The Abortion Debate

At the Kavanaugh hearing

“Are you planning to debate abortion in class?” asked our new principal. We were standing in the hallway near my classroom in the early1980s.

“Yes,” I said.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because…” She paused, seeming surprised that I would question her. “Because eighth graders are too young to discuss it.”

At the Kavanaugh hearing

“But we’ve debated it several times the past couple of years and they’ve handled it quite well,” I said.

She was new in the job, and the first principal I’d worked with who was a contemporary, both of us were in our early thirties. She was a bit overweight with short hair and she wore pant-suits or long dresses, usually with a brightly colored shawl over one shoulder. She declared herself a feminist and her mode of dress I afterward realized was a uniform for feminists of the time. 

“I invite parents to come in to observe the debates each year,” I said, “and many have accepted. Usually, four or five come to each class.”

“Why did you choose to debate abortion?” she asked.

“Students chose it,” I explained. “I’d announce that we were going to debate a topic from current events. Then we’d brainstorm a list of topics, and students would vote on them. Sometimes they’d vote for a different topic like gun control, but most classes usually chose abortion.”

“Eighth graders aren’t mature enough to debate abortion,” she insisted.

“Hmm,” I said. “But some eighth graders have abortions. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” she said, breaking eye contact and shuffling a bit.

“If they’re old enough to have abortions they’re old enough to discuss them, don’t you think?”

At the Kavanaugh hearing

At that point, her secretary walked up, excused herself, and handed the principal one of those pink message slips. She read it and said, “I’ll have to get back to you on this.”

She never did, and I went ahead with the debates.

First, we defined the terms. I asked each class if someone could define abortion for me and I had a good reason for doing this. Fourteen-year-olds have fully developed brains, but lack nuance. I’d call on a student whose hand was up and he/she would say something like: “Abortion is when a woman is pregnant and she kills the baby inside her.”

That plainly worded definition is typical of 14-year-olds. They’re refreshingly direct. Every year, in every class, the first student I called on would define abortion in almost exactly the same way.

“Does everyone agree with that definition?” I’d ask.

There’d be nods all around, and I’d write it on the blackboard. Then I’d go on to explain that people who supported abortion called themselves “Pro-choice” and people who were against it called themselves “Pro-life.” Pointing to the definition on the board, I’d circle the words “kill” and “baby,” then tell them that a seasoned “pro-choice” person would never utter those words when debating abortion. A pro-life person, however, would nearly always use them. “A definition like that,” I’d say, pointing the board again, “indicates a pro-life bias. I can tell what somebody thinks about abortion by the words they use to define it.” At this point, I’d look toward the student who gave it. “Is that your opinion? Are you pro-life?” Usually, he or she was, but not always.

Then I’d ask how a pro-choice person would define abortion. Students would ponder what I said and offer suggestions like: “It’s when a woman finds out she’s pregnant and doesn’t want to be, so she goes to a doctor and he takes it out.”

At the Kavanaugh hearings

“Not bad,” I’d say. Eventually, I’d get one that sounded just like something out of NARAL literature, such as: “When a woman terminates her pregnancy,” which I’d also write on the board.

Often a student would ask my opinion at this point and I’d say, “I’ll tell you after the debate is over.”

Students chose which side they wanted to argue. If there were too many on one side or the other, I’d try to even them up by challenging some to argue the opposite of what they believed. Some of my best students would usually offer to do so.

After that, I let them sit in their groups to prepare. My instructions were that they start recording their side’s strongest arguments on one list, then record their opponents’ strongest arguments on another.

“Why do you want us to list our opponents’ arguments?” they’d ask.

“So you can prepare counter-arguments to use during the debate when they bring up those points,” I’d answer. “It’s what opposing lawyers would do in a courtroom. You need to research all sides of any issue. As someone said once: ‘You don’t fully understand your own side unless you understand your opponent’s.’”

There Will Be A Next

When playing an academic game in class, nothing helped students focus more than to make it “girls vs boys.” At fourteen, masculine and feminine pride was strong and they bore down intensely. When I afterward explained that many feminists insisted there were no differences between males and females other than the obvious physical ones, they were incredulous. “No way,” they’d say. “Are they kidding?”

“No, they’re definitely not kidding,” I’d answer. “Teacher training today ignores differences and insists that boys and girls are the same. Many if not most now believe the only differences are physical and everything else is due to how they’re raised by parents and schools.” That’s when I’d pull out my VHS copy of a 1995 “20-20” episode John Stossel narrated called, “Boys and Girls Are Different: Men, Women and the Sex Difference.” 

