Why g.a.p. is racist
Why g.a.p. is sexist
Why g.a.p. is anti-semetic
Why g.a.p. is opportunistic
Why g.a.p. is manipulative
Why g.a.p. is aggressive
*thanks to the anti-g.a.p. alliance for providing this information.
Response to Gregg Cunningham's article:
"Rational for The Genocide Awareness Project"
Why Queers should care about choice
Racism
Both g.a.p. and Lifeline are fond of quoting Martin Luther King Jr in
their propaganda, despite the fact that King's quoted comments were not
related specifically to the abortion issue. The use of King's words is,
in many ways, an extension of the photographs of black lynchings. Jonathan
Macklin of the Black Student Union at the University of Kansas said "The
use of the lynching image is irresponsible and trivializes a terrible
time in the country's history." Arguably, Lifeline's use of King's philosophy
is misleading and manipulates the words of a great civil rights leader
to make it sound as though he would endorse extreme anti-abortion activism.
In the case of Wounded Knee, the Cambodian Killing Fields, the massacre
of Rwanda, the Holocaust, and the lynchings, the people in the photographs
remain anonymous. Neither CBR nor Lifeline seem to know or care who the
people in the actual photographs are - the name, age, occupation, circumstance
or date of murder of the victims are not mentioned in any of CBR's literature.
The photograph is simply a convenient prop used to convey a certain political
message, which has nothing to do with anti-racist activism.
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Sexism
Although many anti-abortion groups allow that a woman is entitled to an
abortion in extreme cases (such as women who risk their lives giving birth
and rape survivors), the g.a.p. display makes no such distinction. All
women who have had abortions are equally condemned by the display as perpetrators
of genocide. Furthermore, women who have had abortions are painted as
ignorant persons who were misled, confused, or mentally incompetent at
the time of the abortion. Denying respect to women who have made specific
decisions regarding their health infantilises them and implies they are
incapable of caring for or thinking for themselves.
Stephanie Grey, the former president of Lifeline explicitly states on
the Lifeline website: "[After seeing the g.a.p. display] Women and men
who have been affected by abortion will face reality and seek forgiveness."
Lifeline believes women who have abortions are unaware of their actions,
having not been in connection with "reality"; additionally, these women
must be "forgiven" (by whom Ð Lifeline?) for their choices.
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Anti-Semitism
Hillels (Jewish Students Groups) across North America have protested the
g.a.p. due (as in the case of racism) to the blatant and disrespectful
use of Holocaust imagery. Once again, the names and circumstances of the
victims are unstated and unknown. The photograph is only a prop Lifeline
exploits to horrify its audience into agreeing with their unrelated mandate.
At UBC two years ago Lifeline displayed the Jewish Prayer for the Dead
until a furious Jewish student demanded they take it down (the prayer
was removed to reveal a Star of David underneath).
The g.a.p. is not about paying respect to the victims and survivors of
the death camps. Gregg Cunningham, the Director of CBR said "Frankly,
I'm weary of genocide snobs who focus solely on their causes." G.a.p.
seems to make a point to pick Jewish holidays such as Passover (University
of Pennsylvania) and Rosh Hashanah (University of Kansas, UBC) in an attempt
to provoke Jewish students.
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Opportunism
There are few tragedies in the world that g.a.p. has not managed to appropriate.
Both Oklahoma City Bombing and the terrorist attack on the World Trade
Centre have been reduced to single images, harnessed by CBR to make a
political point. Stephanie Grey has also stated on the Lifeline homepage
that "GAP's presence will be resented. There will be anger and frustration."
Lifeline is aware of the emotions the images invoke and hopes to use these
emotions to convince students to agree with their group.
