Roundup: Same Old Sexism About Abortion

Beth Saunders

Women are infantile and easily influenced when it comes to their own bodies, according to a columnist for the Washington Times; and Belgium has their hands full (of pie!) when it comes to their new archbishop.

A right-wing columnist and radio show host, Bob Siegel, recently published a column responding to someone who wrote to him to say that abortion should remain legal. Siegel took that opportunity to characterize women as flippant, child-like, and without moral agency.

Of his many offensive points, he starts off with an anti-choice favorite: the one where a woman just decides, randomly, out of the blue, that she doesn’t want to be pregnant anymore.

If a guy marries in good faith, agreeing with his wife that they are going to have children together; if his wife then becomes pregnant, only to later change her mind, does he have any say whatsoever?  Is a man’s right to raise offspring forever under the jurisdiction of his mate simply because he isn’t carrying their baby in his own body?  Think about this!  They decide together to have a baby. She changes her mind. She now wants an abortion. Dad may honestly believe his own child is about to be literally killed! Doesn’t matter!

In that scenario, a couple plans to have a baby, then the woman, on a whim, decides to have an abortion. Honestly, I’m shocked he didn’t mention that she decided to terminate the pregnancy because she was worried about how she’d look in a bikini.

And another, equally sexist point:

In all fairness, many women, when they have an abortion, do not think of it as murder.  In our zeal to call actions what they truly are, let us refrain from harsh accusations. Certainly doctors who perform abortions realize just exactly what they are doing, but young, frightened women, led to believe (for whatever reasons) that abortion is simply another form of birth control, are not cold blooded killers, neither should they be labeled as such. 

Ah, yes. Women are clearly too infantile and delicate to have a clear understanding what ending a pregnancy really means.

Good thing we womenfolk have a strong moral compass like Bob Siegel to tell us what to do, because we surely couldn’t make it in this cold, mean world without him.

Speaking of moral compasses – or not, for that matter – the Pope’s choice of archbishop for Belgium, Andre Leonard, is creating controversy in that country for his radical views. His spokesman resigned last week, because “he could no longer morally defend Leonard.” What’s so bad about him? Well:

He calls AIDS a form of “justice” for homosexuals and wants retired pedophile priests to go unpunished. He says women who have an abortion will be greeted in the afterlife by their unborn child crying “Momma!”

How are people in Belgium reacting? With antagonistic pastries:

Last week, a man ran up to the archbishop during a service at Brussels’ main cathedral and shoved a cherry pie in his face.

Mini-Roundup: A grad student at the University of Georgia has set the HIV DNA code to music. She set it in A-minor, because of how amino acids are attracted to water. Or something like that. It’s really interesting, have a listen!

Nov 10

Nov 9