Your response is truly eloquent and well-reasoned but even more admirable is your restraint. If I had been the recipient of such vitriol, I’m sure I would have thrown some acid right back. I doubt your effort will make an impression on someone as over the edge as your ex-friend but it may have some impact on those who are still open to rational dialogue. You should take pride in having done the best you can.

And if you want, feel free to post a link to that website where she’s bashing you. I have a few choice words that I would like to share with her. I think its time that she was confronted by people who actually value rationality and common sense.

The follow on from this is that I caught a post from her this morning on a mutual friend’s blog-roll and she further slandered me, posting the email I sent her privately asking her not to contact me again and that I was sad that the person I had called friend seemed to no longer exist. She accused me of being ignorant of and bigoted towards her religion (conservative catholicism) and that I was afraid and running away from an opposing view.

Now, anyone that has seen me around here will know the latter is blatantly not true *smile* Sure, I know when it’s time to admit that me and another person probably aren’t going to reach any kind of an agreement, but I think that’s a good thing actually. However, to place my thoughts on the matter once and finally, I made the following post to my blog.

I tried to be reasonable, rational and calm while expressing my regret that this person did this and forced me to ban her. Hopefully I acheived something in the ballpark of that (let me know):

Yesterday evening after I posted a possible strategic reframing of the terms of the abortion debate by a very intelligent feminist man who runs one of the most successful progressive feminist blogs on the web I got a comment from someone I now used to call a friend. Disagreement on the issue of choice and abortion rights is certainly something I actually like and certainly welcome. The ability to have social spaces to disagree and debate and talk are things I want to have and is part of my work.

Her beliefs may not have changed, but the intolerant and hateful expression of those beleifs has, and that is what I am so sad about in losing this person as a friend. And I am not going to change my mind about putting myself in a place where such hate is expressed.

Sarah, that must have been so awful to read, from someone you actually knew.

Its always weird to me when I come across people like that who seem to believe that pro-choicers are actually “pro-abortion”? and we actively hate children and pregnant women, as if we’re supervillians trying to stop everyone from procreating.

I don’t know — do I get a say in who doesn’t get to procreate?

Ah, but they’re only for smaller government when it’s a government populated largely by Democrats. Notice how the “Big government out of our lives!” meme has died out over this presidency.

Fuck off and leave our children alone you sterile death suckers. Leave our ability to be fertile alone, leave our kids alone and leave our motherhood alone.

Uh, unless I’m missing something, we ARE leaving people like Sarah’s friend alone. It’s forced pregnancy advocates that aren’t leaving people alone.
Its always weird to me when I come across people like that who seem to believe that pro-choicers are actually “pro-abortion” and we actively hate children and pregnant women, as if we’re supervillians trying to stop everyone from procreating.

What if we cut off all the hate and exaggeration and everything else that makes the “pro-life” side so easy to revile and come back to the core of their more “sane” argument, which is:

“Sex is a choice, so barring coerced sex or medical need, why should abortion (killing a baby) be a choice? Why can’t they choose adoption instead, if the economic concerns of raising a child are so grave? Or, choose not to have sex if they are not prepared for the consequences of pregnancy?”

There are several answers to this, which have varying degrees of satisfaction, but it’s always fun to play devil’s advocate. In a way, yes, it would be nice if the argument could be broken down to a less ethically and emotionally loaded area, like choosing wether or not to have sex instead of choosing wether or not to terminate a pregnancy that may or may not be viable, may or may not be “a sentient life”, may or may not be medically risky to the person involved.

For the record, I’m not pro-abortion, but I am pro-choice.

Dear Sarah’s ex-friend,

Go piss up a rope.

Sincerely,

The Satanic unnatural hairy-legged pie. :p

Needless to say this person is now banned from my blog, her emails will no longer come to me, and the comment is deleted (I don’t mind contradicting opinions on my blog, but this kind of hate … nope).

The really sad thing is that I was a witness at this person’s wedding and did her makeup for it. She was a good friend before I left my home country and she converted to conservative catholicism. THIS is what fundamentalism does to wonderful people; fill them with hate and anger.

Anyway, on with the comment:

Ok, I’m now annoyed enough to actually post.

Well guess what, our tight little pussy is for bearing out our babies, and those soft milky breasts, well they’re for our babies too. Leave our motherhood alone. Go get your kicks from some other piece of pie you killers.

I obstinately refuse to use the term “pro-life”. That is a frame I simply refuse.

And there is a reason for this; because without this little defene mechanism, you’ll get screwed. There is nothing wrong with changing or building up your position. There is nothing wrong with questioning it. With time, experience, and discovery, you learn more! That doesnt make ou a flip-flop. It makes you educated! But anti-choice people, who are usually too dense to do any of this, will take that as insecurity. Sounds a lot like our Bushie, eh, who has no problem killing thousads upon thousands of innocent people to quence his sick, obsessive need to have total control? If you are not careful, they will pull you in with their lies and duplicity. Of course, every insult, every manipulation, every lack of thought, every repeated question or answer, every assault, etc. they will vociferously deny, unless of course you are a quasi-sociopath like Michael Griffin, but when we come across these people who are intent on dismantling us, not out of a moral hih ground, but out of power hunger and fear, we have to keep in mind the alternative to haning on and marching on to advance the life-saving pro-choice cause.

If our anti-choice counterparts wanted parental consent in place to ensure involvement in teens’ lives, then they would require the same of pregnanc and childbirth, which is much riskier. They wouldn’t require some teens to go looking for a parent they haven’t seen in years. (In what other medical procedure do you need BOTH parents’ consent? A heart transplant wouldn’t require the signature of two parents.) And let’s not forget that informed consent is standard before a tetanus shot, mcuh less an invasive surgical procedure, no matter how mild. “Informed consent” is more like biased counseling, and let us not even address those “crisis pregnancy counseling centers.”

And that is why I support this reframing. I have only one caution; do not push away our pro-life-truly-partners in pregnancy prevention. It is the only way to solve this problem that otherwise has no solution.

Hmm, I have a feeling Robert’s cunning plan was actually to attempt dissuading from an approach that would be so obviously effective for the pro-choice side by pretending it’d be welcome by the pro-lifers. Except that attempt at dissuasion is so transparently unconvincing.

Maybe next time don’t make it so obvious! :p