A word on choice and tone-policing – or, why balance is a sham
We’re used to being told that we’re doing it wrong. We’re used to being told that we’re too aggressive, too angry, too shrill. But when, all of a sudden, we start hearing it from people supposedly on our side, alarm bells start ringing.
These alleged pro-choice supporters with the vocabulary of anti-choicers started voicing their concerns in national newspapers recently, airing their fears that the repeal campaign may be failing and revealing that they wouldn’t be joining the March for Choice after all. Why? First we were told that we were failing to take the debate about the unborn’s right to life, and that we’d need to do so in order to win over Ireland’s ‘mushy middle’. It’s a debate campaigners are taking every day, of course, but it turns out that the argument was just a tool used to evoke the image of a poor, innocent baby before going on to shame women for not grieving and feeling guilty enough.
Next we were informed that we were being too aggressive, something that of course makes perfect sense to anyone sharing our pro-choice views and generally agreeing that having been refused bodily autonomy for what seems like forever is more than a bit disgraceful. But this too turned out to be a hoax, followed by an endless stream of reasons why liberalised abortion legislation would be a bad thing, including that sexually transmitted diseases are on the up, that solo parenting might not be quite as horrific as you think, and that many people struggle to get pregnant in their forties. Oh, and just as a side note, we were all overreacting to the video evidence of a faux abortion counselling service telling lies about cancer and parental abuse, and we should all calm down and be civil.
You could think of such poorly staged attempts to package a conservative anti-choice agenda in a less fundamentalist, ever so slightly semi-enlightened guise as harmless. Or you could look at a public discourse obsessed with a literal notion of balance and start to feel robbed. Ring up the paper that published the two aforementioned examples and they’ll refer to them as pro-choice opinion pieces. Transparent or not, it doesn’t take a media scholar to realise that we’ve just lost an important platform along with the chance to define who we are.
The repeal campaign deals with the conversation around the unborn all the time, but if a supposed representative of the movement suggests that it doesn’t, it’ll quickly start to seem suspicious, as if campaigners are hiding something. When an alleged insider drags issues of STIs and infertility into the abortion discourse, it piles on the work of the pro-choice movement to refute such ridiculous claims. And no number of calmly eloquent reproductive rights activists on TV will ever erase the discomfort experienced by some people in relation to the rage also fuelling the movement, once someone who says she’s on their side takes issue with their anger and frustration, even describing them as deluded and condescending. For every column width of anti-choicers posing as pro-choice allies, we are little by little losing control of the narrative.
Isn't it funny how the majority of people seem happy to turn a blind eye to what looks quite a lot like defamation of an entire movement, yet when Helen and Graham Linehan spoke about their experience of losing a baby to a fatal foetal abnormality the BAI upheld a complaint pointing out that the coverage wasn’t balanced enough? Isn't it funny that RTÉ paid out a total of €85,000 to journalist John Waters and members of the Iona Institute after Rory O’Neill referred to their views as homophobic, yet none of the thousands of people who are about to take to the streets for the March for Choice this Saturday is likely to see any sign of a cheque for being described as deluded and “losing their collective minds”, their views completely and utterly misrepresented and the campaign recontextualised to a ridiculous degree?
The Press Council of Ireland’s Code of Practice states that content should not have “been inappropriately influenced by undisclosed interests”. The articles produced by our two faux pro-choice friends – both of whom are, just to be clear, sharing unquestionably anti-choice content on Twitter – are, as such, failing to meet the council’s standards. So why is it allowed to go on? It’s been suggested before that calls for balance in media reporting are almost always part of a conservative agenda, aiming to preserve the status quo; the Broadcasting Act of 2009 holds that broadcasters should not present anything that “undermines the authority of the State” or is “likely to promote, or incite to, crime”. Not only does this highlight beyond any doubt that we’ve given up on the idea of media as a fourth estate, which should monitor our elected leaders to hold power to account, but it also poses some important questions about the notion of balance in regards to the reproductive rights debate, seeing as abortion is still a criminal offence in Ireland.
Perhaps it is time we accept that our idea of balance is a sham – that it is used to protect the privileged and powerful but time and time again fails to deliver when those who dare to question the status quo are being silenced. We have a public service offering that welcomes commercial interests along for the ride, with broadcasters relying on advertising revenue and sponsorship deals to deliver their content. How could we ever fool ourselves to believe that investigative journalism is fully and freely investigative when the work is funded by advertisers with vested interest in its findings? What happens the day a guest of the Late Late Show decides to talk about the need to invest in public transport and increase motor tax, when every week an audience member leaves the show with a brand new Renault?
The gist of the two fraudulent articles comes down to this: that the fury of abortion rights advocates is offensive, and that women who need abortions should be ashamed of themselves. Look at the lies that are published in our name without as much as a blink of an eye, and ask yourself why it might be that we’re angry and shrill. Look at the BAI endorsing the view that the Linehans’ grief should have been attacked live on air, and ask yourself who should be ashamed. It’s easy to be calm and civil when you’ve got the status quo and every regulatory body in the country on your side. When your uterus is treated as public property and every single mainstream media outlet will fight for its right to tell you what to do with it, all while patronisingly pretending to have your best interests at heart, there is no such thing as calm.
Join the Abortion Rights Campaign to March for Choice this Saturday in Dublin, starting at 1.30pm at the Garden of Remembrance.
Termination or abortion - it's all about choice
There’s a lot of talk, yet again, in Ireland about TFMR – termination for medical reasons. People who have had the misfortune of having to go through this experience are writing blog posts and articles campaigning for new, proper legislation in Ireland to make the procedure legal, and opinion writers are producing powerful pieces in response to Ireland’s human rights record review in Geneva, begging for abortion to become a choice for all women, or if not that, at least in the case of TFMR.
There is no limit to my sympathy for those who have had to travel to another country in order to give birth to a baby that would never survive outside the womb, told by the powers that be that said horrifying experience would make them a criminal. I went through this while under the care of the NHS in the UK, and I think I would’ve burst out laughing if somebody had told me, at 21 weeks gestation, to keep walking around looking pregnant and answering well-intended questions about the due date, waiting for our baby to die. It is such a barbaric thing to ask of anyone that it seems absolutely ridiculous.
Yet: while I hated the word abortion, while I wanted everyone to know that we really didn’t have a choice, that we had planned the pregnancy and already loved this baby, this debate pains me. Campaigners are making the point so very clear: this is not an abortion; this is not about aborting an unwanted baby. They’re saying that if we can’t grant all women the right to choose, then we must at least grant it to these poor women – because this is different.
But is it different? Explain the difference to the woman forced to carry, give birth to and look after a baby she isn’t ready or able for.
This is only different if we don’t believe in choice, if we are happy to deny women the right to make decisions about their own bodies, if we accept that there is a limit to the amount of responsibility a woman is capable of carrying. If we legislate based on narrowly-defined criteria, suggesting that abortion is murder and criminal unless there is foolproof evidence that the baby is indeed already with certainty destined to die, we are still calling the shots, depriving women of bodily autonomy. In essence: we know better; they should do what they’re told.
It doesn’t matter how mind-numbingly nightmarish that experience was and how much I feel for every other couple that has the experience of an ultrasound scan turned into the most nerve-wracking, scary thing in the world; just because I can sympathise with them, that’s not to say that the decision of those whose experience I haven’t shared is any more straight-forward. We have to accept that if we value a woman’s right to make decisions about her body, that right has to last the whole way – and we have to trust her to be able to carry the responsibility for that decision, whatever that may be.
Some say that it’s a step-by-step process: if we legislate for TFMR now, people will get used to the idea, and some day, the rest will follow. I think, sadly, that those are the words of people who have given up on the possibility of Ireland ever legislating to support and empower women, instead settling for the second best. That’s a fight for sympathy and understanding – not choice. But a rhetoric that further demonises the informed, personal choice of having an abortion is not a step forward – it only plays into the hands of the pro-lifers, cementing the status quo.
We need to talk about choice
I don’t quite know what to say about Savita’s death. I’m lost for words, but I have to say something, because silence is acceptance, and acceptance is condonation. I wrote, fuelled by anger and frustration, about the Irish abortion laws a while ago, and I think that post explains pretty well how pathetic I think any excuse not to legislate in the wake of Savita’s death would be. I don’t need to write that post again.
I need to add, though, that I’ve been uncomfortable with some of the debate that’s taken place since that post was written. Some pretty powerful campaigns were carried out, and some very admirable efforts were taken to bring this debate back onto a mainstream media platform – and quite successfully so – but all these progressive voices had one thing in common: the word ‘if’.
Taking on the pro-life forces in Ireland is a huge challenge, I realise that. Yet, I find it hard to accept that this has been allowed to compromise the message of the pro-choice, or I should say pro-choice-if, campaigns. The conservative Catholic heritage appears to be so powerful that no one dares to get down to the core of the issue and say that choice must be about a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body, no matter what. The so-called progressive voice has had to settle for bite-sized baby steps, working hard to bring into force legislation that legalises abortion in very extreme cases, if…
Every little helps. Of course. And this is what the women in the Guardian article I mentioned in the aforementioned post understandably argued: they should have had the right to terminate their pregnancies, because they were already deemed futile – their babies were incompatible with life. This is what some will argue in the wake of Savita’s death, too: one should have the right to terminate a pregnancy that is already about to end, if the mother’s life is in danger. Abortion per se, then, is still considered morally wrong; there is no choice to talk about, after all.
Going from the current embarrassing state of affairs to one where abortion is legal and accepted might seem impossible. I understand that. I’m just not sure the debate, in its current shape, is doing much good. It’s a tough challenge for pro-choice campaigners, but right now we’re only beating around the bush.
We need to talk about the fact that the Irish government still thinks it has the right to control women’s bodies. And we need to talk about the fact that, as a result of this, women are dying. Now, if the government is in control and people die, whom should we hold responsible?
Is choice still choice with strings attached?
According to the documentary The Right Child [Det rätta barnet], which was broadcast on Swedish television recently, a prenatal screening programme in Denmark has started a trend which, if it continues, will lead to no more babies being born with Down’s syndrome. With more advanced screening technology, more and more parents are choosing to terminate pregnancies when the condition is diagnosed.
In a leader editorial about the documentary, Hanne Kjöller raises her concerns for the kind of society prenatal diagnostic testing creates. Highlighting that she is a pro-choice advocate, she asks what will happen when screening programmes that can detect autism in foetuses are introduced. How narrow can the perception of the perfect child get?
Kjöller’s problem is in the qualifier. She insists that she is pro-choice, but the choice, it seems, is only really valid under certain circumstances – if you choose to have an abortion, your choice must be justified using principles acceptable to intellectuals like Kjöller. “I want the decision to be the parents’,” she maintains, continuing: “But I want everyone who stands before the decision – about testing or no testing, and about abortion or no abortion – to see that the choice in the long-run is also about the kind of society we want.” Now that’s what I call choice with strings attached.
I feel Kjöller’s pain. Of course it’s about what kind of society we want, and by making abortion services readily available we open up choice to people whose decisions we can’t control. It’s as scary as democracy, really. I used to be keen on the “I’m whole-heartedly pro-choice, but…” phrase too. Until I ended up in the situation where the sonographer turned away the screen and got that look on her face. It would be easy for me to say that in our situation, it wasn’t about choice; we didn’t have one. But that would be to dodge a difficult conversation.
See, I have a problem with Kjöller’s argument, and my problem, too, is in the qualifier. She is pro-choice, but only on the condition that she retains the right to judge those taking advantage of that choice. She is pro-choice, but she reserves the right to blame parents making that choice for creating a narrow-minded, judgemental world. Truth be told, she is not really pro-choice at all, because she is not prepared to be open-minded enough to take the consequences.
It should be said, of course, that Kjöller’s reservations reside primarily within the prenatal diagnostic testing realm and not within that of abortion services. Naturally, if parents don’t know whether their babies are healthy or not, the choices they make are completely blind to unjustifiable justifiers, and as such, their decisions can be considered pure and innocent. But modern technology doesn’t allow for an opaque veil of ignorance, so where do we draw the line? And, really, aren’t there plenty of other ethically questionable justifiers? How, for example, do we feel about termination for convenience? Whose moral compass gets to decide when we’ve crossed the line? Kjöller’s?
The abortion debate is difficult for a reason, and yes, it has to be nuanced. But surely the basic principle of choice (though I must reiterate that the parents facing it are unlikely to feel like they’ve got one) is based on the belief that only the parents themselves know whether or not they are ready and able to be parents? I highly doubt that giving them the right to make that call only once it has been proven that their baby is 100% healthy, or only if they can assure us that they are completely and utterly ignorant in regards to their baby’s health, simply because we have agreed that aborting a baby with a chromosomal abnormality would be evil, would somehow lead to a more open-minded society.
It has been said that the personal is political, and that is true. This is why we legislate around these issues. But Kjöller’s definition of choice, making it into an ethical stance like any political decision, is problematic in this situation; when the toughest of decisions becomes more personal than political and the rest of society stands there watching with its politically correct and ethically romanticised fists in the air, open-mindedness goes out the window.
It’s not easy, but you can’t have it both ways. After all, choice isn’t really choice if it’s conditional. The same way that Kjöller finds some abortion qualifiers problematic, I find that pro-choice qualifiers of any kind sit quite uncomfortably alongside the context within which the fight for universal abortion rights has been and is being fought. No, I don’t want to live in a society where the perception of what is normal gets narrower by the day either. But that doesn’t mean that I’m prepared to sign up for one where even pro-choice campaigners sneer at the choices made by women who simply couldn’t cope.
[All Swedish-to-English translations are my own.]