OPINION: The legal conversation quickly turned into a sort of battle between rivals rife with accusations and spiritual cliches.
In my public health school at American University law school, we just had a discussion about whether states may impose criminal penalties on those who seek or perform abortions solely on the grounds of a fetus ‘ sex, race, or impairment status.
Besides myself, the whole group was overwhelmingly against criminalization. Out of the 14 different laws students, not a single one spoke up in my defence. The discussion quickly turned into a sort of battle between rivals rife with complaints and social cliches.
The adjunct’s teacher, who has been hired to teach “reproductive right” at my laws school for the past seven years, fired the opening salvo at me.
She argued that the prohibition of sex-selective miscarriages” stigmatize and discriminate against Asians who are portrayed as being more probable to want to kill women.” The rest of the school joined the chorus of criticism. One scholar warned,” We gotta realize that light society will always find ways to control immigrant children’s body.” In other words, I am a discriminatory.
I’m not sure how those who support sex-selective abortions could possibly reconcile these practices with their own fascination with women’s rights, but I do wonder whether Asians are more likely than people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds to indulge in sex-selective abortions. Why should individuals be able to kill both boys and girls without using any other explanation if they are equally for?
The scholar who volunteered his knowledge gave the example of a white girl who aborted a mixed-race child while she was cheating on her pale partner with a black man as to why race-selective miscarriages should not be prohibited. In this situation, her wish to eradicate evidence of her infidelity is boundless with her desire to kill the child according to his race. Then, “her father can tell from a sight that the baby is not his. You’d get criminalizing this girl for seeking an abortion for a non-racial purpose”, he said.
Was he claiming that a woman’s prejudiced intentions are combined with a non-racist intention, that she is no more guilty of prejudice? Had I taken the opportunity to clarify his explanation, would this white student—who previously boasted that he had taken” critical race idea”, which is indeed the name of a semester-long program offered at my laws school—have groveled before me to forgive? Maybe I should include reminded him that his racism was attested by his audacity to speak up at me as a person of color.
Lastly, banning disability-selective pregnancies supposedly criminalizes” kindness”. One student claimed that some women who have disabilities kill their babies because they believe they may lack “quality of life,” not out of prejudice for those who are disabled. ” Babies are not people anyway”, she added, her outspoken fry communicating pure apathy.
That last statement explains anything. If fetuses are no people, then abortions performed solely on the basis of their eternal traits would be of no consequence for groups whose identities derive from these traits. Concerns about racism, sexism, and ableism are reserved only for those living outside the womb.
However, is it not true that only people can have “quality of life” or possess characteristics that reflect sex or race? A number of barely controlled emotional outbursts were the result of my question.
” ]Fetal ] personhood has no basis in American law”, a voice yelled. Another person claimed that “none of these discussions have so far focused on women themselves, what they want, and what works best for their bodies.” Without realizing it, the entire class ran away from my position.
Such is the caliber of these emerging attorneys. While appalling, their total lack of empathy for the unborn does not affect their ability to serve their communities as much as the fact that many of their so-called counterarguments are just personal insults or that they appear largely incapable of handling criticism without devolving into a frenzy.
Moreover, by failing to challenge the mob, my professor had effectively enabled it. After all, she herself acknowledged right away that” I teach this class from a reproductive justice perspective.”
There is still a lot of work to do to stop the ideological dominance of higher education in America. But we can find hope knowing that our opponents are fragile, incoherent, and far removed from common sense.
MORE: An architecture exhibit at UW Milwaukee uses mops to support “reproductive justice.”
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