"A feminism that cannot admire the bravura under high pressure of the first woman governor of a frontier state isn't worth a warm bucket of spit."

"Dissident feminist" Camille Paglia on Palin.

More:

The gigantic, instantaneous coast-to-coast rage directed at Sarah Palin when she was identified as pro-life was, I submit, a psychological response by loyal liberals who on some level do not want to open themselves to deep questioning about abortion and its human consequences.

Paglia is pro-choice -- mainly because she is anti-nature -- but frankly faces up to the serious ethical problems with her own position, because she is also pro-individual.  Likewise, she is pro-Obama -- because "we need a new generation of leadership with fresh ideas and an expansive, cosmopolitan vision" -- but is not afraid to criticize Obama's performance in the most scathing terms when he disappoints and drops the ball.  Life is contradictory, and it's exhilarating to read a writer who doesn't deny that.

Comments

[Tom Strong]

Word.

People are too easily blinded by political rivalries. Having Obama on one ticket and Palin on the other is a great choice, and a clear advancement, for the American people.

[realpc]

Being pro-life is a gigantic problem. I can understand being against abortion in general, but I cannot understand dictating to all women that they cannot control their own lives by having an early abortion if necessary. I understand why that makes feminists mad.

Palin can afford to support her husband while he stays home with the kids. She has friends and relatives to help out. And she doesn't need much sleep. Well we can't all be like her. The horrible suffering, mental and physical, that results from unwanted pregnancies when legal early abortion is not available is tragic and cruel and unnecessary.

So of course feminists are going to be enraged.

I would love Sarah Palin if she were not pro-life. And it's even worse that her own daughter will be forced into an early and possibly premature marriage because of an unplanned pregnancy. How did an evangelical manage to not teach her own daughter that pre-marital sex is (according to her church) a sin?

[Pastor_Jeff]

How did an evangelical manage to not teach her own daughter that pre-marital sex is (according to her church) a sin?

Can you explain why you assume that she didn't?

Christians warn against sin because we recognize it exists and has negative consequences. So Christians tell their kids that while sex is awesome, sex outside of marriage has really serious and negative consequences -- like regret, STDs, and unplanned pregnancies.

That Palin's daughter is pregnant is only evidence that the young lady had sex, not that her parents didn't warn her not to -- or do your kids always do what they tell you?

[Melinda]

Camille Paglia, Lesbian of Reason!

Personally, when I read that Sarah Palin had five kids, my first thought was, "She's got help."

Like the other lady said, "It takes a village."

[realpc]

Palin is lucky that unrestricted breeding worked out well for her. She has tremendous energy, talent and drive, but also probably a lot of luck.

Maybe she thinks "If I can do it any woman can" but that is just not true. Women absolutely need the right to early abortion or, preferably, abortion pills.

I seldom side with extreme feminists on anything, but I have to agree with them on this. For most of my life abortion was legal and just knowing that meant I did not live in constant dread of pregnancy. Yes I worried about it and always absolutely hated the thought of abortion. But just knowing you can makes all the difference and knowing you can't means being a prisoner.

[Melinda]

Hey, you're looking at somebody who read Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" twenty years ago and wanted to take all her money out of the bank and hide it under her mattress.

Then, the next day I said to myself, "Boy, are you silly" and realized that the Dems can scare modern career girls with the threat of something being taken from them the way Pubs can scare their constituency with the threats of foreign invasions. "Vote for us or experience your own personal apocalyspe!"

Besides, I didn't have any money.

[PatHMV]

I'm sorry, realpc, but I know quite a few women who do not "absolutely" need the right to an abortion or abortion pills. There are quite a variety of very effective contraceptive devices and medications available on the market, leaving aside the abstinence option.

I hear where you're coming from, but it's not nearly as one-sided as you make it out to be, and outlawing abortion would not be some death knell to women's equality.

