Operation Opress-You

It hasn't been a month, and already I'm slacking with this new fangled blogging thing. My roommate challenged me to leave my laptop off at home, and so I haven't been on for the past week.

Alright, so this past weekend I returned to the clinic defense actions I had last done about 4-5 years ago when I first got into activism. I was at the Planned Parenthood in Boston trying to block the pro-lifers (or anti-choicers if I may use that language) from harrassing the women going into the clinic. Now most of them just prayed. I was told one of the priests there had signed a letter along with others saying that it was acceptable (or maybe even righteous, I didn't read the letter) for people to kill abortion providers...pretty pro-life, eh?

Why is it so frustrating trying to talk to a pro-lifer? Is it them? Is it me? Is it the situation we're in? I found that I couldn't agree with them on the right words to use. I also found that their righteousness trumps logic. For instance, I told one of them that historically the only societies that try to outlaw abortion are either very fundamentalist or very fascist, like the Taliban for instance. In an instant, without thinking he gave me a response that went something like this: the act of killing a fetus leads to a culture of dehumanizing and degrading life, the Taliban also dehumanizes and devalues life, therefore, if you are for abortion (or for the right to have an abortion) you are like the Taliban. Rather I was more like the Taliban than the Taliban themselves were. As the stupidity of the argument was dawning on me, he moved on to another talking point. And only afterward did I see the logical extension of the argument. Taliban, indeed!

Now they had 10-15 tweens there praying at the clinic, and when there was a pause in the praying, I decided to ask the kids a question that had occurred to me-hey I'm a former teacher, I wanted to address the kids, who had no idea why they were there. So I say "Kids I got a question for you, So you've got this---" And then the leader, parents whom ever made them start praying again, and this guy with a fake picture of an aborted fetus gets in my face, and starts yelling at me, putting the picture/poster between me and the kids, so I couldn't address them at all. Okay, if I'm supposed to be sinful, I suppose it's a good idea for them to shelter their kids from me. But I only wanted to ask a question....

And the question was this: If God is all-loving and all-forgiving (which I remember from catholic school) then why pray for these women? Wouldn't God forgive them? Wouldn't God forgive everyone for that matter? Well, some guy came over to answer my question in really weird terms. He said God's love does not go beyond God's justice. Or maybe it was the other way around. Regardless, I had never heard of God's justice coming into the picture; I remember all-forgiving and that was it. But if you do think all-forgiving was the only thing I guess there's little reason for the constant repentance at church for being human and all that guilt that comes with being Catholic. You'd have to leave the church if you thought God was all-forgiving.

So as not to be too hard on these people, I'd like to end with an actual exchange of opinion and an honest attempt at dialogue I had with a young couple. I asked them why they were there, and they gave me the standard response, and I reciprocated with mine. They asked about the symbol we were wearing on our clothes to distinguish us from the anti-choicers: the woman's symbol with a raised fist in the center. And I talked about how it's about standing up for women, and I asked her if she thought women were oppressed. She said she'd never experienced any repression. They told me they were against the war, and I asked if they could resolve the fact that the people at the top promoting the war were the same people on their side against abortion. They said they were two different topics, and it occurred to me that they were. Did one not have anything to do with the other? I thought they did, but my mistake was thinking it was perfectly clear to others. And I hadn't really thought about the connections much myself. All in all a pretty civil discussion if not productive.

Here's my end comment. It may seem contradictory that one may be pro-choice and anti-capital punishment. But they are about the state being able to control life. In euthanasia as well, it is the question, should the state have the right to control life? To take a life in the case of capital punishment, to preserve a life that doesn't want to exist anymore in the case of euthanasia, or a life that they have no right to save in the case of abortion. Then the church is right there with the state trying to control not only life, but sex. Sex must be for procreation, hence only between a man and a woman, and terminating the end product is unthinkable.
I'll leave it there.