Richard Mourdock is nuts. Go back to the front page if you don't know what I'm talking about. But I want to take this discussion in a slightly different direction, if you don't mind.
I'm going to admit something. I've never once understood why some of my friends and allies in the pro-choice community like to get so angry at anti-choice men specifically because of their gender, over the fact that they can't themselves get pregnant, and argue -- even if indirectly -- that this gives men less of a right than, say, anti-choice women, to weigh on the matter of reproductive rights. I truly don't get this.
It would make far more sense, to me, to argue: this is MY body, and I don't want ANYONE, man, woman, Martian, Mourdock, telling me what to do with my body. Now that's a winning argument, and it is, to be sure, the argument I most often see presented in public fora. But it's not the only argument I've seen.
Why does the fact that an anti-choice woman can get pregnant, or once could get pregnant mean that her views are somehow more relevant than a man's? Framing the argument as: Men shouldn't tell women what to do with their body makes no sense to me, when we rightly don't want anyone telling a woman what to do with her body. No one, whatever their genitalia, has the right to tell a woman what to do with her body.
And let's go further, the struggle for abortion rights is not about men versus women. The data from Gallup shows that over time there is little, if any, gender gap on the matter of choice.
According to Gallup polling, from 2001-2008, 48% of men and 49% of women identified as "pro-choice," and from 2009-2012, 43% of men and 45% of women did so.
This is a plea to some of my pro-choice friends. Be angry. Be motivated. I am too. But please don't be MORE angry at any particular anti-choice people because of their gender. Because if you are, then by definition, you're less angry at anti-choice people of the other gender. And how does that make sense?
Let's remember that this fight is not about men vs. women, but about those on the side of reproductive freedom vs. those who are against it. Period.