The phone rings.
I answer.
Me: Hello?
Recorded Voice: Hello, I'm calling to conduct a survey about abortion. If are not interested in taking part in the survey, simply hang up.
Me: [doesn't hang up]
R.V.: If you consider yourself pro-life, anti-abortion, press 2.
Me: [doesn't press 2]
R.V.: If you consider yourself pro-choice, pro-abortion rights, press 9.
Me: [still listening to make sure I have it right]
R.V.: Again, if you are pro-life, press 2 and if you are pro-choice, press 9.
Me: [presses 9]
R.V.: [now much happier] Thank you for being pro-life!
Me: Huh?! [presses 9 again]
R.V.: We at Right to Life of Michigan are excited to have you. Through this survey, we are building a coalition of 5 million households. We have a wonderful opportunity to repeal abortion rights. We have enough votes in both the House and the Senate--
Me: [hits again 9.]
R.V.: We at Right to Life of Michigan are excited to have you. Through this survey, we are building a coalition of 5 million households. We have a wonderful opportunity to repeal abortion rights. We have enough votes in both the House and the Senate--
Me: [decides to hold on so I can speak to a real person and fix up this egregious error]
R.V.: If you would like to make a contribution to help us take away the rights of women,* press 6.
[long pause while I wait for another option.]
R.V.: [silence]
Me: [mashes down 9]
R.V.: Thank you for agreeing to contribute to our cause! You'll be receiving a mailing from us shortly!
Me: What the--? But I didn't--! I PRESSED NINE! NIIIIIIIINE!!
*this may not have been the exact words the recording used. But then again, it may have been.
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
26 June 2007
29 March 2007
Archive: Mean and Honest
This afternoon I received the following message from a classmate of mine:
Hey Dave! I know this is fairly random, but I am writing a paper on the misconceptions and stances of Pro Choice and Pro Life organizations. As a fighting Pro Choice believer, I was hoping you could write me up a brief somethin somethin explaining how you view members of Pro Life and the Pro Life organization in general. If you could do that I would really appreciate it and it would add some awsome spice to my paper. Thank you so much! Hope to hear from ya soon.
I responded:
When do you need it and how much do you need?
Moments later, I received this message:
As much as you care to give me and as soon as you can get it to me :) Basically I am showing how both sides are misrepresented by the other side and by society. How Pro Choice are labled as baby killers and Pro Life are labled as bible thumpers. So be as mean as you want, just give me your honest opinion about the Pro Life organization :)P.S. THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!
Do you see the same problem that I did? Look closer.
Yeah, there it is: she's asking me to be an example of how "my side" misrepresents the other side. Yeah . . . Perhaps she's just tipping her hand too much or maybe she thinks I'm even more of a rabble rouser than I really am, in either case, I'm not loving the scenario. I love too that she wants me to be as mean as I want but give my honest opinion, the underlying assumption being that my honest opinion will be mean.
Take a look at the response I offered her and let me know what you think:
I am Pro Choice. I believe in a woman's right to choose when she wants to have a baby. I believe that denying women that choice is unfair and unconstitutional. That being said, I am pro life in a very literal sense.
I am all for life. I hope everyone lives for as long and as happily as possible without infringing on anyone else's right to do the same. The semantic issue raised by the term "Pro Life" is one of my biggest problems with the "Pro Life" camp-- because it implies that the opposition is "Anti-Life" or "Pro Death." I'm not Pro Death. I'm not even Pro Abortion. I wish there were no need for abortions and that only people that wanted to and were ready to have children would get pregnant. I also wish George Bush were a gas station attendant instead of the president and that I owned the patent on a cheap, renewable energy source but that doesn't make it true. The simple fact is not everyone who finds themselves pregnant is in a position to provide for a child (and no, adoption is not a suitable solution. Don't believe me? Check out the statistics on the number of children up for adoption and the number of children actually being adopted). So, I support a woman's right to choose (should she become pregnant) whether or not she wants to carry the pregnancy to term. I also support a man or a woman's right to choose to have anything removed from his or her body that he or she is not prepared to support for 18 years.
I view the opposing side in the abortion argument not as "Pro Life" but as "Anti-Choice" and I disagree with their argument. But, I don't think they're crazy. Certainly the Anti-Choice camp has its zealots, like abortion clinic bombers and people who murder doctors (killing someone to show them how much you hate killing somehow doesn't seem like the sanest tactic) but that's the fringe element. Most of the opponents of a woman's right to choose are very good people-- which may be more credit than many of them would give to us Pro Choicers. Then again, maybe not.
