Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 18:29:24 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: M-TH: White and Right "Moral" Discipline


In the January 21, 1998 article entitled "Rockers Lead New Wave of
Anti-Abortion Fight," Laurie Goodstein writes:


"These [participants at a Rock for Life concert] are young people for
whom legalized abortion has always been a fact of life. but to them,
abortion is also a crime, a violation of human rights <italic>far more
heineous than slavery</italic>. They talk about abortion as
<italic>holocaust</italic>....


Now...many older and younger organizers say they do not expect to win
by changing the law or shifting a few votes in the legislatures or the
courts. Instead, tehy say their goals is to change the <italic>minds
and hearts</italic> of the younger generation, one by one....


...'If a teen-ager gets pregnant,' Ms. Verhagen said, 'they brought
that situation on themselves. So I don't see why they have a right to
kill it. They took the action, <italic>now they have to pay the
price</italic>.'


...They are the middle-class and working-class children of teachers,
secretaries and parole officers. Almost all of them are
<italic>white</italic>....


Stephanie Barber links her decision to become a vegetarian four years
ago with her concern about animal rights and her opposition to
abortion. 'I've thought about eggs, and that <italic>it could be a
chicken fetus</italic>,'...."



The words of these young people reveal that obsession with "life"
(whether it be that of the "fetus" or "unborn chicken") as an *abstract
idea* tends to blind them to sufferings of actual living human beings
(such as enslaved black people,the victims of Nazi atrocities, and
contemporary victims of US imperialism). For those of you who are
champions of "moral agency," I suggest that this obsession tends to
make their "moral compass" off-kilter. Their worldview is that of a
"moral avenger," making sure that women "pay the price" for our sexual
agency. *Discipline and Punish* seem to be their strategies for moral
subjection of wayward women; the target of their action is moral
subjectivity--"the hearts and minds" of women, especially young women.
Sociologically speaking, it seems that *white folks* are more
susceptible to the seduction of a social movement that promises to
secure the "moral superiority" of participants through the
glorification of "life" as an idea (regardless of how life fares in
reality).


Yoshie  






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