Beyond the Abortion Wars Quotes

“Abortion has made women free not to have children, but it has arguably made it more difficult for women to choose to have children. What else have women gained? A hook-up culture which breeds sexual violence, increasing numbers of STDs, less-committed and even child-like male partners who couldn’t identify responsibility if it hit them in the face, and a culture that values them only when they are young and skinny. Is that freedom?”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Furthermore, a 2014 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that a majority of Americans now refuse to identify as either Democrats or Republicans.29”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“It is baffling that Republicans, the party of government staying out of the private lives of individuals, have been so energetically standing for big government regulation of some of the most personal choices that one can imagine. On the other hand, it is equally mystifying that Democrats, the party that claims to advocate the use of government power in the interest of justice for the most vulnerable, can engage in sloganeering about private “choices” without considering how vulnerable populations on the margins might be hurt by those choices.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“It also invites skepticism of mere appeals to autonomy and choice — which simply reinforce the injustice by asking those without power to choose within a system that has been stacked against them.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“American Christian churches have a golden opportunity to put aside our idolatrous ties to Republicans and Democrats and think more critically and creatively about how the gospel relates to our new and emerging political culture. When”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“The unstable coalitions of diverse constituencies that we call “Democrats” and “Republicans” were artificial even when they were created four decades ago. But today, despite the life-support they receive from a national media largely still using 1970s ideas to frame their stories, they are simply on the verge of becoming irrelevant. We see now that, led by Millennials, record numbers of Americans identify as neither Republican nor Democrat. And this trend shows no signs of slowing down. So”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Consider Juan Williams’s important insight in his Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate: Their strategy is all about a desire to keep the conversation locked in failure. Abortion is a premium “wedge” issue for producing money and votes. . . . Political strategists used these debates to excite their base voters, pro or con, but also as a form of negative advertising to attack the character of opposing candidates. . . . [Abortion] fits into the same fixed pattern of debate with the same prescribed divisions being held in place by the gravity of big money and power to excite voters.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“The passage of a law like this, however, could be derailed by U.S. political, media, and corporate interests and structures. These entities, after all, are responsible for telling our ridiculously simple binary story about two polarized extreme points of view warring against one another. They will likely continue to strongly resist attempts to tell the complex and nonpolarized story of what Americans actually believe about abortion. In concluding this book, I offer some thoughts about how to move beyond our polarized abortion discourse.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“The position in favor of banning all abortion is a political nonstarter. Those who have pushed this position aggressively in the public sphere have done tremendous damage to the “pro-life” cause. As “pro-lifers,” we achieve our goals when we help focus the public debate on the overwhelming majority of abortions, most of which the public does not support. But the “ban all abortion” strategy has allowed “pro-choicers” to shift our debate away from the reality of our abortion culture by focusing public attention on the 2 percent of abortions taking place in the cases of rape and when the mother’s life is in danger. Instead of discussing the millions of killings of the most helpless children imaginable for reasons the public rejects, “pro-lifers” are painted as people who are in favor of “forcing women to die” and “ignoring the victims of rape.” If you want to put actual justice for babies and women ahead of abortion policy purity tests, then you should support something like the MPCPA. Conclusion”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“The true advancement of women requires that labor should be structured in such a way that women do not have to pay for their advancement by abandoning what is specific to them and at the expense of the family, in which women as mothers have an irreplaceable role.45”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“given the ways in which abortion restrictions have been used mainly to restrict women’s options without a complementary focus on protecting, celebrating, and promoting women’s rights and women’s bodies as those of equal political people, this law is actually quite positive and powerful.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Indeed, previous abortion jurisprudence has effectively trapped women by forcing them to play the political and economic game by the rules designed for people who could not have children. On that understanding, abortion is not a “choice”; rather, it is a necessary component of women’s equal participation in our patriarchal culture. But it should go without saying that forcing women to have abortions in order to have equality with men is anything but authentic equality. Furthermore,”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“In thinking about the legal status of the fetus, justice requires that we use the legal standards used in other contexts, independent of the baggage of the abortion debate.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“In the previous chapter we saw that abortion choice, paradoxically, puts a very severe burden on many women. Some of that burden comes from the lack of social support for making the choice to keep and raise their children, but some of that burden comes merely from the stark fact that women are the sole “choice-makers.” If the woman has a “free choice,” then we expect her, the choice-maker, to be the one to take the responsibility and bear the burdens that result from making such a choice. As long as women are understood to be “free” to end their pregnancies, our American culture is unlikely to provide women the support they need to be both mothers and the social equals of men. Another”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Thus we can say, no, U.S. abortion law is not “settled.” Indeed, given the inherent cultural variability of the undue burden standard, this kind of law will find itself in a near-constant state of flux.