politics & the office--just don't mix

[novapsyche]

So my boss is talking to our receptionist (who happens to be male) and strains of their conversation is wafting through the department. I hear:

"And he says that he believes that life begins at conception. Well, biologically, what else happens then?"

I say fairly audibly, "Now, see, that's something I think shouldn't be discussed in the office." But my boss's office is some cubes down, so he almost certainly didn't hear me (though my officemates did).

The receptionist: "Right."

My boss: "Now, he says life begins at conception, but he's for abortion."

I speak up quite loudly: "No, he's not 'for abortion,' he's for the right to choose. They're not necessarily the same thing."

Still don't think my boss heard me, though the rest of his conversation was difficult to discern.

It's difficult for me, as a woman who has had an abortion, to discuss it in the clinically dead tones one is supposed to when talking politics.

When I heard that Kerry said that he believed life began at conception, I was more than a little disappointed. But he regained his position in my sight when he said that he didn't believe in legislating his personal beliefs onto everyone else. That I can respect. That, to me, is the morally superior position.

Of course, as a woman and a feminist, I don't think men should have such power over such issues in the first place. I don't like being sexist, but this is one area where I cannot help but be.

Also, I'd like to add that I'm tired of abortions being women's dirty little secret. Several million women get abortions every year. Yet it's so rare to hear the procedure discussed among everyday people. I remember getting acquainted with my brother's fiance, and her relating to me her two abortions. We were not in earshot of anyone, but still she whispered the information to me.

The procedure is legal. It amazes me how stigmatized the women who get abortions are. I don't think rapists are so stigmatized (at least not date rapists).

Edit: This topic has been taken up in this thread in philosophy.

Comments

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Well, you've read my position. My difference with you is, in my eyes, minor and semantic. I do consider a foetus to be "actually alive"- after all, we consider sea sponges and bacteria to be alive- but agree that foetal rights should not trump maternal rights, for the reasons that you outline.

I've had cause recently to think about the way that I use words, and the ways in which other people's uses differ from mine. It is important to me to be consistent, and declaring foetuses to be non-alive would require me, to my way of thinking, to also consider plants and bacteria to be non-alive, which does not make sense to me.

On the other hand, it seeems that some people reject the idea of foetal life not so much out of a desire for logical consistency, but out of a desire for expressive symbolic clarity- the degree to which they feel the foetus is undeserving of consideration rivalling its mothers'. I maintain that I can agree with the principle without sharing all the terminology.