The Rhetoric of the Anti-Choice Movement and Why I Have a Problem With It

With the recent news of the Virginia House passing a personhood bill and a mandatory transvaginal ultrasound bill, I’ve found myself searching for anyone who supports these measures. In my search, I turned to pro-life blogs and news articles that discussed these issues or the issue of abortion in general. While reading, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the misleading rhetoric that the authors built upon to make their points. So, I’ve decided to highlight some phrases that I’ve come across and explain exactly why I think they are so dangerously misleading.

“Pro-Life”: The very term used to describe a person who favors the illegalization of abortion in the U.S. is unfair and deceptive. This implies that anyone with a dissenting view is, of course, anti-life. The fact still remains that a fetus is not considered a living, breathing human being. Therefore, aborting it does not mean taking away its life. Furthermore, those who don’t call themselves “pro-life” certainly don’t advocate abortions for everyone. It’s not an all-or-nothing attitude. Pro-choice doesn’t mean pro-abortion; many pro-choice women have never and will never have one, themselves. They simply recognize that their decision is exactly that: a personal choice, and one that they don’t assume they can make for another person.

African ‘Her’story: Dreaming the impossible

I know I already wrote about this amazing African woman, but after seeing her lecture, her story justifies another post.

To remind those of you about my previous post, Dr. Elavie Ndura, a Burundian Hutu genocide survivor and scholar, came to JMU to speak about her experiences. As the president of the Justice Studies Student Organization, I thought this event would be able to bring insight to all concentrations in the justice studies major: criminal, international, and social.

As it turns out, students in other majors were just as interested in hearing her lecture.

About 200 people came to listen to her story representing not only justice studies but education, social work, sociology, international relations, political science and communication fields, among others.

After explaining a little bit about the background of the Burundian conflict, Dr. Ndura told about her personal struggle in during the 1970s. She said that her ethnicity and the breakdown of other ethnicities in Burundi really shaped her life, as well as the lives of other citizens. They were taught a distinct divide between the Hutu and the Tutsi’s, a divide which was made much more public during the Rwandan Genocide roughly two decades later. In fact, she said that a well-known ideology about the relationship between Rwanda and Burundi is that when “Rwanda catches a cold, Burundi sneezes, and vice versa.” The Burundi Genocide had much relation to the Rwandan Genocide.

Since she was a Hutu, this meant she had to struggle through education starting with the first grade because of the psychological put-downs from the teachers who were Tutsi in majority.” To add to that struggle, she said that being a woman made it even harder.

“Africa in general and Burundi in particular, being a women sometimes brings some rather interesting experiences in cultures that believe the man is in charge all the time and if you’re a woman you should just sit with the children somewhere and let the men talk and do business.”

Because of her struggle in education, she had to work extra hard to prove that she was worth something.

“I had dreams, I had dreams to be something better than I saw anywhere around.”

She had to work hard to achieve her educational dreams, dreams that seemed impossible. After her elementary school, she was sent to a city 150 north of where she grew up.

“Everyone one of the 100 plus miles, I walked”

That wasn’t the last time she traveled across country for her education.  She later went to an elite high school that was about 150 miles away from her junior high school and again reached that destination by foot. She showed up to the school covered in dirt from the multiple day-long travel. When she got to the school, her name wasn’t on the roster, contrary to her acceptance forms. Her father had to beg to let her stay in school and the teachers made her prove that she was worthy to receive an education there. She did.

She says this is where she first learned about inequality. She saw people being dropped off right at the door from Mercedes cars. She thought, “I had to walk miles to get here. I’m going to compete with these children that can’t even be dropped off 2 yards away from the door?”

She wanted to try as hard as she could to beat everyone in the class and then sometime buy her own Mercedes.

After she achieved the necessary education, she went to study in England. While she was there, she found out that her husband was captured during the genocide and poisoned in prison. She considered herself lucky because since her husband was poisoned, he was given a couple months to live, as opposed to being killed immediately. She came back to spend some time with her husband before his death.