[PatHMV]

Your phrasing, realpc, highlights the divide between the pro-life and pro-choice camps. Like Obama, you view pregnancy as a "punishment," something that is forcing Trig Palin into a hastily-arranged marriage. Your focus is almost entirely on the negative aspects of child-bearing. Pro-life folks look at every child, every new life as a blessing. Yes, there's a lot of work associated with raising a child... but there's so much joy, as well, and the ultimate reward of a new, unique, individual human being in this crazy world.

[Pastor_Jeff]

Oh, why can't those nasty Republicans be as nice as those lovely Democrats?:

South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a running mate " whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”

Woe to those who stray off the plantation.

[Pastor_Jeff]

I'll freely admit that the GOP has strayed far from conservative principles. It's no small source of frustration and disappointment for me.

But can someone tell me what the rigid ideology dominant in the Democratic party has to do with true liberalism?

At some point Democrats decided they represent minorities and women and are owed their allegiance, and few people are savaged as brutally as those who fail to toe the party line.

[Tom Strong]

I don't know, Pat. Just a few paragraphs earlier, Pastor Jeff described unplanned pregnancies as a "serious and negative consequence" of nonmarital sexual activity. You pro-lifers may want to get together and confer a bit.

[realpc]

"There are quite a variety of very effective contraceptive devices and medications available "

None of them infallible.

"Your focus is almost entirely on the negative aspects of child-bearing. Pro-life folks look at every child, every new life as a blessing."

Oh Jesus. Talk about forcing your values on millions of women you don't even know. If you want to force that on your daughters I don't care, but don't try to force every women in America to share your ideas about child-bearing.

That is utterly outrageous and you're making me want to join NOW!!! Which I never had the slightest desire to join in my entire life.

[PatHMV]

realpc, I certainly had no intention of sending you off into the hands of NOW. I was responding to your "absolute," categorical assertion of a "requirement." I know a LOT of pro-life women who don't agree with you... women who do indeed face the consequences of child birth, women who are sexually active (both within and outside of marriage). They don't feel a need to be able to abort an unborn child in order to fully participate in life and live without dread. You made a categorical statement. I replied simply to point out that not nearly everybody, certainly not nearly every woman, agrees with your absolute comment. In fact, I think the last poll figures I saw suggested that MEN supported abortion rights slightly more than women... no doubt for some of them because it lets them off the child support hook.

Abortion is a real, important issue. When Republicans bring it up, though, the Democrats accuse Republicans of pushing "wedge issues." But it is a genuinely divisive issue. We need to learn to accept that legitimate differences of opinion exist so we can work toward living in relative harmony with each other.

Tom... there's no need to be pedantic. Nobody on the pro-life side says that raising a child is a walk in the park. Of course there are negative consequences. My comment acknowledged that there are negative consequences. The difference I was pointing out is on which aspects (the consequences or the blessings) the FOCUS is placed upon.

[Pastor_Jeff]

Just a few paragraphs earlier, Pastor Jeff described unplanned pregnancies as a "serious and negative consequence" of nonmarital sexual activity. You pro-lifers may want to get together and confer a bit.

Wait, you mean pro-lifers aren't allowed to disagree? Sorry, I think that's the Democratic party you're thinking of.

Anyway, what I wrote was "sex outside of marriage has really serious and negative consequences -- like regret, STDs, and unplanned pregnancies." Becoming a mom at 17 is quite a serious thing, and unplanned pregnancy certainly has a negative impact on your freedom and life plans. But a baby per se is not a negative thing. Pregnancy = event; baby = person.

You chose to parse what I wrote to suit your own ideological ends. Nice try, but I didn't say a baby was a negative consequence of sex.

[Peter Hoh]

On a some forum or thread I was reading yesterday, I came across an insightful remark from a woman who supported abortion rights but liked Palin anyway.

She wrote that she felt differently about a female politician who held a pro-life position than she felt about a male politician with the same viewpoint. It didn't mean the same thing coming from a woman who walked the talk, or something like that.

[realpc]

Abortion is a stupid issue and a waste of everyone's time. No one knows when life officially begins, and it might vary. I like Obama's answer, that it's above his pay grade to know when life begins. It's just darn stupid for any church to claim it knows. It is never ever mentioned in any bible.

