While mulling over two recent posts from Notes From Off Center about abortion (Abortion Is a Symptom of Social Illness and Making Pro-Life Plausible) and one from A Thinking Reed about animal cruelty (The Victorian PETA) I was struck by a similarity which I had never noticed before. This similarity is in the reasons behind the anti movement against each. Or, perhaps more precisely, the why of taking a stand against one (or both) of these rather than opposing something else.
Being opposed to the farming of ducks and geese for foie gras has become the big news way of opposing animal cruelty but there are a lot of other ways to combat animal cruelty and help victims. Similarly, opposing abortion is the “cornerstone” of the pro-life platform but, again, there are many other ways of demonstrating your pro-life beliefs. So, why do these two specific targets seem to get all the attention?
I think it’s because it is extremely easy to be anti abortion and/or anti foie gras. It’s easy because for me to take this stand requires absolutely no change and has absolutely no effect or consequence in my life. None. Zip. Zilch.
To be against the farming of ducks and geese for foie gras simply means that you don’t eat foie gras. Now, I love foie gras — probably more than the average foie gras consumer. But if I had to forgo eating it for the rest of my life it would be no big deal. It would be easy. I could easily take that platform and stick to it. But, animal cruelty is rampant on a much much larger scale in the factory farms where the chickens and cows we eat are raised. But if I start boycotting factory farms and getting states to outlaw factory farms then I’m going to see an effect in my life — specifically in my wallet. I’m going to have to drive further and spend more money to buy free range chickens and eggs and to find grass fed beef. Take the mass-producing factory farm out of the equation and suddenly demand is going to far exceed supply which will only drive up the price more and I won’t be able to buy enough meat to eat 3 times a day 7 days a week.
Likewise, I can support the SPCA or animal shelters to demonstrate I’m against animal cruelty. But if I start doing that, I’m likely going to have to adopt a pet or volunteer my time at the shelter or take part in fund raising. In all these cases, demands are made on my time and money.
But people need to be against animal cruelty so they pick the easy case where all they have to do is sign a petition to get foie gras banned in restaurants and then they have bragging rights for how much of an “activist” they are.
The same criticism applies to the anti-abortion movement. Protesting at abortion clinics is easy. You throw all the blame and all the responsibility and all the guilt onto the mother and require her to make changes in her life and make the sacrifices while you can pack up your signs and head back home in time to catch Oprah or the Big Game. See how that works? You get to be pro-life with a squeeky-clean conscious and without lifting a finger! As “Notes From Off Center” points out, abortion is not the disease but the symptom. But treating the symptom is so much easier so that’s what gets done.
Let me suggest that the next time we get up on a soap box or start marching in protest or even start bitching about something to our friends that we take an honest look at what our position costs us. If we don’t see anything in the debit column then, perhaps, we are not fighting the right fight.
Glad to know my thoughts land somewhere once in a blue moon! Of course I concur and think you are spot on with your take here. I am a strong supporter of any legislation against animal cruelty. My wife and I have been in the animal rescue business or several years. BTW, we eat meat too and think PETA takes its cause to an absurd level. Although they have exposed some deplorable practices that probably would not have received much notice otherwise (i.e. the fur trade with cats and dogs in China where they literally treat cages packed with animals like bails of hay.
Cheers.
The same thing happens in many activist communities… The general public does not really care as much as the activist, so the activist picks an “easy case” with which to make an appeal, gain some points and maybe (very maybe) further the cause. A lot of time the activists pick on a more defenseless population of offenders, because their powerlessness makes for a victory, while going after a more powerful and entrenched foe would result in defeat.
However, my perception of the pro-life / pro-choice activists is that this is not exactly the case. Pro-abortionists and Anti-abortionists have a PR problem in that “abortion”, whatever your stance, is not a pleasant, feel-good, save the world topic. (Typical reaction: Yuck, I think I’ll change the channel.)
This is especially true for the PRO abortionists, so (if I remember correctly) they made the first move - not PRO abortion, but PRO CHOICE. “Choice” IS a pleasant, feel-good concept.
The anti-abortionists countered (again, if I remember right) with PRO LIFE. Once again, “Life” is a pleasant, feel-good, save-the-world concept.
Neither was primarily or principly pro CHOICE or LIFE. They were, and are, fighting about abortion. But by using euphemisms for their stance they dragged in all sorts of peripheral issues (especially the pro-lifers) that they were, and are, unprepared to deal with very well.
But having done so, I think it is fair to challenge them on it, and to ask for a broader, more socially responsible response to abortion.
Alan, I don’t think anyone is really PRO-abortion. No one is going to campaign for every woman getting an abortion which is what PRO-abortion would mean. Pro-choice, I think, really is an apt term because it’s all about being able to choose to have an abortion or to choose not to have an abortion.
And I think that PRO-life is an apt term as well except that most, high profile, in-the-news pro-lifers exclusively deal with abortion. They only seem to care about the life of the fetus and once that child is born, the pro-lifer no longer seems to care. They don’t argue for adoption or campaign to make adoption easier or (God forbid) adopt the baby themselves! They want the mother to have the baby and raise the baby by herself (but the single Mom must “get a job” and get off welfare) without the pro-lifer’s help.
And that’s where I take issue. Pro-lifers can call themselves anything they want, I don’t care. It’s what they protest and what they ignore that matters.
wow - i really what i read. i bumped into your blog by chance (while looking for a picture of a stone , white with black dots…)
Good job!