During this time, high school boys were being killed, older men were being killed. They were burying mass graves for the dead bodies. All of Dr. Ndura’s uncles were killed.

Despite those tragedies, she was able to tell humorous stories about her life. She said

“when you lead a difficult life, you have to find ways to insert happy moments because one happy moment can make you live for a long time.”

African ‘Her’story: Overcoming obstacles

My majors have done a lot for me. As a political science and justice studies double major, I may not have job security immediately after college as opposed to my business major counterparts, but I can guarantee you that I will get a job I love…eventually. But even if I don’t, I’m satisfied knowing that for the past four years, I’ve been happy. I’ve been studying things I love—unlike by business major counterparts.

All business majors strive to look like him.

Justice Studies in particular has given me the ability to engage in great conversations, analyze amazing stories and cherish awesome opportunities. This past week, for example, I was able to have lunch with Nate Fields, someone who was exonerated from death row.  His memories and stories were unbelievable. Closer to the beginning of this semester, I had lunch with the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center—a center that researches hate groups and works to minimize their effects.

This week, I’m especially excited about my upcoming lunch date. I get to have a dinner conversation with Elavie Ndura, a Burundian Hutu genocide survivor and peace scholar. As a victim of exploitation and violence in the 20^th century, Dr. Ndura’s life has been filled with challenges.

I initially heard her on a radio interview on With Good Reason, a Virginia Foundation for Humanities program on National Public Radio. I caught the very end of her interview as I was driving to work and I heard her say something truly inspiring. To paraphrase, she said that doors aren’t always going to be open for you; sometimes you have to push them.

To hear someone say something so encouraging and uplifting after having gone through a lifetime of struggle is remarkable.

As president of the Justice Studies Student Organization, I knew she would be an awesome speaker. I looked her up to get more information and found out that she currently teaches peace education at George Mason University. In particular, she stresses the importance of positive dialogue and the critical nature of acceptance of cultural diversities. I emailed her to see if she would be interested in speaking to our organization and anyone else we could get to hear her story.

She agreed to come speak. She is doing so this Wednesday (November 16) at 7:00 p.m. in Transitions.

Abortion is not genocide; women are not Nazis

My entries on this blog normally describe the struggles and achievements of African women. While I will continue to advocate for the recognition of African women in future blog posts, I’m going to have to diverge from my usual topic this week.

I’m sure you either saw or heard about the latest campus controversy. JMU students were blessed with an opportunity to encounter the Genocide Awareness Project on the commons yesterday. The title of the movement sounds great, right? Who wouldn’t want to learn more about the Genocide Awareness Project? As a justice studies major, I’ll admit I was inclined to learn more about this seemingly-inspiring movement.

I was completely wrong. As it turns out, the Genocide Awareness Project, or GAP, is a right-wing conservative movement that travels across university campuses in the United States and Canada with a movable display of pro-life propaganda.

While I have some, although admittedly limited, tolerance for pro-life movements, this movement without a doubt contains the most distasteful means of expressing their views I have ever seen. Not only did they have a myriad of horrific and bloody images of aborted fetuses, but they had those pictures juxtaposed with human beings victimized by genocide.

I would post the pictures here, but I don’t want to force people to see the pictures if they choose to avoid images and the commons altogether. To view the pictures, check out their anti-abortion website or read the coverage of the event in The Breeze. They’ll also be on the commons until the end of the day today for your up-close viewing pleasure.

GAP has a few things wrong with their argument and their methods. First and foremost, choosing to have an abortion is NOT equivalent to genocide. Second, the bloody fetuses depicted on the commons were results from abortions completed in the third trimester—something that is illegal and rarely practiced. Third, this isn’t the way to voice their beliefs; it is totally unacceptable . Period. The First Amendment obviously gives them the right to do whatever they want. Decency, however, shouldn’t be left to the wayside.