So everyone should stop worrying about exactly when life begins. Use a little common sense. Do not abort a 5 month fetus unless for some strange reason the mother will die otherwise.

Do not ruin the lives of thousands, or millions, of women because of the crazy idea that a couple of cells can be an actual human being with a soul.

Just a little common sense would release our society from the paralyzing grip of an insane issue. We could think about something else and vote for more important reasons.

[Tom Strong]

Pat,

If you don't want to be on the receiving end of pedantry, I suggest you start by not dishing it out. Defining your opponent's views like this

Like Obama, you view pregnancy as a "punishment,"

is incredibly pompous.

realpc did not describe bearing children as a punishment; neither has Obama. You are putting words in their mouths.

Pastor Jeff,

Sorry for using your parsing to make a point to Pat. I'm well aware that pro-choicers can, and do, disagree.

[Spud]

Abortion is a stupid issue and a waste of everyone's time. recalp

Abortion is a very serious issue. What I don't like about the issue, is the framing of it. The fallacy, is that conservatives care more about the unborn than liberals do, or that they value life more, when in truth as I see it, the issue is who gets to make the decision, the government, or the woman involved. The words, pro-life and pro-choice, is what's a waste of time.

[karen]

"Palin is lucky that unrestricted breeding worked out well for her."

Well, real- i'm pretty disappointed w/that phrasing, too. She's not a fucking collie. As it so happens- i can totally relate to Palin and her lack of control or ~whatever~ it is that your implying, along w/her "inability to recognize" that ~action A~ will result in ~exhibit B~-; also implied. Did it ever occur to you that we are leaving our fate up to a Higher Power- who is totally aware& capable of the paygrade?

I have four kids- and i pray i have no more, but i never use artificial BC. Only NFP. Pull&pray is out now that i am aware it's not kosher for Catholics(;0)). I may well end up w/a child that has an extra chromosome in my future- anything is possible w/God. I'm 41. A child like Trig would be a blessing. A challenging one, to be sure- but then, so are girls.

I guess there's just no bridging the divide. Pat may be hopeful, but now that my ~choices~ have been simply reduced to that of a bitch in heat-- no bridge.

[karen]

And, real: You're a scientist. Are you really telling me that there is no concrete evidence that life begins at conception? I recall a very detailed film shown on PBS that revealed every detail of sperm/ovum, etc. Does the egg implant or not? If it is prevented from implanting... that's an abortion- an intentional prevention of that living egg to take hold, grow and eventually enter this side of the womb.

Do you know what the difference is between an unborn and a newborn child?

Time.

[Danny]

I don't mean to be disrespectful, Karen, and God knows it's none of my business what you choose to do, but aren't most people in the Catholic church now okay with birth control like condoms or even the pill? Or maybe it's just all the Catholics I know who are okay with it. I admit I'm surprised to hear anyone who doesn't want more kids say they don't use any artificial birth control. But I'm a bit ghettoized here in Los Angeles.

I assume that despite your own beliefs, you would not want to impose a national ban of artificial birth control methods for people who don't want kids?

[karen]

Danny-

You aren't being disrespectful and i thank you. For some reason, everyone has a hot button issue and mine is abortion.

Church teachings are easily ignored today. Many probably think they are more informed than the dudes in white in the Vatican. I believe that i am not.

Any form of BC puts a barrier between you and your spouse. You deny a part of yourself to be given: fertility. That's the Church's stance. If the point of loving someone is 100% and God is love... anyway, as a Catholic, i believe this way.

NFP works just as well as any other form, IMhumbleO. It just limits human timing. God's timing, again- is key. If you don't want a child-- don't become intimate during the fertile time of ovulation. It takes a lot of self-control, and yet- it makes time spent together all the more powerful because the action is more than getting it on, and off.

I agree my beliefs aren't today's standard of marriage or sex. I agree kids are quite the challenge. I would not push my view of BC on anyone. I myself- know many Catholics that use some form of BC- sterilization is pretty common. It is a choice.