On at least five campuses, violence and vandalism have occurred, with students attacking the displays or GAP staff members and volunteers. At Ohio State University, about 30 protesters charged the display in an incident that Associated Press termed a "riot." A female student at Ohio State was arrested after trying to slash a poster with a knife. At the University of Kansas, an African-American student rammed the display with his truck, and a female Jewish student physically assaulted a GAP staffer. Both were arrested. As CBR Executive Director Gregg Cunningham vowed at one campus, "We will make an example out of lawbreakers." (Joyce Arthur, The Humanist)Not surprisingly, CBR thrives on confrontation. The display is designed to shock, horrify, and anger students into action. Lifeline alleges "[Anti-abortion activists] may believe abortion is wrong but do not take enough (or any) action - pictures can change that." Several students at various universities have torn down the signs, a fact which the anti-abortion press gleefully publishes under headings such as "Pro-Abort Violence" without any mention of the other issues (such as racism and anti-Semitism) involved.
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Manipulation
Lifeline works with anti-abortion pregnancy centres such as Birthright and Crisis Pregnancy Centre. These organisations are rarely staffed by medical experts and are instead "counselling centres" where pregnant women are encouraged to either parent their child or give it up for adoption to a Christian family. The Centres do not advertise that they have little medical expertise; instead they hand out information based on flawed studies that links abortion to breast cancer, "post-abortion stress syndrome", & infertility.
Lifeline also distributes this "information", despite the fact that the Canadian and American Cancer Societies do not recognise their "facts" about breast cancer, nor does the American Medical Association acknowledge any such thing as "post-abortion stress syndrome". Many studies have been done regarding the long-term risks of an abortion procedure and time and time again they have found a safe, early abortion has no long-term side effects. These supposed 'medical facts' have no real basis and are actually scare tactics intended to frighten women into carrying unwanted pregnancies to term.
Whatever a person's feeling regarding abortion may be, they have no right to lie to women in order to influence their actions. A woman must be allowed to make a choice based on reliable, credible information provided by professional sources.
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Aggression
Brian Sullivan, Dean of Students, was quoted in the Ubyssey saying that g.a.p. should only be allowed on campus twice a year. In reaction to this statement, Lifeline began hosting "moving displays". The idea behind this was that UBC cannot restrict a student from transporting a poster across campus. As long as Lifeline didn't remain stationary with the display the university technically couldn't do anything about it.
However, the flip side of these actions was that no student, faculty member, staff or visitor to UBC was given any sort of warning about the presence of the g.a.p. (When here with the University's permission g.a.p. is required to post signs a reasonable distance away so persons who wish to avoid the whole issue can give the display a wide berth). The sense of this reasonable precaution was illustrated last year when a class of elementary age children walked past the "moving display" with no warning at all.
Aside from the unavoidable spectacle of the g.a.p. display, Lifeline and CBR are both extremely aggressive organisations. At the time of writing, Lifeline has taken UBC's AMS to court on the grounds that the AMS is blocking their "right to speech" on campus (the AMS refuses to allow g.a.p. material on AMS property). However, this "right to speech" attitude doesn't extend to Lifeline's opposition.
In clear anticipation of ... violence, CBR erects barricades to surround the display and shield its staff and volunteers. Incredibly, CBR demands that universities supply these steel fences as well as pay for the extraordinary cost of a campus police squad to stand guard. If the university balks at the expense, CBR threatens to sue, as happened at the University of British Columbia. In fact, CBR often announces its willingness to litigate. Indiana University is currently under just such a threat simply because it is trying to restrict the GAP display to the campus' designated free speech area. And before the group even comes to a university, it sends what some call a "bully letter" to the administration spelling out CBR's constitutional rights. As Cunningham himself stated in the Spring 2000 issue of CBR's newsletter In Perspective, "any university which attempts to interfere with the exercise of CBR's First Amendment rights will be sued."UBC has a history of litigation with CBR as g.a.p.'s first appearance on campus was met with vandalism. A Jewish student who had recently had an abortion tore the signs down along with two other students. All three faced court action from CBR.
