Friday, November 18, 2011

The Rise of the Abortion Doula

"As Abortions Become Harder to Obtain, Pro-Choice Activists Eschew Policy Debates for Flesh and Blood Activism."

This is horrifying.
“Those pictures pro-life activists flash are real,” Ms. Mahoney said. “That is what a fetus looks like when its head is crushed. When you see the procedure, you must decide, as a pro-choice person, whether you are in or out.” She’s thought about it a lot. “I have never been more in,” she said.
Read the rest.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The article mentions an exercise where the abortion doulas-in-training discuss how to respond in real world situations:

"“A woman tells you, ‘I just killed my baby.’ How do you respond?” The students broke into groups to discuss the question. Many came up with a similar answer: Explain that the procedure is legal because the fetus is not a baby, it just has the potential to be one."

This kills me...Let's take a postmodern (or existential--I get my philosophies mixed up) look at this: all truth is relative. So this woman's truth is that she killed her baby--she said it herself. The doulas are going to tell her, "No it's not, the law says it's not. It's just tissue."

Not only is telling her that it's not a baby unhelpful and cruel/painful, but it's also either:
A) lying to her (because for her, it IS a baby--you're falsifying her truth)
or
B) a break in logic (in effect saying that your truth trumps her truth in HER experience...that truth ISN'T relative, but there IS a higher truth), an issue inherent to postmodernism/existentialism.