Stossel declares his personal belief at the outset, “We’re just born different,” then interviews prominent feminists of the era who disagreed. But first he set it all up by interviewing parents who believed there were no differences beyond the physical and who tried very hard to raise their children accordingly. No matter what they did or didn’t do, boys preferred playing with guns and girls chose dolls. Toy manufacturers also tried marketing traditionally female toys to boys and vice versa, but their efforts failed as well.

Stossel summarized scientific studies documenting sex differences beginning in utero and continuing afterward through most of life, but when he put them to Gloria Steinem she said those studies shouldn’t be done because they kept women down. Then Stossel asked her, “Don’t you think women are by nature better nurturers?”

Bella Abzug

The temperature in the room plummeted as Steinem responded icily: “No. Next question.” There were similarly icy interviews with Bella Abzug and Gloria Allred. My students were affirmed in their belief that Steinem and company were defying common sense. That’s when I’d tell them the next generation of feminists younger than Steinem and Abzug were claiming there were more than two “genders,” a word they were substituting for sex —  that not all humans could be categorized as either male or female.

Gloria Allred

If they were incredulous before, this time they were flabbergasted. They thought I was making it up. “What else is there?” they’d ask.

I explained there were feminists with Hillary Clinton in the US delegation to the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing who argued there were five “genders”: male and female on each end with gay, lesbian, and transexual between them. Some students considered the gay and lesbian categories might be possible but the transexual one was out of the question. Here in 2017, the word “transexual” isn’t used anymore. It’s been replaced by “transgender” in every media stylebook. I believe if I taught the same lesson today students would take it in stride and say, “So what?”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Now I ask myself what’s next, because there will be something — then something else after that. US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) spotted the trend back in 1993, and coined the phrase “defining deviancy down.” Moynihan was one of the last classical liberals in the party that used to have many. He defeated feminist Bella Abzug in the 1976 Democrat primary for the US Senate but was succeeded in that office by feminist Hillary Clinton in 2001. Moynihan wasn’t referring only to criminal matters but to many sociological trends, and the process he identified has accelerated since his death. What was unthinkable only twenty years ago is routine now.

Oh yeah?

After fifteen years, I’d worn out my VHS copy of Stossel’s 20-20 episode. I tried to purchase a replacement but it was nowhere to be found. One male/female difference he spotlighted sticks with me: the distinctly female skill of remembering where things are. A university study in Canada hired students for an experiment in which they were told to wait in a small office for their turn to be called. In it were a desk, a chair, wall hangings, and many other items on the desk. When summoned, they were asked what they remembered seeing in that office.

The males would say, “There was a desk, a chair, and umm…” then struggle to recall anything else. The females, however, would look off into space and say, “There was a desk, a chair, and on the desk was a pink calendar, a blue pencil holder, a tan telephone…” and many other items. “On this wall there was…” and they’d gesture to show each item’s exact location. Researchers stopped them lest go on for an hour.

I remember that study when asking my wife if she’s seen something I cannot find. After she’s told me where to look and I still can’t find it, she’ll say, “If I have to come over there…”

Sound familiar?

A Lot To Learn

The lead story in Maine’s Portland Press Herald on Saturday told us that so many women are making knit hats for the Women’s March on Washington, the entire region was running out of pink yarn. The local chapter of the nationwide Pussyhat Project says it’s a dig at Donald Trump’s infamous remarks ten years ago. Remember? Because he was famous, women would let him grab them by their you-know-what. NBC had it on video and used it against him during the campaign. Women want to “reclaim the term” according to organizers. Three thousand Maine women have signed up to march with their hats which have two little ear-like things sticking out on top to resemble cat ears.

Portland Press Herald photograph

It’s not just about pussyhats. Former Maine State Senator and liberal Democrat Cynthia Dill says it’s about gender and race too and explains the march this way:

“The prism through which marchers will march is one of ‘intersectionality,’ a term coined by a law professor that now serves as currency in social justice circles seeking to recognize multifaceted levels of identity and power.”

I’ll admit, I don’t understand that. Probably my ignorance has something to do with being a white guy who hasn’t renounced his privilege — yet. Maybe it’s time I did. As a young man in the seventies and eighties, I was a left-wing Democrat, but then I moved right. Is it time to consider that maybe I went too far? Is it time for to modulate? Move toward the center?

American's deep divisions are on display as preparations for Trump’s inauguration continue. A hundred thousand women are expected to march on January 21st and I can’t understand when they tell me why. Still, I considered going down there Saturday and putting on a pussyhat with the rest of them. I’ve never liked wearing hats but my hair is getting thin and it's cold… Nah — I’ve got too much going on here in Maine.