Once on campus, CBR gathers evidence for potential lawsuits and criminal investigations by routinely videotaping and photographing students at the display, especially pro-choice protesters. They have even been known to take photos or videos of vehicle licence plates. Then, whenever violence or vandalism does occur, CBR is well equipped to sue or press charges. CBR also milks favourable publicity out of any negative incident, condemning universities and pro-choice students for trying to restrict CBR's free speech rights. (Joyce Arthur, The Humanist.)
Other UBC groups and individual students have been threatened with legal action for protesting the g.a.p. When UBC Students For Choice started up a website last year which outlined protest tactics a complaint was filed with Crown Counsel and heavily publicized in an effort to intimidate the students into silence. (This very paper will probably come under CBR's microscope and get combed for indictable offences as the Centre for Bioethical Reform abhors any suggestion that their display is wrong).
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Response to Gregg Cunningham's article:
"Rational for The Genocide Awareness Project"
One can agree that several different things are wrong, but one has to acknowledge that those things are different. The Holocaust in Germany was wrong, as was the slaughter of innocents in Rwanda. But they were causally unique, and while they did have elements that were similar, it would be grossly inaccurate to suggest that they were essentially the same events.
In confronting a piece of work of the magnitude of Mr. Cunningham's article, I had to consider how best to format my writing so as to fairly address every important point he raised. The format I have decided on is an extensive point-by-point rundown of Mr. Cunningham's piece, presenting his argument, along with my refutation of his argument. By presenting Mr. Cunningham's article in this manner, I hope to allow the reader to make a reasonable and accurate choice as to who has the more reliable case. I also encourage the reader to go to www.cbrinfo.org and find Mr. Cunningham's article, so that they can read along with my essay.
Mr. Cunningham's first point (after his initial thesis) suggests that pictures are necessary for the GAP display, because they "...make it impossible for anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty to maintain the pretense that "it's not a baby" and "abortion is not an act of violence." (though why Mr. Cunningham used quotation marks is beyond my understanding, as those 'quotes' were not attributed to anybody in particular). Because "educators" use images to teach about genocide, GAP should be given the same right. By "educators", I am assuming that Mr. Cunningham is not referring to people working in Holocaust museums, who have obtained the proper consent, tremendous support from Jewish, gay, and Roma communities, and who are informed regarding who is depicted in the images, where they are depicted, and what is happening to them. I am assuming also that Mr. Cunningham is not referring to any educator who is displaying the images for the sake of making a point about those images and not using those images to make a point about another issue. In other words, educators who use images in an appropriate context. Indeed, it is left vague as to who these educators are, and as to why it is anybody's right to misappropriate images and use them as a means to an end. If Coke had an advertisement suggesting that Pepsi was bad, just like the genocide in Rwanda (and had graphic pictures to boot), I would be appalled. Of course, I do not participate in the GAP display.
Mr. Cunningham defines genocide according to the parameters of an encyclopedia from 1992. This definition, in short, involves a systematic elimination of a group (including: "national", "ethnic", "religious", and "other") considered "undesirable" by the exterminators. Mr. Cunningham, had he wanted to, could have used the "other group" option in the definition, and then suggested that said group was 'human fetuses in the wombs of women having abortions', tacking on as many additional clauses as necessary (I am presupposing here that the definition Mr. Cunningham chose to use is at all relevant in a social context, and that it holds any kind of weight outside of Webster's New World Encyclopedia, 1992). Instead, Mr. Cunningham suggests that this genocide falls into the category of "national group", that group, apparently, being American fetuses. Since the extermination is based on nation, however, the definition must be extended to include all Americans in the "genocide". A strange conclusion at best. One may also wonder at the exclusion of non-American fetuses in Mr Cunningham's "genocide".