Abortion involes another life- so, abortion goes beyond the pale. How can someone like Pelosi say that-- St. Augustine questioned the ensoulment of an unborn- so, therefore... i vote abortions rights 100%.

In Augustine's age, the freaking world was still flat, for crying out loud.

Abortion takes a life. If you believe in soulmates-- wouldn't be a horrible thought that yours was aborted?

[huxley]

The Paglia article reminded me of a great Peggy Noonan line which described Palin as "a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way."

[huxley]

As to abortion, I do give Paglia credit for facing it more bluntly than anyone on the pro-choice side. She says in the article:

I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman's body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman's entrance into society and citizenship.

[amba]

"a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way." Wonderful, but Peggy, being a city gal, didn't get it quite right. Palin would not be asking how to reload it. She imbibed that knowledge with her mother's milk.

[realpc]

" Are you really telling me that there is no concrete evidence that life begins at conception?"

Karen,

We know that the egg and sperm join and combine their DNA and the result is implanted and starts to grow into a human being. But we have no reason to say the moment of conception is the beginning of that persons' life.

Maybe the person's life begins before conception, as the unfertilized egg and the sperm that will eventually unite with it.

Maybe a person's life, existence and consciousness is not tied to a biological event. Maybe who we are as a person exists before the biological machine that will be our body in this earthly life.

The idea that life begins at conception is arbitrary, and it came from the materialist, atheist ideology that has come to dominate our science.

I am not an atheist or a materialist and I see no reason to have blind faith in the idea that life begins at conception. Some pope decided to agree with materialist science on that definition.

A fertilized egg is a potential human being, but so is an unfertilized egg and so is a sperm. Any cell of your body could be cloned into a human being. It's really time to stand back from this arbitrary and problematic definition of the start of life and get perspective.

If you don't want another baby Karen you have absolutely no reason to have one. If you want one, or think you might want it after you have it, fine.

But that attitude -- that we take whatever God sends us -- is not logical. We do so many things, all the time, every moment, to protect ourselves and our families. We do not expect God to give us money, we work for it. Yes I think God helps us to help ourselves, but we cannot sit back idly and expect God to do everything.

You don't just sit back and let God make all your decisions for you. Only the decision about whether to have another baby.

And maybe you are fortunate enough to be able to afford one or more additional children, but there are millions of women who are not married and not wealthy. I'm not saying you are wealthy, but I'm sure you are better off than the typical poor single mother.

Being a single mother is one of the leading causes of poverty and misery. God will not help anyone who refuses to help their self.

And furthermore, if you are using any method at all to prevent conception than you are interfering with what you have defined as God's will.

It's time to stop letting materialist atheist science dominate our lives.

[realpc]

Oh and I always have to say this -- I am NOT against science. I am against the limited narrow-minded materialist ideology that has come to dominate contemporary science.

[karen]

Who was it that said:
"What will be, will be?"
I'm no scholar and i know i'm not the right one to so defend the Church and ~some pope~; but, i'm here- so i might as well try.

You and i seem to share some thread of recognition other than amba's- on when we were divined.

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you." Jer 1:5, Job 10:8-12, Ps 22:10-11 are all biblical references.

"My frame was not hidden from you, when i was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth." Ps 139:15

Sometimes lines have to be drawn- and starting points determined so that we have points of reference & can all be on the same pg. The Catholic Church has a huge, complicated book- our Catechism. It's probably hugely ignored, too(i could be wrong). Quite a book:

"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a consession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death." CDF, Donum vitae III.

"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the most vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined... As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights." CDF, Donum vitae III

I am far from wealthy- although we are wealthy in stock(the 4-legged kind). I don't know how i get along- by the grace of God, i believe. Yet, i'm willing to bend my own will as best i can to all God's will be done. If that includes another pregnancy, so be it.