How would I actually go about denouncing my while male privilege? Bring it up in casual conversation? “Ahh, the Patriots should go all the way to the Super Bowl, don’t you think? Oh! By the way, I’ve denounced my white male privilege.” Would that work? How many times would I have to say it? To how many people?

Huh?

And how about my toxic masculinity? How do I get rid of that? No, wait… one at a time. But I suspect both have been getting in the way of my understanding what the Women’s March is about, so I read the articles again. The Women’s March is about “intersectionality” including intersecting with LGBTQIA+ people, who are an integral part of the march. Notice how that acronym keeps getting longer? I understood the “LGBT” part — that’s been around a while, but what about the “QIA+”? I had to look that up. The Q could mean either “Queer” or “Questioning,” but isn't “Queer” was a pejorative? I had to look that up too. According to the GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates And Defenders) Media Reference Guide:

Once considered a pejorative term, queer has been reclaimed by some LGBT people to describe themselves; however, it is not a universally accepted term even within the LGBT community. When Q is seen at the end of LGBT, it typically means queer and, less often, questioning.

Okay, but then there’s the “I,” the “A,” and the plus sign. Thanks to the GLAAD guide, I learned “I” means “Intersex,” the “A” could mean either “Ally” or “Asexual.” The plus sign stands for, well, just in case there’s some new group of unusual sexual people claiming they’re not accepted fully enough, and weren’t assigned their own letter yet. We can, of course, expect the acronym to grow longer as things progress. That’s what Progressivism is all about, right?

I didn't have to learn any of this stuff when I was a lefty forty years ago. You only had to resent rich people, believe in socialism, and hate capitalism to be accepted back then. It’s much more complicated now and people are so sensitive...

And this is just a partial list

Now that I understand what LGBTQIA+ means, I can start learning the new pronouns I’ll have to use when addressing each of the groups. The list is long, including the first person, second person, third person singular and plural, the possessive forms, and so forth. Then I still have to practice pronouncing them. Can you see why I can’t be ready to attend the Women’s March by Saturday? I’d offend whoever I talked to because I don’t know how to address them.

People tell me the bald spot on the back of my head is getting bigger. I can’t see it but I feel the effect on cold, windy days, so I really need one of those pussyhats. Maybe I can meet the busses when they return to Portland. Maybe they have some left over…

No Neutral Ground

St. Peter's on Federal Street in Portland

The men were singing, and there were a lot of them. That’s unusual in my experience attending mass at various Catholic Churches in Maine. Most men come to church because their wives pressure them to, I think. If they pray aloud in the pews it’s usually just a murmur. Several men there at St. Peter’s, however, spoke it like they meant it.

Nearby Cathedral

My wife and I have been checking out different parishes around the Portland/South Portland area when we find ourselves down there Sunday mornings and each has its own feel. St. Peter’s is a small church only a couple of blocks from Portland’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, the flagship of the Portland Diocese near the bottom of Munjoy Hill. I wondered how it competed - being in the same neighborhood and almost in the shadow of the cathedral.

Churches of many kinds are closing up and being sold in Maine and many other parts of the country. St. John the Evangelist in South Portland closed a few months ago and it’s rumored the building will soon be replaced by a Dunkin Donuts shop. More than a dozen Maine Catholic churches have closed since 2007. In ten years, Maine’s Catholic population has declined from 234,000 to 187,000. So St. Peter’s is an anomaly. It’s self-supporting and the congregation seems to know that if it were not, it would soon follow the fate of the others.

St. Peter's annual Italian street festival

St. Peter’s is a survivor with an enthusiastic choir. It’s filled to capacity on Sunday morning with lots of families - moms, dads, and kids. Many of the singing men had short, military-style haircuts and I wondered if they were off-duty firemen or police. The congregation nearly drowned out the choir. I was one of very few who weren’t singing, having gotten out of the habit long ago. I would be a good singer if it wasn’t for my voice.

A few weeks ago I found myself in conversation with a young man who had been raised in a family that didn’t practice religion at all. He wasn’t atheist, but was suspicious of organized religion, especially the one I belonged to - Roman Catholic - the oldest, continuously-functioning institution on earth. He was especially skeptical after the homosexual-priest scandal of the late 20th century. That had knocked me for loop too, and I’ve only recently begun putting it into perspective as another way the Catholic Church has been corrupted in its long history - and from which it must purge itself.