Mr. Cunningham then tackles the "systematic" element of his definition, suggesting that since abortion is legal in 50 states, and since there were 2 400 abortion facilities nationwide in 1992, it follows that abortion is "systematic". This conclusion, at first glance, makes perfect sense. After all, abortion occurs within a system, is well-regulated, and is supported and funded by government bodies. Indeed, one might also suggest that abortion is "deliberate" (another term taken from Webster's definition), because women are consciously having abortions, and the government is consciously funding "abortion facilities". The government, however, is not doing a very effective job, as babies continue to be born. In fact, one wonders why the government continues to rule against gay marriage, suggesting that marriage is an institute for procreation, and support adoption centers and childcare facilities if their aim is to destroy human fetuses! Of course, Mr. Cunningham is not suggesting something that absurd. He is simply saying that there is a "deliberate and systematic" attempt on the part of the government to destroy fetuses at random, determined by women who aren't government agents and without being coerced by the government to do so (though Mr. Cunningham does later write about women being coerced into abortions by partners; discussion to follow).
Mr. Cunningham then dismisses a 1996 definition of genocide for being "obsolete". Clearly, the more recent the definition, the less relevant it becomes.
Mr. Cunningham does make fairly cogent points immediately afterwards: the murders caused by the Cambodian Pol Pot regime are "inevitably described as genocide" (described by who?), and definitions of genocide have little to do with the number of victims. Of course, Mr. Cunningham's favourite definition of genocide allows for any sized group, the group in the case of Cambodia being political dissidents (a very simplistic assessment I realize). There is certainly some ambiguity as to the nature of the Cambodian killing fields, although Mr. Cunningham seems to be suggesting that because the events are described in terms of genocide, genocide did occur.
It's lucky for Mr. Cunningham that he has such an incredibly extensive knowledge about the events that took place in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Germany, Pre-Colonization North America, and Pre-Civil War Era America Ð otherwise he might seem presumptuous or even arrogant. This knowledge is in the form of a few statistics (such as the number of people who died in a given conflict), and through several books about Thomas Jefferson.
Mr. Cunningham's next argument is tremendously interesting. He suggests that abortion is a hate crime, because fetuses are dehumanized, and not given personhood in our society. He cites the "hateful" slogan "every child a wanted child" (how could anybody with an ounce of morality want to care about their children?!?), and begins examining the status of the fetus, in terms of defining personhood. I am not a cutting-edge scientist or doctor who fully understands everything that happens in the w omb without any doubt (as Mr. Cunningham apparently is; else how could he claim knowledge as to the physical nature of the fetus, or to know that there is scientific consensus and an "objective" scientific conclusion as to the "humanity" of the fetus, as he does in the paragraph under the heading "humanity defined", later on in his work?), and thus will not begin to debate the physical status of the fetus. One fact, however, seems to be of note: if scientists such as the brilliant Carl Sagan hold pro-choice viewpoints, and if personhood is considered by most people, and by the government, and by the courts to begin at birth, it is doubtful that there is any kind of consensus that a fetus is 'a human', and not just 'human'. The difference is the autonomy of the organism; 'a human' is autonomous from another organism, whereas my leg is 'human', but cannot survive on its own. The potential to be a person is quite different from the actual being of a person (in that a sperm, potentially, could be a person).
I had to get a few words in defense of the pro-choice position, but will now continue to examine the actual nature of GAP, ignoring (for the purpose of brevity) Mr. Cunningham's debates about the status of the fetus. Under the heading of "FETAL HATE LANGUAGE: UNWANTED UNBORN AS DYSFUNCTIONAL", Mr. Cunningham cites a passage indicating that most abortions are carried out by minorities, lower income people, and teen-agers, and that "unwanted children" are likely to grow up to be criminals. He then presents a sentence fragment from a statement made by Judge Posner suggesting that unwanted children often don't grow up to be "...the best citizens." He then seems to be inferring (through a series of accusatory questions) that the judge might be advocating the elimination of minority fetuses. Mr. Cunningham seems not to know the difference between prescription (suggesting how one ought to act, or how things ought to be) and description (stating how things are or how one does act, as in the case of Judge Posner's statement).
