Jessica Valenti: College is totally worth killing babies over

posted at 5:18 pm on April 16, 2010 by Cassy Fiano
[ Abortion ]   

Wednesday, Lori Ziganto (one of my favorite bloggers) wrote a brilliant piece in response to an article Jessica Valenti wrote on Feministing. Another Feministing author, Lori, had heard about the ad campaign called “Abortion Changes You” last month that was putting ads on the New York subway.

Here is what the ad looks like:

Considering feminists cannot abide anything that might paint abortion in a negative light, this made Lori VERY angry. She explained that somehow, this ignores the experiences and reactions women have had with and from abortion.

I’m all for validating and honoring the experience of women who have had an abortion. But there are already TONS of really great support systems for women who have had abortions that are equipped to address a RANGE of post-abortion emotions and outcomes- glee, relief, guilt, sadness, loss, pride, no reaction at all, or a million other possibilities. When an ad campaign chooses to ignore these very real experiences of women who have had abortions, you have to assume that they have an agenda other than helping real women.

Perhaps Lori was blinded by her “ZOMG SOMEONE IS ATTACKING ABORTION YEAAAAARRRGHHHHH!” rage, but the whole point of this ad campaign is to point out how abortion can affect a woman. I know — all things negative relating to abortion must be kept super-secret. But here in the real world, when it comes to medical procedures, most normal women like to know exactly what will be done to them and what the possible risks and repercussions could be. Normal women, even pro-abortion women, don’t see abortion as something to be taken lightly. They don’t look at it the way radical feminists do. Impossible for feminists to understand, I know.

Well, this week, Jessica found out that someone had committed vandalism and defaced the ad. Of course, this just made her day.

Here is what it looked like after it was defaced:

Jessica’s response was to call the vandal a “pro-choice hero” and “Love. It.”

And this is where Lori got involved. She wrote a great post about the whole controversy.

A very mild ad, indeed. And an accurate one; abortion does change you. While feminists sneer at the idea of post-abortion syndrome, it does exist. And if they actually cared about women, they’d admit that fact and would stop encouraging women to have abortions without disclosing the trauma that can occur to the woman.

It’s clear that they don’t care about the dead babies, but they also need to stop insisting that they are For Women ™ , when they most obviously are not. You see, feminists, an unborn baby is not just a clump of cells. Many women who abort their babies, therefore, suffer intense pain and immense guilt. Their entire lives.

They may just be nutty wing nuts to you, but they are real people with true feelings. Because you do nothing but sneer at those feelings, in fact lie about their very existence, your For The Women card is hereby pulled. You are more concerned with one Supreme Court case, that you constantly use as a wedge and a pawn, than you are with actual women.

Jessica has now responded by attacking Lori Ziganto. And while I’m sure she and her fellow feminist zombies thought their responses were just so super intelligent and better than Lori’s post, all they really did was prove Lori’s point.

Going to college is a matter of “convenience”? Really? Women want higher education for “co-ed fun”?

I always wondered what anti-choicers meant when they said women get abortions “for convenience.” Did they think that women were procuring lunchtime abortions so they could go out and booze it up that night? That women didn’t feel like gaining weight and that ending the pregnancy would be so much easier? I figured that they had this bizarre fictitious woman in their minds and that they didn’t recognize the complex, personal, and often selfless reasons women decide to get abortions. But I was wrong.

It isn’t that anti-choicers don’t understand why women get abortions – it’s that they care so little about women’s lives that any reason given to obtain an abortion is seen as “convenient.”

Some things that are convenient: Providing for your existing children. Going to college. Having enough money to eat, pay rent, keep the electricity on. Not dying.

So yeah, I guess I would “rejoice” over women obtaining abortions when it’s convenient. (The inaccessibility of abortion for too many women makes actual rejoicing impossible.) Whether it’s for health, financial, and educational reasons – or simply not wanting to have a child yet – it would absolutely thrill me if women’s life decisions were respected, accepted and supported. But instead, we live in a world where a woman’s desire for something as basic as education is mocked as selfish. And we’re the ones who are “anti-woman”? I think not.

Reproductive health and justice is one of my strongest passions (I work with Planned Parenthood). When people try to block abortion access, I start crying and it’s hard for me to stop. I am still shocked at the huge disregard anti-choicers have for womens lives. They really do have no regard for human life, because, guess what? women are human. This: “Some things that are convenient: Providing for your existing children. Going to college. Having enough money to eat, pay rent, keep the electricity on. Not dying.” made me tear up. And honestly, if I were to become pregnant right now, I would get an abortion because I need to finish college and have enough money to eat, pay rent, and keep the electricity on. I am also bipolar, and I would have to stop taking my medication if I were to have a baby, which would be downright dangerous. Thanks for the post, Jessica.