[realpc]

Karen, it's fine with me if you want to leave family planning up to God. Just don't try to force that philosophy on everyone! Women now have the freedom to choose our role in society. Lots of women are now choosing to be single and/or childless. People who make the other choice cannot understand why we made our choices. That's life -- each of us wants what we want and cannot understand why anyone feels different.

Women like myself need the option of early abortion, and so do poor young single women, and so do all women really, married or not, rich or poor.

If it were a priority I bet scientists could develop better pregnancy tests and better abortion pills. Surgical abortion would be unnecessary if pregnancy could be detected right after conception.

I understand why pro-lifers are horrified at late abortions and I absolutely agree with them on that.

I think this issue could be solved and put to rest if only people would let go of authoritarian ideologies and rely on simple common sense. We have to live and let live or our society will remain hung up on this forever.

And my concern about abortion rights is completely selfless because I could not get pregnant at this point without divine intervention.

[amba]

real -- I'm curious why, knowing you didn't want children, you didn't choose tubal ligation? (If the question is intrusive, feel free not to answer.)

[Spud]

As to abortion, I do give Paglia credit for facing it more bluntly than anyone on the pro-choice side.
Huxley

Paglia says, "I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder" and then says "Let's take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter. As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body."

Basically what she's saying, abortion is murder, and I support murder rights. Pathetic. It's dishonest to equate pro-choice with pro-abortion.

[Tom Strong]

real,

I've got to give you serious points for chutzpah in this thread. I don't think I've ever seen anyone EVER posit that "materialist atheist science" is responsible for the claim that life begins at conception.

And yet, despite being both materialistic and atheistic (if hardly scientific), I think you may be right. At least metaphorically.

[realpc]

" I'm curious why, knowing you didn't want children, you didn't choose tubal ligation?"

I never knew that I would never want children. How can you know how you will feel later on? I always felt that I didn't want them, or I felt a lack of wanting them. If my feeling changed then I would have decided to have them, but it didn't. If I had wound up marrying someone who wanted children and wanted to stay home and raise them, and we had enough money, maybe I would have, mostly to make my husband happy. I actually didn't use bc for several years because bf of past 20 years wanted a baby, but it didn't happen. Thank god anyway, because it turned out he is not healthy enough to have been a parent.

I really don't enjoy a lot of stress and chaos and noise. Not at all. I could have learned to deal with it, given optimal conditions, but those optimal conditions didn't arrive and thank god because I never felt that was god's purpose for me. But that was just a feeling, not a certainty, so I was not going to make an irrevocable decision early in life.

I remember talking about it while in my 30s and people said you will regret it later but guess what I never did regret it. They said who will take care of you when you're old and I thought what a darn selfish reason to have kids. If I had kids I would tell them, and put it in writing, you will never sacrifice yourself for me, never.

[karen]

"I think this issue could be solved and put to rest if only people would let go of authoritarian ideologies and rely on simple common sense."

No offense, real- but to me, simple common sense would be: not to get pregnant in the 1st place. I'm Fertile Myrtle over here and managed not to have any pregnancies i couldn't accept/afford/want... four. I can't for the life of me understand how- w/all the education kids get and all the exposurse to sex in our culture, how one can unsuspectingly get knkocked up? I understand the minute % of accidentals, nothing is 100%- sure. Maybe ~science~ should be taught hand-in-hand w/sex ed to show exactly when ovulation occurs- what the signs of fertility are...

It seems to me, that it's way easier for some to swallow a pill or get an abortion after the fact. That's using abortion as BC- and you think it's only the late term abortions that freak out the pro-Lifers? If people used common sense, there would be preventative precautions going on and no need for a life to begin, anyway. It doesn't matter what i believe about that- it seems pretty plain to me.

"We have to live and let live or our society will remain hung up on this forever."

LOL, real. That's what I say:0).

"Basically what she's saying, abortion is murder, and I support murder rights. Pathetic. It's dishonest to equate pro-choice with pro-abortion."

You say there is no one for abortion. No one you know is an abortion rights advocate. Well, meet Paglia.