Mr. Cunningham uses a series of inductive arguments to indicate that genocide is not always a hate-based crime. Mr. Cunningham shows how Thomas Jefferson (according to several third-hand sources) did not hate his slaves (though Mr. Cunningham later shows how Jefferson actually did tend to denigrate his slaves in a hateful manner), and how Adolph Eichmann, according to the Orange County Register, did not hate the Jews. With all due respect, this is perhaps Mr. Cunningham's sloppiest, absolute worst argument in the entire manifesto. Using third-hand accounts of two individuals, Mr. Cunningham draws huge conclusions as to the general nature of genocide. He ignores the overwhelmingly large amount of hateful propaganda, rhetoric, and violence promulgated in Nazi-era Germany, as well as by the number of vicious slave-owners in America (even though slavery isn't genocide! So why iis he even discussing it?). I do agree that hate has been used to stir up the populace while a cold and efficient mechanism worked behind the scenes to actually commit the genocide in certain specific cases, but the suggestion that hate and genocide have nothing to do with each other is dubious at best.
Mr. Cunningham follows up with a series of arguments designed to show exactly how "unborn children" (is a block of wood an 'unmade baseball bat'?), or fetuses are denied personhood by society, just as First Nations' people (or, to use Mr. Cunningham's term, "Indians") and African Americans were denied personhood many years ago. Mr. Cunningham follows this suggestion up with tremendous amounts of ultimately unhelpful inductive articles and statistics, all indicating that yes, Jews, "blacks", "Indians", and women were indeed denied personhood in the history of the world. All of his arguments end with the sentence: "it was then broadly legal to kill...", with Mr. Cunningham inserting the appropriate minority, finally ending with "unborn children". What is most disturbing about this argument (besides his bizarro anti-choice "science" indicating the personhood of the fetus) is the use of specific case studies to draw wide-ranging conclusions. Mr. Cunningham's argument can be broken down logically, by assigning variables to each group of people. Jews will be 'a', African Americans will be 'b', women will be 'c', and First Nations' people will be 'd'. In Germany, Jews were ghettoized and murdered directly by the government on a tremendous scale, so we will call this event 'f'. In 19th Century America, African Americans were sold as slaves and often treated violently and killed, so we will call this event 'g'. Women were denied suffrage, which will be labeled 'h', and First Nations' people were forced on reserves and were denied basic rights, which will be labeled as 'i'. In each case, according to Mr. Cunningham, each group was dehumanized and denied personhood, which will be called 'j' (though each situation of dehumanization involved one of the above mentioned events, and thus was scenario-specific; thus, the variable 'j' will have to be used in conjunction with an event variable, such as 'f', to compensate for one case of dehumanization being different from the other situations of dehumanization that occurred). Thus, Mr. Cunningham is saying that jf occurred to a, which is the same as jg occurring to b, jh occurring to c, and ji occurring to d.
The above sentence importantly show how jf is not equal to jg, and thus cannot be talked about as the same thing. It would be wrong to say that jf=jg in logic, because the variables are assigned to different, and not identical, individual constants. While these situations contain some similarities, they are too different for one case to be applied to another.
Likewise, in the case of the "dehumanization" of the highly contestably autonomously human "unborn child", there are many unrelated and circumstantial issues to be examined. Simply saying that dehumanization occurs in certain cases of genocide, therefore it always accompanies genocide, therefore because fetuses are not considered human, they are victims of genocide is absurd. The reason that most North Americans do not consider the fetus to be a human has nothing to do with Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.