The argument comes down to a fundamental disagreement over what constitutes human life. Ultimately, I think they have their science wrong. A collection of cells does not equal a human. A fetus is not a baby. A zygote is not a baby. I believe life is that precious little time between birth and death and I believe it's that period of time we should be focusing on. The Anti Choice camp seems much more interested in the period between fertilization (and an hour or so before) and extraction. My biggest criticism of them is simply that their goal seems to be to bring every pregnancy to term with little regard as to what happens next.
I truly applaud the "Pro Life" movement, though, for acting on their convictions. If they believe that a zygote is a human life then it would be shameful of them not to try to preserve it. I disagree with their definition of human life, but I agree with them about its importance. To me, though, seeing that each human has as happy a life as possible is far more important than just making sure every pregnancy ends with a birth. It's a question of quality of lives versus quantity of lives. For me, quality will always win.
Hey Dave! I know this is fairly random, but I am writing a paper on the misconceptions and stances of Pro Choice and Pro Life organizations. As a fighting Pro Choice believer, I was hoping you could write me up a brief somethin somethin explaining how you view members of Pro Life and the Pro Life organization in general. If you could do that I would really appreciate it and it would add some awsome spice to my paper. Thank you so much! Hope to hear from ya soon.
I responded:
When do you need it and how much do you need?
Moments later, I received this message:
As much as you care to give me and as soon as you can get it to me :) Basically I am showing how both sides are misrepresented by the other side and by society. How Pro Choice are labled as baby killers and Pro Life are labled as bible thumpers. So be as mean as you want, just give me your honest opinion about the Pro Life organization :)P.S. THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!
Do you see the same problem that I did? Look closer.
Yeah, there it is: she's asking me to be an example of how "my side" misrepresents the other side. Yeah . . . Perhaps she's just tipping her hand too much or maybe she thinks I'm even more of a rabble rouser than I really am, in either case, I'm not loving the scenario. I love too that she wants me to be as mean as I want but give my honest opinion, the underlying assumption being that my honest opinion will be mean.
Take a look at the response I offered her and let me know what you think:
I am Pro Choice. I believe in a woman's right to choose when she wants to have a baby. I believe that denying women that choice is unfair and unconstitutional. That being said, I am pro life in a very literal sense.
I am all for life. I hope everyone lives for as long and as happily as possible without infringing on anyone else's right to do the same. The semantic issue raised by the term "Pro Life" is one of my biggest problems with the "Pro Life" camp-- because it implies that the opposition is "Anti-Life" or "Pro Death." I'm not Pro Death. I'm not even Pro Abortion. I wish there were no need for abortions and that only people that wanted to and were ready to have children would get pregnant. I also wish George Bush were a gas station attendant instead of the president and that I owned the patent on a cheap, renewable energy source but that doesn't make it true. The simple fact is not everyone who finds themselves pregnant is in a position to provide for a child (and no, adoption is not a suitable solution. Don't believe me? Check out the statistics on the number of children up for adoption and the number of children actually being adopted). So, I support a woman's right to choose (should she become pregnant) whether or not she wants to carry the pregnancy to term. I also support a man or a woman's right to choose to have anything removed from his or her body that he or she is not prepared to support for 18 years.
I view the opposing side in the abortion argument not as "Pro Life" but as "Anti-Choice" and I disagree with their argument. But, I don't think they're crazy. Certainly the Anti-Choice camp has its zealots, like abortion clinic bombers and people who murder doctors (killing someone to show them how much you hate killing somehow doesn't seem like the sanest tactic) but that's the fringe element. Most of the opponents of a woman's right to choose are very good people-- which may be more credit than many of them would give to us Pro Choicers. Then again, maybe not.
The argument comes down to a fundamental disagreement over what constitutes human life. Ultimately, I think they have their science wrong. A collection of cells does not equal a human. A fetus is not a baby. A zygote is not a baby. I believe life is that precious little time between birth and death and I believe it's that period of time we should be focusing on. The Anti Choice camp seems much more interested in the period between fertilization (and an hour or so before) and extraction. My biggest criticism of them is simply that their goal seems to be to bring every pregnancy to term with little regard as to what happens next.
I truly applaud the "Pro Life" movement, though, for acting on their convictions. If they believe that a zygote is a human life then it would be shameful of them not to try to preserve it. I disagree with their definition of human life, but I agree with them about its importance. To me, though, seeing that each human has as happy a life as possible is far more important than just making sure every pregnancy ends with a birth. It's a question of quality of lives versus quantity of lives. For me, quality will always win.
25 October 2006
Archive: Now I'm a Baby Killer
I go to a Catholic college. This week at my Catholic college is "Pro-Life Week" (or as I like to call it "Preaching to the Choir Week" or "What Separation Between Church and State? Week"). It's an entire week of campus-wide emotional appeals involving t-shirts with pictures of transluscent fetuses on them, posters about how every unwanted child will magically be wanted once it's put up for adoption, and a cemetary of tiny crosses placed in the field usually reserved for games of Ultimate Frisbee.
