Recently, it came to light that the “poet” who was featured at President Biden’s inauguration spoke about giving 8 reasons why it was crucial to speak up for abortion rights a few years ago. Painful as this was, I decided that it was important to refute these points, one by one. Why? Because this is what we’re called to do as Christians, particularly as Christian pastors and theologians, we are supposed to demolish arguments that set themselves up against the knowledge of God.
So, before we begin I want to make a few preliminary comments. First, nothing that’s about to follow, from Miss Gorman, even begins to approach a logical argument. It’s a list of non-sequiturs and axiomatic presuppositions. If this were written in text and not delivered by a beautiful, charismatic young woman, and without the dramatic, yet stressful, strings music beneath her reading, this wouldn’t have anyone’s attention. All the skill here is in presentation – not content. But let’s look at the content, anyways, because there are still people in America who can be swayed by argument and aren’t entirely slaves to their passions.
Point 1: When the penalty for rape is less than the penalty for abortion after the rape, you know this isn’t about caring women and girls, it’s about controlling them.
OK, I literally have no clue what she’s talking about here. Perhaps she’s talking about potential penalties that would be imposed on women who murder their babies in some hypothetical alternate timeline of America where murdering babies in the womb is treated like the infanticide it is. But that timeline ain’t this timeline…
Also, I’m against rape. And I can be against murder too. I have the moral capacity to be against both things. But since penalties for only one of those things currently exists in the plane of existence I lovingly refer to as reality, I think I’m going to ignore this argument.
Should there be penalties for murdering your baby in the womb? Yes. Do they exist under US law? no. And even if this were a thing, now we’re talking about an argument of which crime is worse: rape or murder. I tend to think that murder is worse than rape. Because people can survive rape – they can’t survive murder. That doesn’t minimize rape. And that doesn’t mean I’m opposed to the death penalty for rape. I’m for it.
And even if there were harsher penalties for abortion than for rape in this country – which there aren’t – and even if she sustained an argument that murder is not worse than rape – which she doesn’t – she would still have to demonstrate that the motivation is “control” and not a moral aversion to baby murder.
Unfortunately, this young woman has either been completely convinced by her indoctrination or is cynical enough to put forwards an argument as weak as this as point number 1. Trust me…they get worse.
Point 2: By forcing them into motherhood before they’re ready these bans steadily sustain the patriarchy but also chain families in poverty and maintain economic inequality.
How?
Seriously, how? First of all the percentage of pregnancies that result from nonconsensual intercourse is vanishingly small. I know that it’s hard to understand, but most women, and even pubescent girls, are aware that if a man ejaculates inside of her, while she’s ovulating, there is a better than 0 percent chance a pregnancy will occur.
This isn’t news. This has been the way things work for a long time. And this isn’t a secret.
I find it fascinating that the Secular Pagans in our society can simultaneously be utterly and unshakably fixated on sex and sexuality, yet they seem to think that women just get pregnant, like, you know, by random chance – like the ObGyns of the world just pick names out of a hat and that’s how women get preggo. Ummmm…no. Here’s the deal. If you aren’t ready to be a mother, then don’t become one. Because when a new life is created in a woman’s womb, she is a mother. You don’t become a mom at any other point than conception. Let me lay out a simple process for not getting pregnant that will work in every single instance.
Step One: Don’t let semen get into your body while you’re ovulating.
Step Two: Enjoy not being pregnant.
Moreover, this is ignoring the existence of contraceptives and natural family planning. Admittedly rape happens and it’s horrendous and evil and deserves the most stern punishments there are. But murdering a baby because of its father’s crimes is not justice. And nomatter what kind of father a child has, the victim of rape is still that child’s mother. I have never been in a situation like this, and I pray my daughter is never the victim of a horrid crim like rape. But if she is and if a pregnancy is the result, that baby would still be my grandchild!
But that’s only part of it. The other part is that talking about how abortion shatters the patriarchy is one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever heard. A) why is the patriarchy bad? B) ought we to have a matriarchy? C) where is the evidence of this patriarchy? Is it the higher than male rates of female college graduates? Is it the oft refuted, and many-a-times debunked misrepresentation of the “gender pay gap”? Is it anecdotal evidence of isolated incidents of misogyny?
I agree that our society is not friendly to women and girls. I think it’s deeply manipulative, and commodifying, and exploitative. But that’s not the result of patriarchy.
Just saying “the patriarchy” in the same way you would say “Voldemort” or “Nazi”, as though it were a proven metaphysical reality, that can be accepted as axiomatic, is, unfortunately for those who use this argumentation, not accepted as axiomatic by wide swathes of thinking people.
