Kamala Harris, "she/her" on twitter, is now Joe Biden's veep

submitted by WrongToy from self.GenderCritical

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[–]Realwoman 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

So you grew up taking abortion rights for granted. Abortion rights by themselves are not enough, true, but without them, women suffer tremendously. Abortion rights mean that the woman gets to choose, not men. Workplace protections matter tremendously but abortion rights are more or less equal to that.

And of course that women don't have sex all the time but they don't need abortions every month either. A third of women will have an abortion in their lifetime and not having access to it would be life changing. Abortion rights are for those once or twice in a lifetime situations when the woman finds herself pregnant and doesn't want to be pregnant anymore. Forcing women to carry to term will have a profound impact forever on 1/3 of women and the other 2/3 will always have to live in fear that pregnancy will ruin them because they can't opt out.

"abortion rights alone doesn’t help women’s rights"

What? That's like saying that the right to vote doesn't help women's rights organization the right to divorce or say no to sex don't help women's rights. Abortion rights are part of women's rights, not a means to help with women's rights. Abortion rights are an end by themselves. Just like the right to not be fired because of pregnancy.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

No. Abortion rights are important but unlike the right to vote, it shouldn’t be the bulwark for women’s rights. Voting rights gives women political clout. We are in this mess because of our lack of political clout historically. We aren’t even allowed to define ourselves. Why is that? Abortion is legal in the US, isn’t it? Same with economic clout. This obsession with abortion rights being front and center is hurting more women than helping. Our economic and political clout needs to be forefront. Voting rights are not comparable to abortion rights. Women with no economic means cannot make decisions about their bodies even if abortion is legal. Abortion even if free requires money ( such as going to an abortion clinic requires getting on a bus to a doctor) which many women have been historically denied and are still being denied even to this day. This pandemic is a good example. What good does abortion alone being available to women do if she already has kids? Since she doesn’t have economic or political clout, it’s a right that becomes symbolic only. Right now women are losing economic status. Also pregnancy protections don’t help once you had the baby. Women might not get fired while pregnant but they get fired easily right after they have a kid. Happens everyday even in so called woke companies. I think it’s more important for us to get political clout and economic clout as women if we ever want to see equity in our daily lives.

I’ve noticed that people are asking us to ignore the economic and political side of our rights because of abortion rights esp. by democrats. Forcing women into unisex bathrooms and making it illegal to congregate as a sex class and denying our sex based oppression so long as we have abortion rights. We can’t politically gather if we aren’t allowed to on the basis of sex.

[–]Realwoman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't disagree that abortion is not the only right that's important. And abortion is important for all women. Abortion is crucial for women who already have children - 59% of women who have abortions are already mothers! So abortion does a lot of good to women who have children.

And yes, protecting mothers is crucial.

Abortion in the the US is legal but in many states it's effectively extremely limited and hard to obtain. Women in the US are focusing on abortion because one of the major parties is trying to destroy abortion rights in order to pander to the religious right. And in many states, they have succeeded in making it really hard for women, some states have only one abortion clinic and regular doctors don't perform abortions. There are a bunch of fake abortion clinics (pregnancy crisis centers) that harass women into carrying to term. That's why American women focus on abortion so much - because there are many people working tirelessly to take that right away from us.

Economic rights are important but bodily autonomy is even more crucial. That's why the right to say no to sex, even in a marriage, and the right to abortion are basic human rights that are non negotiable.