If you don't believe in murder, but hand someone the rope, the knife, the gun and say: "Personally i don't believe in murder, but- you are making this choice, so- here ya go..." you are basically supporting/advocating their will. That's what laws do- that's what lawmakers do- that's what voters do(if i may be so bold). Pro-choice is advocating the will of abortion rights.

[realpc]

"I don't think I've ever seen anyone EVER posit that "materialist atheist science" is responsible for the claim that life begins at conception."

Well where else could the idea have come from? No one who believes we have a soul would have come up with it. So it is pretty darn ironic that the supposedly religious people have been indoctrinated into it.

[karen]

Real-
you really remind me, in a lot of ways- of a dear cousin of mine. She's about the same age, has the same mindset and she may even have the same concept you do of God. She had slightly different circumstances, but maybe the same fears. Isn't that weird?

[karen]

I don't think we're indoctrinated, real. I think i'd say: good enough for me. Hands off :0).

[realpc]

karen, I don't know if I'm weird but bf always says I am. He is devout Catholic and thinks my ideas about god and religion, and life, are completely crazy. But we do live in a society that lets us believe whatever as long as we don't impose it on others.

Yes, you are right, it is possible to avoid pregnancy if you are careful and responsible. And yes I agree it is hateful to use abortion, even early abortion, as birth control.

But I feel strongly that women should have the option if all else fails.

When I was young I had a friend who was a member of NOW and bragged about how many abortions she had, and said it was birth control. I could not remain friends with someone like that, but she was probably typical of feminists. I feel extremely strongly that people like that are wrong, maybe even immoral. I would fight against people that wanted to impose that belief on society. But I would also fight against people that want to make all abortion illegal.

Both extremes are wrong, and that is usually the way it goes with extreme views of anything.

[karen]

Thank you, real- for 'menting w/me(commenting). I didn't mean that you were weird- i meant it was weird to feel like i know you somehow- or a part of you that reminds me of my cousin. Of course, we've been hangin' out on amba's porch swing for a while now:0).

Well, maybe there's a bridge to be built- somewhere over this chasm.

[Danny]

real, I know many, many women are die-hard feminists and all would be horrified by that cavalier attitude about abortions that you describe. Yes, several of them have had abortions but it was certainly never that gleeful act you describe as being "probably typical of feminists." I'm sure there are women who are as ignorant as you say but to classify them in that way just sounds like anti-feminist propaganda to me.

[realpc]

"maybe there's a bridge to be built- somewhere over this chasm."

Yes, absolutely, that is my point. Feminists went too far in demanding no restrictions on abortion. Now pro-lifers are reacting against that and going too far and are really scaring young women who are somewhat liberal and career-focused. Imagine striving for success in a high pressure career, under the constant threat of unwanted pregnancy. Or imagine being someone like me who felt a need to keep going back to school -- I never ever could have had that luxury if I were a single mother.
Sarah Palin is amazing, and/or very lucky. As I said, most of us can't raise 5 kids while running for VP. Condoleeza Rice is the opposite in that she never married or had kids. Both became highly successful. Every woman should be allowed to choose the non-traditional path if she wants it. We don't have to worry about the species dying out, because most women want to be mothers. We don't have to force women into something they feel is not right for them.
I have been told I would have been a very good mother because I am sensitive and empathetic. Maybe that's true but I can still be sensitive and empathetic without having kids.

[Spud]

If you don't believe in murder, but hand someone the rope, the knife, the gun and say: "Personally i don't believe in murder, but- you are making this choice, so- here ya go..." you are basically supporting/advocating their will. That's what laws do- that's what lawmakers do- that's what voters do(if i may be so bold). Pro-choice is advocating the will of abortion rights.

Pro-choice is people like Sarah Palin choosing to have Trig, and I applaud her.

Pro-choice is not advocating murder. I would never advocate for someone to have an abortion. But it should not be the governments business or my business to make that decision. And if you equate abortion with murder Karen, how would you propose to prosecute these murderess's?

[karen]

Couldn't tell ya, spud. Have them work in an orphanage?