are failing to interpret correctly why there are no abortion laws in Canada.....

The decision was based upon  women not being forced to give their lives into the "service" of another, just as men could not.

Which is completely non-applicable to  the 'choice' in gender changes, as nobody is being forced to give their lives into the service of anyone else in respect to their gender selection choices.

I disagree, and I think that RTG is right. If anyone is controlling or attempting to control RTG's right to determine her own sexual identity, then she is being forced to live in a way others have determined. That is wrong.

My point from letter one, skdadl. Thank you.

Hey, and I agree with the both of you.

Had a nap.

Sorry for the earlier crankiness, everyone.

Skdadl, an argument from nature -- yes, I know all about that.

That's why it's legal (or ought to be) to urinate in public.

Frowned upon, sure, but legal.

I'm pro choice with the caveat of informed consent.

I don't believe it's in a rational person's best interests to use our medical system to try to change their problems in living. I'm a Szaszian in that respect.

I don't believe that rational people try to determine other people's best interests for them. 

Children, or cats who don't believe the vet is going to help? Sure. We have a duty of care. Adult human beans? No.

(There's the obvious exception of criminal behaviour that affects others.)

Nobody I know is stopping trans people from transitioning. However, if they are asking for support through the public health system to do so, that becomes a public issue.

How many times have we heard the equivalent? Nobody I know is stopping pregnant women from terminating their pregnancies. However, if they are asking for support through the public health system to do so, that becomes a public issue.

This is my point: The fundamental, and frankly privileged, illogic on display. That, and that statement indicates you obviously haven't tried to transition in Canada. It's been 6 months and five days since I asked for hormones and still I have yet to be prescribed estrogen, which I will still pay for out of pocket. At 26, my biological clock ticks with all the quietude of a tympani drumbeat. Oddly enough I'm *lucky* to live in Alberta in terms of access to hormones and social transition. Ontario and the CAMH, home of Ray Blanchard who basically says all trans women are gay men or cross-dressing perverts and says of trans men... well, nothing really... would be much, much, worse. More hazing than support. The idea is not to bar transition, just to make it so traumatic and alienating that people drop out en masse. This is the same system by which anti-choice advocates in the rural US make it next to impossible for poor women to get abortions.

RTTG, I support your right to physically reflect the gender you feel you were born, and would never restrict the access of any MTF to spironolactone, etc.  But women have been dying in childbirth for millennia, and dying from botched abortions for at least hundreds of years.  When my mother was a young nurse, she remembers, before abortion was legalized, there were entire wards full of women with massive pelvic infections subsequent to their being butchered in their desperation to avoid carrying a pregnancy to term.  And speaking of a lack of choice, there's the women who get pregnant from rape, so they have the potential double whammy of denied choice, forced to have sex against their will, and then forced to bear a child against their will.

So there's the right to reflect the gender to which a person feels they were born.  And there's the reproductive rights for which women fought hard for in this country, and eventually won.  And these are entirely separate things, see?  RTTG, I respectfully request you do not conflate the two.

R. v. Morgentaler [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30 was a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada wherein the abortion provision in the Criminal Code of Canada was found to be unconstitutional, as it violated a woman's right under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to "security of person". Ever since this ruling, there have been no laws regulating abortion in Canada.

This had nothing to do with the draft or any other form of conscription. If it did, the supreme court would strike down mandatory snow shovelling bylaws. This was about society's remit falling short of the body.

Funny I kinda thought we all were forced to "live" in a way that others have determined, I mean what the hay, for example we even have a thread here about protestors having the right to determine how protestors protest.

However, living in its own right is really not being forced to give one's life into the service of another.

No...that is not a correct summation in wiki, there is a thread in the feminist forum about what the exact wording by the Supremes was,  but distilled down it was based upon  British Common Law from which our laws are derived, which holds that humans cannot be compelled to give their lives into the service of another, even if death is a result .

it is the same law which holds slavery illegal.

Differences of content do not all on their own make differences of structure, or of principle.

Perhaps in some matters, however there is a clear distinction between giving one's life into the service of another, which is actual slavery, than there is to the issue of choosing to physically conform to one's self perceptions of gender.

I just don't see it. Mental health, and all that that entails, is supposed to be considered basic medical care in Canada. Anyone can have cosmetic plastic surgery at any time at his/her own expense, but I should think that enlightened people, certainly psychiatrists, would take questions of sexual identity as serious health matters.

I'm just kind of gobsmacked that this has turned into such a hard slog. I can't see what feminists who've been working on choice for decades (as I have, since the late 1960s) have to object to when it comes to transgendered people. The language of the Charter is uncompromising -- freedom of conscience and security of the person. And that's not just British common law. That's all serious thought about democracy in the West since at least the C17.

No, we haven't lived up to it yet. But that's sure no reason for decent people to shave principle. Why? Why are people finding this so hard?

Not finding anything hard,  there is just no compare, it is just that simple.

being forced to be a slave to another person, is in no way like making a personal choice to have one's body conform to one's own self perception of gender...just as cosmetic surgery is not equivalent to slavery, even though many people do it to conform to their personal idea of the gender they are...just as I choose not to starve and over excercise so that I conform to the "rail thin" mode of womanhood.

as Redtoryteagirl stated said persons stuck in the wrong gender identity body, also choose not to have  reassignment surgery, and still consider themselves the gender they perceive themselves to be.

What I object to is the rhetoric, where RTTG is trying to piggyback gender-related issues onto abortion choice.  They're two separate things.  I support choice in both, but why try to conflate transgender rights and reproductive rights?  It's rather strange.

Sexual identity is not cosmetic -- at least, I don't think so. And there are lots of ways to find yourself controlled -- enslaved, if you like -- to others. The bourgeois proprieties do that to many of us every day in ways big and small, and fighting those whenever we can is some of the most basic political work we can do.

Anyway, I think I've said all I can to this topic, and besides, we're about to be EPU'd because of thread length. RTTG, I hope that you continue to contribute here. My heart goes with anyone who is travelling towards a vision of liberty.

Agree sineed, seems weird to me too, as there is just no compare.

Great closing words.

You will forgive me, but I think Kimberly Nixon, for one, can speak much more accurately than I can about issues of rape, intersectionality and how women's rights ought not just extend to the fertile. I'd come back with statistics but, the perception still exists that being openly trans is dangerous, sometimes physically, but much more often socially and professionally, so that most who transition disappear from view, so I have no numbers  with levels of accuracy that I would be comfortable using on the incidence of rape, or murder, or butcherous medical treatment of trans women. We fall into the fallacy of economists like myself: If we are immeasurable, we probably don't exist, and definitely don't factor into decisions.

I will continue to assert my section 7 rights are just as worthy of respect as any cis woman's, that to call one's self pro-life, one cannot believe society's obligation to life ends with a requirement of pregnancy to term, that one must then support that life, through a reasonably wide range of sectors of society. The same applies to pro-choice. One must deal with the full implications of that choice, or use modifiers to state the parameters of your desire to fight for choice over one's body only in the sector of pregnancy. Women still, for example, don't have full reproductive choice in Canada, are denied tubal ligations, and other medical treatments which put their own comfort and safety above their fertility, often, in the case of some women, even after multiple unwanted and physically dangerous pregnancies, because society clings to a notion of a functional person as being fertile.

Perhaps it's because I live these issues, but I see little to separate these rights except the unwillingness to acknowledge our genders and our agency with precisely the same validity of the cis. That on some level, my gender is not a core, and biological fact; that it is some sort of hobby, which I may be indulged in, instead of something that people have been correcting for at least since 'male' pagan priestesses rode pregnant mares through Europe centuries ago.