While Mr. Cunningham does use quite a bit of inductive research, much of it comes from dubious sources, although he does manage to use information from pro-choice organizations such as Planned Parenthood (which to me seems odd; I can't imagine writing an essay stating that Hitler is a lying murderer, and then using his own writing as proof). First-hand accounts, small news items, and dictionaries hardly seem adequate evidence to build a theory as broad and comprehensive as Mr. Cunningham's. Mr. Cunningham attempts to speak for the Jewish and African American communities, drawing simplistic conclusions from Martin Luther King's writings, and presenting the views of several anti-choice Jews (while condescendingly suggesting that Elie Wiesel should read the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" before he starts talking about the Holocaust. I mean, he's just a survivor, educator, and Nobel laureate. What does he know about it anyway?). The quote that Mr. Cunningham takes from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" regarding the Holocaust (and the only mention Mr. King makes of the Holocaust in Germany in his letter) is taken out of context. Mr. King was simply using an analogy to make a point about a just person disobeying an unjust law; he in no way drew a comparison between the Holocaust and the African-American struggle for civil rights. Mr. King also heavily criticized the church as being status quo and unjust in his letter, expressing sentiments that I bet Mr. Cunningham would hesitate to echo. "I am sure", says Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter "that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes." This is good advice for anybody who would seek to draw parallels between events which have similar effects but wildly different causes (i.e. Gregg Cunningham). To read the full "Letter from Birmingham Jail", please visit: www.stanford.edu/group/King.
In Orthodox Judaism, abortions are sanctioned in the case of the mother's life or physical health being in danger, and in the case of rape. Mr. Cunningham should be absolutely certain that he has got the support of the majority of Jews before he begins to appropriate Holocaust imagery and to speak for Jewish people. In fact, Mr. Cunningham does not have any kind of official Jewish support, as Hillels all across university campuses in North America have denounced the g.a.p. display consistently. While there are a few rabbis who agree with Mr. Cunningham, it does not mean that he has a right to speak for Jewish people when it comes to appropriating images or thought. He implicates the state of Israel in the murder of "tens of thousands of Jewish children", suggesting that at least "Germany has acknowledged its shame". Besides this statement being untrue in that Jewish children were not actually killed and the German government still has a long way to go in terms of truly working towards ending anti-Semitism and ignorance within its borders, it indicates a terribly simple and invalid connection between the results of WWII and current legislation in Israel.
Mr. Cunningham then makes a very good argument that our laws consider "...not merely...what a person does...(but)...what a person does to another person." He explains how it would be dissonant in our society for somebody to suggest that they're against murder or lynching, but support somebody else's choice to do so. This argument would be fabulous if a fetus was a person. But it's not. Our society also has a very vague definition of what makes murder wrong or right, with exemptions often made for self-defense, wartime, and even drunk driving leading to a fatal accident (in that the laws and punishments are different, even though the effect of a person or persons being killed is the same).
Mr. Cunningham suggests that feminists saying that they have a right over their own bodies is akin to a slave-owner saying he has a right over his property (namely, his slaves). In our society, personal health is valued far more than property and thus the value of a woman controlling her own body ought not be diminished by comparing her body to property. If I was making inferences they way Mr. Cunningham does, I might suggest that Mr. Cunningham considers women as property, to be bought and sold. In fact, I might even suggest that Mr. Cunningham is asserting that all women should be sold as commodities on the street and be forced to raise any babies that result from this forced prostitution. But, being a good philosopher, I would never suggest such a slippery slope argument.
Mr. Cunningham suggests that one of the popular pro-choice arguments right now is that ending legal abortions would just be too damn difficult, and would upset the balance of society (he asserts that slave-owners used the same argument, in an economic sense). Having spoken to countless pro-choice advocates and women who have had abortions, I would suggest that this specific (and almost non-existent in pro-choice literature) argument is less about upsetting society (for didn't pro-choice advocates protest to overhaul the entire system to allow for legal abortions?) and more about the fear of bringing back a draconian system of government control over women's bodies.
Mr. Cunningham suggests that pro-choice people are anti-adoption, because they are narcissistic. This argument is bizarre and unfounded. I have never met a pro-choice person who was anti-adoption. In fact, I have met pro-choice people who have adopted children. Mr. Cunningham provides no evidence for his claim, and makes the assertion that the choice facing women who have unwanted pregnancies is between abortion and adoption. This argument is common, but fallacious. The issue is about a woman having choices open to her, not being forced to go through nine months of painful pregnancy and hours of labour, and not wanting to bring an unwanted child into the world (well, actually, there are tons of issues. I'm just highlighting some of them).