They do this every year and every year the fundie Catholics at the school nod their heads and smile as they walk through the embryo museum marveling at how much that gelatenous blob looks like a person. Meanwhile, those radicals on campus like myself who believe that women are people too and should have basic rights shake our heads and try to choke back the vomit gurguling in our throats.
This year, a handful of students decided to do something about it. They didn't put mini wire hangers on all the mini crosses like I suggested (By the way, if all the mini markers for the dead babies are crosses does that mean they're assuming that all the dead babies were Christian? What about the little Jewish embryos? Shouldn't there also be mini Stars of David or mini crescents for the Muslim babies? That doesn't really seem fair.) Instead, a couple of my friends set up a dignified, silent protest wherein we all stood around the mini cemetary holding pro-choice signs. Dignified signs too, they said things like "Proud Catholic for Choice" and "Keep Abortion Legal" and "The Government has no Right to Legislate Morals." They really did a great job. I suggested that we give a sign to the statue of "the virgin" Mary which stands behind the field of mini crosses. Specifically I wanted to have her hold a "I wish I could have had an abortion" sign. [Note: I was totally kidding about that. I don't think Mary would have wanted an abortion. Point of fact I don't think 'Mary' even existed.]
I got there at about 9:15 this morning. Cold as Hell. A bunch of folks had already been out there for twenty minutes or so in the cold, wet and dark. Frankly, it felt great. It was nice to be doing something . . . even if that something was being quiet and innert. We intended it to be a silent protest so that there could be no screaming matches. We talked to each other and people who came up and struck nice, rational conversations, but we weren't there to fight with anyone. And for the most part, we didn't have to. Many people (especially faculty and staff) waved, gave thumbs up or cheered as they drove by. I was really impressed by the support we got. Even some people from the anti-choice group came over and thanked us for staging our protest in such a great way. That was really awesome and I sincerely hope we've opened doors to real discourse on campus.
Of course, there were the people who referred to us as "Those Goddamn Pro-Choice people" (which I wasn't really hurt by, but some of the religious folks in the group seemed to feel the sting a bit) and a couple of people who called us all "Baby Killers." I guess they thought we were actually performing abortions right there on their field of mini crosses . . . which would have been an interesting choice, but probably not a great way of generating dialogue. We also had a group of girls come over and pray really loudly in front of the Mary statue. I briefly considered going over to them and praying loudly to Zeus, that he might smite the unbelievers with his wicked cool thunderbolts, but ultimately I decided not to. Mostly because one of the prayer warriors was a co-worker of mine and I figured it'd be awkward enough already.
The most exciting part of the day, though, was fairly early in the morning when we had our only completely irrational screamer. She had driven by a couple of times and I guess the third time was the charm because she slammed on her brakes, hopped out of her car, leaving the door open and stood in the middle of the street screaming at us. She was upset because we were staging our protest right in front of "Touchdown Mary" (which just makes it sound oh, so scared). I walked over and handed her one of our prepared statements (our plan for dealing with unruly) she told me that she didn't want anything from us people, she didn't want to hear it. So, we tried to explain that we weren't protesting Mary we were protesting the mini cemetary that they had put in front of Mary. If they had put up their mini crosses elsewhere we would be elsewhere.
She didn't want to hear it. She was ashamed for us.
I said, "M'am, will you please calm down." "Don't call me m'am!" she hollered, the very breath of Hell expelled from her mouth. "I'm sorry, I don't know your name. What is your name?" I call people m'am and sir all the time. I work in retail, it's what I do. Should I have said "Hey, lady calm the fuck down"? Probably. But I didn't and I didn't mean to offend her with 'm'am.' Of course once I knew it upset her my stupid brain wouldn't let my mouth stop saying it. But what the hell, it's not like I was going to lose any more points with her so it didn't really matter.
She foamed at the mouth for a while. Some non-sense about how the Blessed Touchdown Virgin would disapprove and how could we do this on a Catholic Campus, Jesus hates us, statues are magical, protests are evil blah blah blah. She finished by saying "I am ashamed for you all" [can you really be ashamed for someone else? I really think it's purely a personal thing but anyway . . .] "and I will pray for you all!" Bev, my fellow heathen and I both called out "Please don't!" and as she headed back to her car I said "But you do whatever you feel like you gotta do." Once in her car she called at me "Oh, real mature, muttering things at me as I walk away." I hadn't muttered but sometimes balls of rage work as effective earplugs so I called back to her "I didn't mean to mutter. I said 'Please don't pray for me, but you do whatever you feel like you have to do." She damned me again or something and then drove off to continue her rant elsewhere on campus.
