Another great column on what exporting abortions abroad is really about:
“Population control,” through the United Nations or otherwise, has always consisted of “breeding instructions for the blacks, browns, and yellows.” And this is precisely what Ignatieff is selling, to the sort of people who want to buy it.
So when we talk maternal health, let’s talk maternal health. It is cultural imperialism of the very worst kind to take some Harvard-educated feminist’s mantra of “my body, my choice” and export it to cultures where they don’t think of killing their unborn babies as a solution to problems.
by 
This from the same person who attacked Turkey for it’s high rate of honor killings? That’s a form of cultural imperialism too, criticising a traditional practice like that. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
It’s not inconsistent to value human life, and criticize any culture that permits/condones/encourages the unnecessary taking of human life (ours through abortion, Turkey’s through honour killings).
I said this is the worst kind of cultural imperialism. I have no issue with cultural imperialism that exports life. I don’t engage in moral equivalency. Ie. honour killings, genital mutilation, suicide bombing=bad and I’d happily export my culture to overturn those. Exporting abortion? is the worst kind of cultural imperialism. It takes what is healthy (cultures that don’t have abortion and don’t sanction it) and perverts their healthier values.
(BTW, the post about honour killings was Brigitte but that’s ok, I agree.)
In America, we have NSSM-200 which is a document by the likes of one H. Kissinger explaining why America must begin exporting population control to third world countries in order to have a better share of their resources accessible to the US. It also explains how to portray these actions in such a light so as to make it seem as if the US isn’t actually just preventing brown people from breeding so that we can use their oil, when in actuality that’s precisely what we’re doing.
Can I ask? What does banning or not funding abortion do? Does it really stop abortions? Will women cease to have abortions if they are criminalized? In Ireland where abortion is not permitted by the state 1 out of 10 Irish women have had one. Criminalizing it has not stopped it. What does banning or not funding abortion do but make us feel better about ourselves for not condoning it?
Perhaps pro-lifers who are in favor of stopping abortion should start building orphanages, and creating public policy that will make it more likely for a woman to choose not to abort her child. Things like easily accessible day care (public daycare if I had my choice), or perhaps working to fix the accessibility and availability of adoptions for pregnant women and families who want babies.
Banning or not funding abortions around the world will not stop it. But creating a society where women who become pregnant find support systems and social programs that can help them deal with their pregnancy and possible motherhood would help to prevent many women from turning to it.
Corina,
In the United States where abortion is legal 1 out of 3 women have had at least one abortion. It seems that criminalization has had some effect in Ireland since the rate is only 10% versus 33% in the States where it’s a free for all. Please tell me though, what action/behavior/drug activity/etc has completely ceased due to it’s illegal status? I can’t think of a damn one.
“Perhaps pro-lifers who are in favor of stopping abortion should start building orphanages…”
Hahaha. Are you serious? Christians have done their fair share in building and maintaining orphanages in America.
http://www.missionfinder.org/orphanages.htm#special
Banning murder doesn’t appear to have stopped that, either. So let’s legalise it.
By the way, this is very pedantic of me, but abortion has not been criminalised or banned in Ireland, as it was never legal there in the first place. It has simply remained illegal there while it has been decriminalised in most of the rest of Europe.
Also, most Irish abortions are performed in England: Irish women get the boat or plane across, have the abortion, then go home. It is therefore misleading to discuss what effect abortion’s illegality in Ireland has on Irish abortion rates without taking into account the legalisation of abortion in England. If abortion were banned in England, Scotland, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, that would have a massive effect on Irish abortion rates.
Interesting comments, Squander Two. This is not semantics, to make this distinction:
“By the way, this is very pedantic of me, but abortion has not been criminalised or banned in Ireland, as it was never legal there in the first place. It has simply remained illegal there while it has been decriminalised in most of the rest of Europe.”
Not pedantic, no. I think this is important.