But the point is that 4 years of college means a completely different life than a life w/o 4 years of college and anyone who doesn’t recognize that is either living in a dreamworld or is being deliberately obtuse. There is nothing “everyday” about going to college – it’s an incredible privilege that changes people’s lives.

And here we go, with feminists making women perpetual victims yet again, rather than empowering them. Jessica and her fellow zombies cannot seem to wrap their minds around the idea of a woman having a child and going to college at the same time. I know, I know — insanity, right? But somehow, my mother was able to work full-time, raise two children, have a loving marriage, and get her college degree. Somehow, several of my friends are raising children and getting their degrees. Where are the feminists encouraging women to do both? Heck, they don’t even have to raise the baby. There’s always adoption, the option that you’ll never hear someone like Jessica Valenti champion. If the college-aged girl wasn’t ready for a kid, all she’d have to do was carry the baby for nine months while she went to school and then she could help a couple who can’t have children make a family. But if a girl gets pregnant and it’s “inconvenient”, all feminists like Jessica Valenti can do is scream at the girl to HAVE AN ABORTION! HAVE AN ABORTION! Sometimes, you don’t get pregnant at a convenient time. I get that. It doesn’t mean that you have to choose between going to college or having a baby. But that’s the only option given to women if they listen to feminists. They have to choose either college or their child, because presumably, having a child at an inconvenient time would be the WORST THING EVER!!!

Look, I know all about not wanting to have a baby at a certain time. I’m engaged, but my fiance is a Marine with an upcoming deployment. If I got pregnant now, the baby would be born while Matt was in Afghanistan. I do not want to go through a pregnancy by myself, and I do not want Matt to miss the birth of his first child. I don’t want him to come home to the son or daughter he’s never met. We also don’t have a lot of money to be raising a child right now. A baby just is not in our plans at the moment.

But it could happen. And if it did, you can bet your ass that abortion would never be an option for us. We would find a way to make it work. Why do feminists never present that as a viable option for women?

It’s like they practically salivate over the thought of another woman getting an abortion. I don’t know why, but it’s sickening how much feminists try to actively convince women to have abortions. And of course, never mentioned is the option of not getting pregnant if you absolutely cannot handle a baby at the moment. There’s birth control, and if you can’t afford that, the solution is simple: don’t have sex. But of course, telling a feminist that women shouldn’t have sex if they aren’t ready for a baby might make their head explode. I mean, really, dare you tell women that they should keep their legs shut if they aren’t ready to get pregnant?! Believe it or not, there is an element of personal responsibility at play here. The whole feminist philosophy is disgusting. They tell women to sleep around like men do. When women then get unintentionally pregnant (usually while unmarried), they tell the women to just kill the damn burden growing inside of you and throw it out like refuse. And NO, don’t you dare do any research about abortion, what your baby looks like, or the effect having an abortion can have on you. Just kill the damn thing and get back to your Womyn’s Studies classes because college is the MOST. IMPORTANT. THING. EVER! And no, you cannot do both, you must choose between being a pregnant, barefoot housewife in a kitchen or being a smart, single, feminist womyn with a degree in Gender Studies. If you have the baby you are contributing to the partiarchy! And you will be a victim! Do what we say! Don’t think for yourself!

It’s sickening, truly sickening.

All of this just goes to show how far feminism has fallen. Feminists were once made up of smart, strong women (who, incidentally, despised abortion and rightfully saw it as evil) who were fighting for real gender equality — the right to vote, to get an education.

Now, feminists crusade for abortion. It’s their number one cause. And they don’t even want women to be informed. They don’t want women seeing ultrasounds first because they know it’ll influence them to have the baby. They don’t want women learning that abortion can have devastating physical and emotional repercussions. They don’t want abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare”. Lori’s post showcased another example of a feminist accidentally exposing that trust, and it pissed Jessica Valenti off. Feminists don’t want women to be able to choose what’s best for them; they want women choosing abortion. I can only assume it’s because if women stop choosing abortion, then feminists will lose their last grip on relevance in today’s society. Getting the truth out about abortion and its possible effects, as the “Abortion Changes You” campaign does, terrifies and angers feminists.

It’s pathetic and disgusting, that someone would actually encourage abortion — the murder of the unborn — solely to help maintain their own grip on power and relevance in the world. Anything that harms the pro-abortion movement really is just harming modern feminism. And this ad is just another crack in the feminist “we help womyn” facade.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!

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