I can't wait for the next protest.
They do this every year and every year the fundie Catholics at the school nod their heads and smile as they walk through the embryo museum marveling at how much that gelatenous blob looks like a person. Meanwhile, those radicals on campus like myself who believe that women are people too and should have basic rights shake our heads and try to choke back the vomit gurguling in our throats.
This year, a handful of students decided to do something about it. They didn't put mini wire hangers on all the mini crosses like I suggested (By the way, if all the mini markers for the dead babies are crosses does that mean they're assuming that all the dead babies were Christian? What about the little Jewish embryos? Shouldn't there also be mini Stars of David or mini crescents for the Muslim babies? That doesn't really seem fair.) Instead, a couple of my friends set up a dignified, silent protest wherein we all stood around the mini cemetary holding pro-choice signs. Dignified signs too, they said things like "Proud Catholic for Choice" and "Keep Abortion Legal" and "The Government has no Right to Legislate Morals." They really did a great job. I suggested that we give a sign to the statue of "the virgin" Mary which stands behind the field of mini crosses. Specifically I wanted to have her hold a "I wish I could have had an abortion" sign. [Note: I was totally kidding about that. I don't think Mary would have wanted an abortion. Point of fact I don't think 'Mary' even existed.]
I got there at about 9:15 this morning. Cold as Hell. A bunch of folks had already been out there for twenty minutes or so in the cold, wet and dark. Frankly, it felt great. It was nice to be doing something . . . even if that something was being quiet and innert. We intended it to be a silent protest so that there could be no screaming matches. We talked to each other and people who came up and struck nice, rational conversations, but we weren't there to fight with anyone. And for the most part, we didn't have to. Many people (especially faculty and staff) waved, gave thumbs up or cheered as they drove by. I was really impressed by the support we got. Even some people from the anti-choice group came over and thanked us for staging our protest in such a great way. That was really awesome and I sincerely hope we've opened doors to real discourse on campus.
Of course, there were the people who referred to us as "Those Goddamn Pro-Choice people" (which I wasn't really hurt by, but some of the religious folks in the group seemed to feel the sting a bit) and a couple of people who called us all "Baby Killers." I guess they thought we were actually performing abortions right there on their field of mini crosses . . . which would have been an interesting choice, but probably not a great way of generating dialogue. We also had a group of girls come over and pray really loudly in front of the Mary statue. I briefly considered going over to them and praying loudly to Zeus, that he might smite the unbelievers with his wicked cool thunderbolts, but ultimately I decided not to. Mostly because one of the prayer warriors was a co-worker of mine and I figured it'd be awkward enough already.
The most exciting part of the day, though, was fairly early in the morning when we had our only completely irrational screamer. She had driven by a couple of times and I guess the third time was the charm because she slammed on her brakes, hopped out of her car, leaving the door open and stood in the middle of the street screaming at us. She was upset because we were staging our protest right in front of "Touchdown Mary" (which just makes it sound oh, so scared). I walked over and handed her one of our prepared statements (our plan for dealing with unruly) she told me that she didn't want anything from us people, she didn't want to hear it. So, we tried to explain that we weren't protesting Mary we were protesting the mini cemetary that they had put in front of Mary. If they had put up their mini crosses elsewhere we would be elsewhere.
She didn't want to hear it. She was ashamed for us.
I said, "M'am, will you please calm down." "Don't call me m'am!" she hollered, the very breath of Hell expelled from her mouth. "I'm sorry, I don't know your name. What is your name?" I call people m'am and sir all the time. I work in retail, it's what I do. Should I have said "Hey, lady calm the fuck down"? Probably. But I didn't and I didn't mean to offend her with 'm'am.' Of course once I knew it upset her my stupid brain wouldn't let my mouth stop saying it. But what the hell, it's not like I was going to lose any more points with her so it didn't really matter.
She foamed at the mouth for a while. Some non-sense about how the Blessed Touchdown Virgin would disapprove and how could we do this on a Catholic Campus, Jesus hates us, statues are magical, protests are evil blah blah blah. She finished by saying "I am ashamed for you all" [can you really be ashamed for someone else? I really think it's purely a personal thing but anyway . . .] "and I will pray for you all!" Bev, my fellow heathen and I both called out "Please don't!" and as she headed back to her car I said "But you do whatever you feel like you gotta do." Once in her car she called at me "Oh, real mature, muttering things at me as I walk away." I hadn't muttered but sometimes balls of rage work as effective earplugs so I called back to her "I didn't mean to mutter. I said 'Please don't pray for me, but you do whatever you feel like you have to do." She damned me again or something and then drove off to continue her rant elsewhere on campus.
I can't wait for the next protest.
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