Deborah Lipp

I know, it sounds surrealist, like ceci n’est pas une pipe, but trust me, it’s not. This is genuinely about choice. About a woman’s right to choose.

There are people in this country who oppose legal abortion because they are “pro-life.” They believe the fetus is a living being who must be protected. Arguing, even discussing, abortion is often a total impasse because “pro-life” versus “pro-choice” doesn’t work; these are two roads that don’t intersect.

But I’m not talking about that.

See, right now there is an increasingly fervent anti-choice movement in this country. Not pro-life, anti-choice. These people don’t give a good goddamn about the sanctity of pregnancy or motherhood. These people, the James Dobsons, the Jerry Falwells, the entire American Taliban, are really interested in taking away a woman’s right to choose.

What is “choice”? When we talk about a woman’s right to choose, we mean her right to full ownership of her body. Her right to say yes to sex, and to say no to sex. Her right to say yes to childbearing, and to say no to it. Her right to be chaste, her right to be promiscuous, her right to be the master and owner of her body, including all the juicy parts.

The American Taliban is waging war on a woman’s choice. This story was the turning point for me. See, first we have pharmacists refusing Plan B (which isn’t an abortofacient, but birth control, it prevents pregnancy). And now we have a pharmacist refusing to treat a woman for a sexually-transmitted infection. They want to stop women from having sex of which they disaprove. Period. They don’t care about fetuses (I mean, a fetus is protected by treating herpes), they care about controlling our body parts. Not some “unborn child’s;” ours.

Here we have a story about a high school senior who was refused permission to graduate with her class because she was pregnant. Here is a Catholic school teacher fired for being pregnant. These women made a pro-life choice, they did not have abortions, which is what the moralists claim they want. And they were punished for it.

They were punished because the moralists are lying. They don’t care whether these women carry to term or abort. They only care whether these women fuck. And if the women fuck without permission, they’ll be punished no matter what choice they make. They’ll be punished for choosing.

This is consistent with punishing the victim of an alleged rape. A woman’s right to say no is a choice, and the judge in this case cares more about male perogative than women’s choices.

Watch out for this. Watch for people who claim to be pro-life but want you to think, not “life vs. death,” but “slut vs. good girl.” Watch for voices that claim feminism has no vested interest in allowing women to be sexually free. Watch for the pervasive distaste that accompanies images of women who exercise sexual choice.

And don’t be fooled.

Update: Via Shakespeare’s Sister I find that great minds think alike: Maria Luisa Tucker at AlterNet has posted a piece today on the same subject as this one, but with very different examples about how supposedly liberal men are very interested in making sure women don’t fuck whom they want, when they want. Wish I’d written it, it’s terrific. Go see for yourself.