Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts

Monday, July 11, 2016

Identitarian Deference in Abortion Rights Rhetoric

I just realized another long-standing example of "identitarian deference" that I never noticed/recognized before:

"it you don't have a uterus, you do not get a vote"
"if you're not a woman, you don't get an opinion on this issue"
This is a very long-standing, from as far back as I can remember following politics, argument/piece of rhetoric/retort used by pro-choice women (and even some men) on the left to argue against pro-life men.

When in the past I've been thinking about how best to argue against some of these more risky/destructive tendencies, I've tried to recall previous examples of identity politics and identitarian deference ad hominems to show how the approach is fallacious; I especially tried to show them examples of conservative ad hominem fallacies that they might have decried as fallacious at the time and still would have the partisan amenability to that judgment.
But I was also trying to identity past examples of erroneous identity politics and identitarian deference in general, including on the left, in order in part to discover whether recent developments, in identity politics and PC--especially on campus, really represent a change on the political scene, whether there really was something new.
Even when I was recently casting about for specific identifiable examples of earlier lefty identitarianism, I didn't think of this.  Could mean nothing, but could be because of how deep this was engrained and normalized...

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Incidentally, the current line on gender identity and trans rights would invalidate/preclude this rule anyway, since men and women can no longer be assumed to have penises and vaginas, respectively, and in general that there is no external way to determine whether they have a uterus or not--and asking them is rude and verifying is assault and insult.  

Identity Politics and Abortion Argument

Is this post, on the idea of a universal positive right to an abortion, an example of or does it contain any instances/examples of "identity politics"?  In the good sense of the term as used by those who profess its value?

At least in style it seems to me not; maybe in some sense about the content, since it directly concerns only part of the population, it is.  But so if it does count as identity politics for its content--despite or without regard to its style--then I only have a problem with the style of identity politics.

Abortion Regulation: From Illegal to Legal... to Universal?

I've just come to the conclusion that universal access to abortion is a legal political imperative. 
If we base our right to abortion on the right to bodily-autonomy, then abortion should be just as free and universally accessible as law enforcement and judicial services. 

Could this be right?  
Is the logic?  Should we reexamine the premise?