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you denounce all attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong, that you are not willing to deal with as a wrong?” Abraham Lincoln Introduction”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Fortunately, this means that our culture can refuse the false choice between having concern for women and defending their prenatal children. In the overwhelming majority of circumstances, we can love and protect them both.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Widely available legal abortion came about largely as a result of the efforts of men, and this “choice” continues to serve male interests, while it often pressures and even coerces women into choices most would prefer not to make.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“For example, here is some of what a study appearing in Medical Science Monitor found about those women seeking abortions in the United States:26 Over half said they “needed more time” to make the decision. Fewer than 30 percent received counseling. Sixty-four percent said they felt pressured by others to have the abortion. Twenty-eight percent said they were sure about the decision to have the abortion. Over half thought that the abortion was “morally wrong.” Also”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“The Catholic ethicist Jana Bennett, for instance, points out that women’s experience of pregnancy and parenthood puts them in a better place to understand that we aren’t in control: You can choose to avoid pregnancy with a condom, pill or IUD — but sometimes that baby’s there anyway. You can try to get pregnant for months on end, even “choosing” IVF, and it doesn’t happen. You can get pregnant and miscarry. And if you get pregnant and your boss decides that you are therefore a liability, you can lose your job unless you make “the right choice”; any resultant poverty is your “choice.” In other words, we try to control sex and parenthood under the guise of individual choice, but it really isn’t a choice. . . . No — it’s a “choice” made in concert with a whole host of racial, economic, technological, age, and other factors.24”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“And isn’t this really what it’s all about? Control. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, many of us persist in believing that more choice equals more freedom. Making choices gives us the illusion that we are in control. For instance, some Americans keep guns “for protection” despite the fact that it makes death by a firearm in one’s residence more rather than less likely. Gun ownership gives us the (false) sense that we are in control over our safety. Or consider football. National Football League head coaches (before it was made illegal) often called timeout right before an opposing team lined up for a game-winning try — despite the fact that doing so made the second field goal attempt more rather than less likely to succeed. It also gave them a (false) sense of control. And even in the face of clear evidence that a medical intervention would make a particular sickness worse rather than better, we often go ahead with the treatment nonetheless, rather than do nothing and let the body heal itself. “Doing something” helps convince us that we have some control in a vulnerable and difficult situation. This”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“One must, of course, come from a socioeconomic background in which one has enough resources to “choose” to work hard in a good school (free from violence, malnutrition, and other coercive forces) in order to feel confident about getting a good job, affording child-care, and so on.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Cuomo decided to stick to his abortion guns and let the whole bill go down in flames. Tellingly, his decision occurred in the same legislative session in which he pushed a budget that cut funding for a successful program supporting low-income and teenage mothers.9 Cuomo let everyone know that his true loyalty was to abortion rights and not women’s equality. Many”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“What did the Supreme Court claim, then, was essential for women to participate equally in society? Equal pay for equal work regardless of whether a woman chooses to have children? Nope. Mandatory pregnancy leave and child care for female students and workers? Nah. Strict antidiscrimination laws in hiring practices? Sorry. What is essential for women’s equality, it turns out, is that they are able to end their pregnancies when those pregnancies constitute a burden on their economic and social interests. But”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Toward this end, the Roe court sought a solution that made women “free” to act like men: to imagine themselves as able to live sexual, reproductive, economic, professional, and parental lives and concerns as men did.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“A new kind of pro-life feminism is needed in which all of women’s reality is accorded respect. This time, instead of conforming to male models and ideas, women must demand that society must make room for the biological reality of women. When”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Women’s rights and liberation are linked with fetal rights. If a woman claims the right to decide by herself whether the fetus becomes a child or not, what does this do to paternal and communal responsibility? Why should men share responsibility for child support or child rearing if they cannot share in what is declared to be the woman’s sole decision? Furthermore, if explicit intentions and consciously accepted contracts are necessary for moral obligations, why should men be held responsible for what they do not voluntarily choose to happen? Abortion on demand, often advocated as a response to male irresponsibility, legitimates such irresponsibility.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Permissive abortion laws do not bring women freedom, social equality, sexual fulfillment, or full personal development. They are based on male models of sex, which have long been used to subjugate women. This male-centered understanding pits women against their own offspring in a way that is not only morally offensive but psychologically and politically destructive.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Human beings, from the beginning to the end of their development, have intrinsic value that does not depend on meeting selective criteria or tests. Human rights arise from human needs, and it is the very nature of a right, or valid claim upon another, that it cannot be denied or rescinded by more powerful others. It is particularly odd for feminists, who otherwise have justice-centered concerns to protect the vulnerable from the powerful, to hold that in the case of the fetus it is the pregnant woman alone who has the power to bestow or remove her rights. 4.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation

“Morality is sometimes thought of as a matter of human agency and decisive action, but feminists know that we have moral duties we do not choose. Morality is hardly limited to contracted agreements between isolated individuals.”
― Charles C. Camosy, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation