“A white supremacist, cis-normative hetero-patriarchy”
Abortion bans target and primarily victimize women, who are seen as no longer fulfilling their rightful reproductive and social role as mothers in particular and caregivers in general, to everyone around them.
Primarily?
We are perceived as owing our bodies, our minds, our labor, to men and “their” children within a white supremacist, cis-normative hetero-patriarchy.
What does it have to do with white supremacy? What is “cis-normative” about it?
Hence the deliberate cruelty and, in my view, paradigmatic misogyny involved in enforcing pregnancy.
I agree with that bit at any rate. It can’t help being misogynist, given who the victims are. That’s complicated by the fact that there are many many many women who want to enforce pregnancy, but it’s still misogyny.
Never mind, here it comes.
And yet abortion bans affect others too—anyone who can get pregnant, in the first instance.
Anyone who can get pregnant of course=women. Women only. No men.
This includes cis girls, trans boys and men, and some non-binary and intersex people.
No. It includes girls of course, but it includes zero boys and men. Some women call themselves the meaningless “non-binary” but that has nothing to do with pregnancy or abortion.
When I talk about who is potentially affected by abortion bans, I thus talk about people who can get pregnant. Not only is this appropriately inclusive, but it’s not exclusive either of the many, many women—trans women, post-menopausal women, and women with infertility issues—who are not currently impregnable.
On the contrary, it’s inappropriately “inclusive.” It’s an inclusion too many. The bit about women who can’t get pregnant is pure shameless smokescreen – she’s a philosophy teacher, she knows damn well that “only women can get pregnant” is not the same as “all women can get pregnant.” Infertile women are not insulted when we point out that abortion bans are attacks on women’s rights.
Is this creating a new meaning for the word “impregnable?” Perhaps she means “pregnable?” I don’t think that’s a word, but, a mighty fortress is impregnable. The human female reproductive organ system is not impregnable.
Doesn’t the term “people who can get pregnant” quite specifically exclude women with infertility issues and post-menopausal women? What would a woman having “infertility issues” even mean other than being of reproductive age but not getting pregnant despite trying? Post-menopausal women pretty much by definition not able to get pregnant either. And trans women don’t have wombs.
She might be a philosopher, but I think she can be excluded from people who can think clearly.
This is part of the transing of abortion rights into the broader, more amorphous “bodily autonomy” narrative that will allow genderists to center trans people, and latch “life saving”, “gender affirming” “healthcare” onto it. Forced teaming at its best. Abortion rights will be subsumed and submerged in the Great Struggle for Bodily Autonomy. “THEY’RE COMING FOR TRANS FOLK NEXT!” will be the reason that women will be plowed aside in order to shift the focus to trans people, where it rightfully belongs. Never mind that women have been subject to this since forever, that’s old news, and striking down abortion rights is only a minor skirmish (or diversionary attack) in the larger, and vastly more important War Against The Trans.
Those who divert energy and focus away from abortion rights by insisting on everyone using “inclusive language” should fuck right off. They have decided that public displays of obedience to genderist orthodoxy are more important than the health and safety of women and girls. Their virtue signaling is going to get women killed. And that’s not hyperbole.
I think she intended “impregnable” to be parallel with “impregnate”, as in “can be impregnated”. She’s using the word wrong, but I can see this case as possibly like the word “inflammable” in her mind.
It’s interesting that the word “pregnable” means “vulnerable to attack”, or perhaps “vulnerable to breach in an attack”, typically in relation to forts or other defenses. This fits in with the concept of women being “conquered” via sexual intercourse, and “impregnation” is both about reproduction and about the man having successfully breached the fortifications of the woman.
Mike @ 1 – I missed that, in the red mist of rage. She used the wrong damn word. She meant to sound so clever and instead sounds like Mrs Malaprop.
And I just noticed she said “infertility issues” rather than “fertility issues”. We all know what she meant, but now I’m not clear which one means “trouble getting pregnant” and which one means “trouble avoiding getting pregnant”. Or maybe both mean both. Sigh, English.
Mike @1, but it has the letters “preg” in it, so it must have something to do with pregnancy!
(I’m similarly amused by things like “inflammable” being thought to mean “won’t catch fire”. I’ve always thought it a sort of litmus test of how widely read a person is if they get these kinds of words wrong, or not.)
Passing by the odd usage of the word since you have covered that well, I see no reason to include post menopausal women or infertile women (which I presume is what she meant) in abortion rights. They do not need one, they will not need one. Many of us women in those groups fight for the rights that we had when we needed them (if we are in the post menopausal group), but we recognize that it is unlikely to be us affected by this new reality, so we don’t insist on being included in this discussion…rightfully so…but do recognize that this could just be opening the floodgates, and there are issues where ultimately we will need to be included in women’s issues.
Trans-women are men. They cannot get pregnant, have never been able to get pregnant, and will never be able to get pregnant. They may be able to impregnate, but not be impregnated. This conversation has nothing at all to do with them. Using them as one of “all types of women” is ridiculous, because they are not women. Instead of working to help salvage abortion rights, which they do not need, they are working instead to savage them by making the issue once again about them. If the floodgates are opened to other women’s issues, they should not be included in those, either. They are not women.
I can see that abortion bans “primarily” attack women, in the sense that some anti-abortion legislation also punishes other people, like doctors who perform abortions, or anyone who assists a woman to, e.g., travel to get an abortion. The laws can punish such people “secondarily,” and it’s possible for men to be in these secondary categories.