Mr. Cunningham suggests later on in his article that women hide their faces in shame when going to abortion clinics, and that they desire anonymity in terms of their medical records, and then writes that this is unique in the medical field. Mr. Cunningham must be posting his medical files on the internet, because he clearly does not care about privacy, proud of his many diseases and ailments. Privacy is a central tenet in the health care system, and nobody wants their illnesses known or their medical records revealed. Doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, and surgeons all adhere to strict, legally-binding codes of conduct regarding privacy, and a doctor who provides an abortion is no different. Mr Cunningham might also wish to look into such anti-choice site as the Nuremburg Files where names, addresses, and photos of abortion clinic workers are posted for any violently inclined maniac to see. With that kind of press, who would want their face visible to be photographed and posted?
Mr. Cunningham ponders whether it is reasonable to speak about the killing of unborn children as genocide. Surprisingly, his answer is in the affirmative, and he explains how children have been killed in genocides in the past. How this relates to fetuses, I'm not sure, although he does make an interesting point about the difference (or in his view, the lack of difference) between the "killing" of a late-term fetus and a newly born baby (as in what happened in the Holocaust when Jewish babies were systematically killed at birth). The point would be more interesting and relevant if the policy in Germany during the holocaust had anything to do with private abortions, and if the fetus was a person (now I'm just being facetious, although I'm still right.).
Mr. Cunningham describes how in Rwanda, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was on trial for genocide "...for her alleged role in the slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994", and how the UN also charged her with rape as a crime against humanity. Mr. Cunningham then suggests that rape is actually genocide, and that everybody agrees. Rape is terrible, but it's not genocide. Genocide, like patricide, involves the Latin suffix of -cide, indicating murder. Nowhere in the cited article is it suggested that rape definitively is genocide.
Mr. Cunningham tends to bounce back in forth in his writing, but the next fairly cohesive stream of thought is an argument suggesting that abortion is used as "therapy", or to make raped women "heal their (injuries)". The suggestion that a woman would enjoy an abortion procedure, or that a woman could ever, ever forget being raped is so callous and erroneous that I won't even bother to address it in this essay, except to suggest that Mr. Cunningham should be very careful about ascribing patriarchal values of the rape survivor or her child (should she chose to bear it) being "unclean" to pro-choice advocates.
Much of the next few sections of the article is taken up with Mr. Cunningham ranting about "far-left" violence, and downplaying the anti-choice violence against abortion clinics. Well, Mr. Cunningham, if we want to play the numbers game, why don't you take all the violent left-wing activists, and I'll take the Nazis, Stalinists, Crusaders, US government...after all, what construct is more right-wing than war?
Mr. Cunningham gets back on track with by attacking the argument that outlawing abortions will put women in danger. He presents various methods of abortion that women can do at home, safely, suggesting that doctors would still provide the procedure even if it was illegal. Mr. Cunningham compares illegal abortions to obtaining marijuana; illegal, but easy to acquire and fairly safe to use. Two major questions can be raised regarding this assertion: how did we come to a level where these techniques can now be safely performed? The answer is through having legal abortions and public funds to do research, as well as through having safe clinics and conditions to provide services. If an abortion procedure is safe, if women will get abortions anyway, if doctors will perform abortions regardless of the law, and if most people support access to abortion services, wouldn't it be a safer and smarter idea to allow regulated clinics, as opposed to trying to enforce as many draconian laws on women who want abortions as possible, in order to drive the market underground where it's unregulated? I suppose Mr. Cunningham would say no, for in his mental framework, abortions are far too wrong to allow them to be legal.
