Dan Savage is right; the organized anti-choice movement is motivated by the desire to punish what they consider deviant sexuality much more than they are motivated by any love of fetal life. It's been well-observed by pro-choice activists for a long time that anti-choice activists, given the choice between punishing sex and reducing the abortion rate, will choose the former every time. The anti-choice movement's hostility towards contraception is an open secret; most people on both sides of the debate know about it, but anti-choice activists also know better than to flaunt their hatred of contraception when trying to woo people on the issue of abortion. As I discovered when an anti-choice handbook fell into my hands, activists are instructed to dodge questions about their hostility to contraception early in conversations, and put a great deal of work into softening targets up before hitting them with appeals against not just abortion, but contraception.
But for anyone who cares to know, the anti-choice movement's larger anti-birth control agenda isn't that hard to figure out. Some groups take a "moderate" stance of refusing to take an official stance on contraception, while quietly promoting misinformation about it. Some groups openly flaunt their desire to ban contraception; the American Life League holds annual protests against legal contraception on the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 Supreme Court decision that legalized contraception for married couples. Abstinence-only programs instigated by the religious right are rife with flagrant misinformation about contraception straight out of anti-choice mythology. If there's any angle prominent anti-choice activists can use to take potshots at contraception, they will. Knowing as we do that access to contraception reduces the abortion rate (duh), the only honest conclusion is that the "pro-life" movement doesn't care about the abortion rate so much as they care that women can get abortions without fear of punishment.
http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/could-abortion-opponents-embrace-contraception
The "Pro-Life" Movement's Hot Rhetoric and All-Out Lies
I've got my hands on a 113-page training manual (PDF)
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/emailphotos/pdf/Anti-Choice-Handbook.pdf
What I first learned was that Justice For All has no problem instructing its activists to use deception to lure people into a conversation. In the section titled "Why Don't You Pass Out Condoms and Promote Birth Control?," the authors tacitly admit that sensible people might be put off by the anti-choice movement's willingness to increase the abortion rate by standing as firmly against contraception, especially the birth control pill, as they do legal abortion. So instead of allowing members to admit their hostility to all forms of contraception, they instruct them to conceal their beliefs until a target has been softened up to hear about their true message--sexual abstinence for all not trying to procreate--through a series of dodgy, misleading arguments, including misinformation about how the birth control pill works.
This tactic is a mainstay of the anti-choice movement: it shows one face to the initiated, and another to the public, especially on the topic of contraception.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/06/02/the-prolife-movements-hot-rhetoric-and-allout-lies
But for anyone who cares to know, the anti-choice movement's larger anti-birth control agenda isn't that hard to figure out. Some groups take a "moderate" stance of refusing to take an official stance on contraception, while quietly promoting misinformation about it. Some groups openly flaunt their desire to ban contraception; the American Life League holds annual protests against legal contraception on the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 Supreme Court decision that legalized contraception for married couples. Abstinence-only programs instigated by the religious right are rife with flagrant misinformation about contraception straight out of anti-choice mythology. If there's any angle prominent anti-choice activists can use to take potshots at contraception, they will. Knowing as we do that access to contraception reduces the abortion rate (duh), the only honest conclusion is that the "pro-life" movement doesn't care about the abortion rate so much as they care that women can get abortions without fear of punishment.
http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/could-abortion-opponents-embrace-contraception
The "Pro-Life" Movement's Hot Rhetoric and All-Out Lies
I've got my hands on a 113-page training manual (PDF)
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/emailphotos/pdf/Anti-Choice-Handbook.pdf
What I first learned was that Justice For All has no problem instructing its activists to use deception to lure people into a conversation. In the section titled "Why Don't You Pass Out Condoms and Promote Birth Control?," the authors tacitly admit that sensible people might be put off by the anti-choice movement's willingness to increase the abortion rate by standing as firmly against contraception, especially the birth control pill, as they do legal abortion. So instead of allowing members to admit their hostility to all forms of contraception, they instruct them to conceal their beliefs until a target has been softened up to hear about their true message--sexual abstinence for all not trying to procreate--through a series of dodgy, misleading arguments, including misinformation about how the birth control pill works.
This tactic is a mainstay of the anti-choice movement: it shows one face to the initiated, and another to the public, especially on the topic of contraception.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/06/02/the-prolife-movements-hot-rhetoric-and-allout-lies