Point 3: Pregnancy is a private and personal decision it should not require the permission of any politician.
That’s dumb. It’s by definition NOT private and NOT personal, because it involves at least 3 people! You know, the man the woman and the baby. Also, you know, other family members. And the doctors and nurses, and the whole community that will help to raise that baby.
Pregnancies are not private and personal. They are, by their very definition, communal.
Also, saying that pregnancies shouldn’t require the permission of any politician is an odd argument…they don’t. No politician stops anyone from getting pregnant. Many politicians want to stop babies getting murdered. And murder is not a “private and personal” decision. It’s a crime. And we have politicians because we want them to define and then prosecute crime.
Point 4: For all time, regardless of whether it’s a crime, women have and will always seek their own reproductive destinies. All these penalties do is subdue women’s freedom to get healthy, safe services when they most need them.
Scoff. Insert condescending laugh here. Yes, people have always been murdering people. I see no reason why it is incumbent upon the body politic to not hamper someone’s ability to murder.
Also, there is no such thing as a safe abortion. Every one ends in death.
Point 5: Fight to keep Roe v. Wade alive. By the term ‘overturn’ Roe v. Wade, the main concern is that the Supreme Court will let states thwart a woman’s path to abortion with undue burdens. But one thing is true and certain:
I’m not sure why she made this a point; this is a just a segue into point 6. I’m not sure she understands how points work…
Point 6: These predictions aren’t a distortion, hypothetical or theoretical. Women already face their disproportion [sic] of undue burdens when seeking abortions. If the sexes and all people are to be equal abortion has to be actually accessible and not just technically legal.
This is getting painful for me to refute. It’s clear she frontloaded all her “good stuff” and the classic journalistic inverse triangle is in effect here. She clearly either had a huge misread while recording – hey, it happens, I record and write, mistakes happen all the time — or she’s really bad at writing…or editing. We all make mistakes; I do! The difference is, I don’t have a team of professionals who edit my work. I write it, record it, edit it, produce it, and publish it (except for when the radio station publishes it). The fact that NOWTHIS didn’t catch this means that either they aren’t trying very hard, or they’re not very good editors…or both.
Getting to what I think her point is, A) what are the undue burdens that hinder a woman’s ability to murder her baby? B) why are they “undue” C) how is it a disproportionate [amount?] of undue burdens…when men…you know…can’t get pregnant?
Oh, also, she needs to be cancelled because she didn’t talk about all the men who get pregnant. She must be transphobic! TRANSPHOBE! CANCEL HER NOW!!!!
Also, why does murdering babies allow the sexes to be equal? Can men murder babies? Her points are not making a whole lot of sense…but she’s got an orchestra, so…#winning.
Point 7: Despite what you might hear, this right here isn’t only about women and girls. This fight is about fundamental civil rights. Women are a big part of it but at the heart of it are freedom over how fast our families grow goes farther and larger than any one of us. It’s about every single one of us.
Nobody has a right to murder. I don’t need to say anything more. Also, I’m getting bored, this isn’t challenging, just time consuming.
Point 8: Fight for Roe v. Wade in the United States because this change can’t wait. We’ve got the energy, the moment, the movement, and the thundering numbers. The alt-right’s biggest blunder is that most Americans aren’t under their impression that a woman’s body is up to them to decide.
What change?! I am so confused right now?! I think she’s just talking about change because change sounds good and progressive – she doesn’t want change does she? She just wants to secure the status quo.
Also, how can a woman’s body be up to me to decide…for a poet, she seems to have a tenuous grasp of English syntax. Again, I make mistakes too – but I don’t speak to a nationwide, and worldwide audience with a team of people trying to make me look good!
I mean…they typed this up! Did the director, or editor, or, for Heaven’s sake, the stenographer, not say – ummmmm…this is nonsense, we need to shoot that again? Why not? It’s not poetic; it’s incoherent. Again, we all make mistakes. I make them a lot. But she’s got a team helping her and the fact that these mistakes weren’t caught and corrected suggests that NOWTHIS isn’t really concerned about the quality of content they publish…which ought to be disturbing for anyone who thinks that NOWTHIS ought to be shaping public opinion on moral issues.
If they don’t care enough to catch glaring errors that make a statement grammatically nonsensical, do you think they’re giving a considered look to the intellectual underpinnings of the argument?
In conclusion, the “influencers” of our society are not better and smarter than the commoners. And the more of a monopoly on the public square they get the more honest they’re becoming. We’re getting to see the vapidity and vacuity of their argumentation, without all the thrills and frills and fanfare. And when we see what they really believe and how puerile and inchoate it is I hope we will all reject it en masse for the juvenile pseudointellectual pagan religification that it is.