Mr. Cunningham concludes his essay by suggesting that the pictures depicted in the g.a.p. displays have been wrongly criticized for inciting "anti-abortion" violence. According to him, the people who display the g.a.p. images are persecuted in the same way that the African-Americans were during the Civil Rights Movement in the USA. Whether or not pro-choicers even use that argument, the bigger issue is how the images affect the viewer. Imagine a Holocaust survivor seeing a huge picture of a relative of his, used for the sole purpose of making a point about abortion. Imagine a refugee from Rwanda who narrowly escaped being murdered seeing his friends' bodies littering a field, the image being propped up by several Caucasian university kids who have never left their hometown, all because of some unrelated debate. Imagine the woman who has just had an abortion being warned about the "horror of choice" with a huge picture of an aborted fetus. Gregg Cunningham and his minions do not know where these images are from. They do not know who is pictured in the images, nor do they have any literature available at their displays regarding the specific events depicted in the images.
There are many problems with the Genocide Awareness Project. G.a.p. is callous. G.a.p. is cruel. G.a.p. is ignorant. But the greatest crime ll is that g.a.p. is totally illogical.
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Why Queers should care about Choice
While the queer community is as varied as any and there are pro-life queers, queer people who profess a pro-choice stance but refrain from any form of activism are in some ways a greater cause for concern.
Many gays, lesbians, transgendered and transsexual people refrain from participating in the fight for freedom of choice because they view the whole issue of abortion rights as one that does not directly affect their lives. Since, the logic goes, transfolk, gay men, and lesbians cannot reproduce without outside assistance - and only do if they actively want to have a child - the issue of choice does not have a major effect on their lives. However, this point of view ignores many important considerations on practical and theoretical levels.
On the practical level, this argument involves a very limited definition of the word queer. Since the queer community encompasses gay men, lesbians, transgendered and transsexual people, as well as bisexual men and women, the issue of accidental pregnancy is one that does exist within the community. Taking the stance that freedom of choice has no effect on our lives peremptorily excludes bisexuals from the queer community, something that, as fighters for universal tolerance, we should be the last to do. Even without taking this into consideration, practical concerns still apply. As women, lesbians can and do get raped, often as a deliberate form of gay bashing. By refusing to fight for freedom of choice, something that should be considered our basic human right, we are taking an unfortunately short sighted and naively optimistic view of the world and the way in which it regards us.
The practical argument, however, pales beside the theoretical. The core issue of abortion rights has to do with our freedom over our bodies, especially in our capacities as sexual and reproductive beings. Issues of gender and ownership and gender and reproduction are core to both the issues of choice and sexuality. In attempting to deny women the right to choose, anti-choice activists are essentially arguing that the primary purpose of a woman is her reproductive capacity, and that her first responsibility is to the propagation of the species, not to herself. This point of view is clearly linked to the denial of marriage rights to queer couples based on the argument that the purpose of marriage (and by extension, all sex,) is reproduction. This focus on sexuality and women's bodies as reproductive as opposed to autonomous has been central to the oppression of queer people throughout history, and ignoring its emergence in another arena is, once more, taking a somewhat shortsighted view of the world.
Similarly, the implications about the status of women's bodies that are inherent in arguments against choice reinforce gendered assumptions that tie in with the oppression of queers. Anti-choice arguments that the state should regulate what women can do with their bodies stem back to a time when women were the legal property of their fathers and husbands. Reinforcing the binary gender system based in ownership, anti-choice activists are referring back to the very system that did not allow for any sort of gender fluidity or sexual variance, and punished any deviance from the sanctioned binary severely. Thus the ideologies surrounding the fight for choice are inextricably linked with those surrounding our own freedom of sexual and gender expression.
Finally, it is worthwhile to note that the people who fight against freedom of choice are often the very same people who seek to curtail the rights of the members of the queer communities. In turning our backs while they do battle in this arena, we are ignoring the larger implications of any victory they might achieve. Those who seek to oppress women will not hesitate to oppress us, and even disregarding the fact that, as a community that contains women, anything that affects women affects us too, our own rights and battles are inherently tied to any battle over issues of imposed "morality" and the value of sexual and reproductive freedom.
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