First off: It's sad that I get better wireless reception in my backyard than in my apartment, right?
Sigh. I normally try to stay out of the quagmire that is the abortion debate, but as usually, elyzabethe wrote something insightful about feminist issues that I had to comment on. Actually, I had to comment on the framing war that was going on in the comments section between elyzabethe and another friend. Then I ended up emailing back and forth with her for awhile. Then someone at work mentioned how the "choice" frame is starting to lose ground, even though advocates don't want to admit it. I started scribbling notes, sighed, and thought, "well, I'm gonna have to blog about this."
Elyzabeth rants often against anti-choice organizations and legislation, as is her wont as a libertarian feminist. She’s particularly good at teasing out how anti-choice (A, if you’re reading this, bear with me, I’m referring to ‘anti-choice’ as more than just the abortion issue) rhetoric consciously or unconsciously portrays women as too ignorant or too flippant to make their own informed decisions, which is what this particular post was about. A friend on the other side of the political spectrum called her out on disrespectfully using "anti-choice" instead of "pro-life," and numerous points were made:
1. She wasn't trying to be disrespectful of anti-abortion advocates, but of anti-abortion advocates that show disrespect for feminist choices in general.
2. Using "anti-choice" instead of "pro-life" is an attempt to re-frame the debate, however much an uphill battle that may be, and thus was not disrespectful, per se.
3. "Framing just a strategic form of name-calling." That deserves to be on a t-shirt.
This led to me ranting over email to elyzabethe about framing. Yeah, in a way framing IS just strategic name-calling. But not if it's done well. And there is no such thing as an issue not being framed: if it's an issue, it's being framed. It's a common mistake for advocates: their terminology is neutral, while anything else is clearly wrong/misguided/mean.
Then, about two hours later, it led to me ranting over email to elyzabethe about abortion. My big pet peeve? Pro-life advocates' impression that we pro-choice people want women to have abortions. THAT'S ABSURD. WHY would anyone WANT women to go through such a difficult thing? It reminds me of the whole GLBT joke, "just one more and I get a toaster." Planned Parenthood doesn't earn points for every abortion it performs.
The framing problem for pro-choice advocates is that "choice" instead of implying "more than one option" has been positioned by the opposition as synonym for "selfish or uninformed." We're partly to blame for that, but that's neither here nor there. The question is now, can we take back our definition of the frame? Or do we have to take on the hard task of re-framing the debate again?
Sigh. I normally try to stay out of the quagmire that is the abortion debate, but as usually, elyzabethe wrote something insightful about feminist issues that I had to comment on. Actually, I had to comment on the framing war that was going on in the comments section between elyzabethe and another friend. Then I ended up emailing back and forth with her for awhile. Then someone at work mentioned how the "choice" frame is starting to lose ground, even though advocates don't want to admit it. I started scribbling notes, sighed, and thought, "well, I'm gonna have to blog about this."
Elyzabeth rants often against anti-choice organizations and legislation, as is her wont as a libertarian feminist. She’s particularly good at teasing out how anti-choice (A, if you’re reading this, bear with me, I’m referring to ‘anti-choice’ as more than just the abortion issue) rhetoric consciously or unconsciously portrays women as too ignorant or too flippant to make their own informed decisions, which is what this particular post was about. A friend on the other side of the political spectrum called her out on disrespectfully using "anti-choice" instead of "pro-life," and numerous points were made:
1. She wasn't trying to be disrespectful of anti-abortion advocates, but of anti-abortion advocates that show disrespect for feminist choices in general.
2. Using "anti-choice" instead of "pro-life" is an attempt to re-frame the debate, however much an uphill battle that may be, and thus was not disrespectful, per se.
3. "Framing just a strategic form of name-calling." That deserves to be on a t-shirt.
This led to me ranting over email to elyzabethe about framing. Yeah, in a way framing IS just strategic name-calling. But not if it's done well. And there is no such thing as an issue not being framed: if it's an issue, it's being framed. It's a common mistake for advocates: their terminology is neutral, while anything else is clearly wrong/misguided/mean.
Then, about two hours later, it led to me ranting over email to elyzabethe about abortion. My big pet peeve? Pro-life advocates' impression that we pro-choice people want women to have abortions. THAT'S ABSURD. WHY would anyone WANT women to go through such a difficult thing? It reminds me of the whole GLBT joke, "just one more and I get a toaster." Planned Parenthood doesn't earn points for every abortion it performs.
The framing problem for pro-choice advocates is that "choice" instead of implying "more than one option" has been positioned by the opposition as synonym for "selfish or uninformed." We're partly to blame for that, but that's neither here nor there. The question is now, can we take back our definition of the frame? Or do we have to take on the hard task of re-framing the debate again?
Comments
I think one of the things that helps the pro-choice frame is, as a lot of feminist bloggers point out quite a lot, to reconstruct the meaning of "choice." most people think pro-choice, they think "oh, that just means the choice to get an abortion." they're trying to reframe pro-choice to imply a culture of choice that involves access to many different contraceptive options, reproductive health options, pregnancy options, sex education options, etc. To give women (and men) choices in all aspects of their reproductive and sexual destiny -- that's what pro-choice should mean.