My new book Get Opinionated: A Progressive’s Guide to Finding Your Voice (and Taking a Little Action) has just been released.  It’s about many things—the environment, the economy, the war on terror—but of course, reproductive rights are a big part of the progressive liberal agenda as I see it.  For that, I’ve excerpted some of the book below:

If you asked a reproductive rights advocate like myself about the number one most frustrating aspect of the fight, you probably wouldn’t get an answer about sanctimonious right wing nuts or the endless, intractable nature of the fight, though both of these aspects often make having your fingernails pulled out by pliers look pleasant in comparison. No, it’s that the public just doesn’t get it.

Your average member of the public sees the first like this.

Corner #1: Pro-lifers. Judged by the average member of the public on a scale between sympathetic people who feel deep devotion to their cause to simpering morons who kind of worship fetuses. What’s not in doubt is their commitment to fetal life, which the public assumes they consider precious beyond belief. 

Corner #2: Pro-choicers. These are the feminists, who are assumed to be, depending on who you talk to, whip-cracking, cold-hearted bitches with no maternal instinct to sympathetic figures who genuinely think that while abortion is never easy, it should be safe because it’s not going away.

Certainly, pro-lifers go out of their way to front like they’re just Team Fetus in this battle. Even the most avid sports fans have to envy the way that pro-lifers drench themselves in their mascot’s imagery. I’ve seen fetus dolls, fetal feet necklaces, etc. This, plus no matter how much it makes people hate them, they can’t quit waving pictures of bloody fetuses at you. They would like you very much to believe that they’re just in this because they want to make sure that abortion goes away forever. 

It’s also becoming important to the movement to make sure that you really don’t think they’re just misogynists who have a problem with female sexuality. They like women! They like women so much that they want every woman to experience the joys of motherhood on a regular basis, whether they like it or not. Team Fetus has started to offer arguments about their phony concerns for women, saying that abortion causes breast cancer and mental illness (repeatedly disproved by actual research), and they want to stop legal abortion for women’s own good. This argument takes a lot of ignoring of the fact that back alley abortions tend not to be so great for women, but they’re trying. 

Unfortunately, the mainstream media buys right into the “pro-life” front, portraying the battle over abortion as an intractable one of Team Fetus vs. The Feminists, fighting over life vs. women’s rights, which does indeed sound like a horribly complex battle where not one gets to have the complete claim to moral superiority. 

The real battle is between sexual liberationists and misogynist conservatives who see abortion as the most important front in their war against sex. Call them the Anti-Sex League or the Victorian Wannabes, but just don’t call them “pro-life”, especially since most are proud conservatives who back up imperialist wars and stalwartly oppose things that would actually preserve life, like universal health care. I call them anti-choice……

If you want to finish this chapter and the rest of the book, please check it out at this link or a bookstore near you.