American Catholic Church influence seems to have peaked in the late 1950s or early 60s and it’s been in decline since. I don’t know if we’ve reached bottom yet, but I hope so. My home church, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s in Fryeburg, has had several different priests assigned to it in recent years. At least once, none was available for Sunday mass and a communion service had to suffice. It’s part of a “cluster” of parishes because there just aren’t enough priests for each parish to have its own any more. Last summer two missionary priests from Nigeria were assigned to our Fryeburg-Bridgton-Norway cluster.

Ironic, no? A hundred years ago, the American church sent missionaries to Africa. Now they’re sending them to us. What’s up with that? Why is there such a shortage here and not there? They have more applicants than their seminaries can accommodate. A Dallas Morning News article put it this way: “‘The African church is in touch with the raw elements of humanity: birth, marriage, death, hunger, thirst,’ said Christopher Malloy, an assistant professor of theology at the University of Dallas. ‘For me, in a comfortable house, it's easy to think life is not dramatic. [African priests] bring the message to us with excitement.’”

How did Americans get so bored? All drama, whether in a novel, a movie, or in real life, is a struggle between good and evil. As C. S. Lewis put it: “There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.” Drama plays out everywhere and always, but Americans are increasingly blind to it. It’s unfashionable to acknowledge evil exists. Some of us are afraid even to say “Merry Christmas.” In Africa, though, evil is anything but subtle. Christians are routinely slaughtered by Muslim terrorists in Nigeria, Sudan and lately Egypt and Syria (nearby in Asia). Tribal massacres in the hundreds of thousands are still fresh in Rwandan minds. Evil is difficult to deny in Africa. When a young man joins the seminary there, it’s like volunteering for frontline combat.

Speaking of men strong in their faith, click on the video above (taped last week) and watch them defend a cathedral in Buenos Aires, Argentina from assault. They locked arms and prayed as crazed, topless feminists spit at them, spray-painted their crotches and faces with swastikas, performed sex acts in front of them, and burned an effigy of Pope Francis I while dancing and shrieking in a bacchanalian “National Women’s Encounter.” It’s an annual event sponsored by the Argentine Department of Culture.

A still from the video above

It’s inspiring to see strong men doing what’s right. There are good signs out there if we look for them.

Gender-Bending Lesson

After studying the 1960s, including themes of the sexual revolution and the women’s liberation movement, I gave follow-up lessons on legacies of those and other issues in American culture today. This is one.

“Feminists and homosexual activists use the words ‘genders’ and ‘sexes’ almost interchangeably. They’ve been pushing an idea that there are more than two genders since at least the 1990s,” I told them. “They’ve been trying to pass a United Nations resolution that instead of two genders, there are five.”

“What would those be?” asked a girl with an incredulous look.

“They claim that male and female are out on the edges of a spectrum,” I explained as I wrote on the board. “That inside the female on the extreme right are lesbians. That inside the male on the extreme left are homosexual men, and than in the middle are ‘transgender’ people who go either way.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “A lesbian is still female. She’s not another gender.”

“That’s crazy,” said a boy.

“To them,” I explained, “it’s another battle in the Sexual Revolution.”

“Well I hope they lose,” another girl said.

“Remember last month when a speaker came in to discuss bullying at an assembly in the gym?” I asked.

There were nods all around. “Last year it was a football player,” said a boy.

“Yes,” I said. “What did you think of those lectures?”

“They were good,” he said.

“What do the rest of you think?”

Most indicated the lectures had been interesting.Joel Baum Fox News

“Well, in Oakland, California, students get different kinds of bullying lessons,” I said, wheeling the LCD projector into position and plugging in my laptop. “Watch this.”

It was a “bullying” lesson on “gender diversity” in which the lecturer told fourth grade students they could be a girl or a boy or both. Joel Baum told students: “They can feel like girls. They can feel like boys. They can feel like both, and they can feel like, as I said, kinda like neither.”

Baum is educational director for Gender Spectrum, an activist group pushing the idea that the two sexes - male and female - are too rigid. Students can move around on the “gender spectrum” depending on how they feel. They can change whenever they want.

“They’re way too young to be listening to that stuff in the fourth grade,” said another girl.

“They shouldn’t teach that stuff,” said a boy. “It’s crazy. Those kids are going to believe it now. They believe anything the teacher tells them.”

“Would you think it was all right to teach this,” I asked the the girl, “if the students were older?”

“Yes,” she said.

“At what age then?”

“I don’t know - high school maybe.”

“It’s mandatory for all students in Oakland to take it from kindergarten to twelfth grade,” I said. “Mandatory means they have no choice.”

“That’s brainwashing,” said a the boy. “Those schools shouldn’t be doing that. It hasn't got much to do with bullying.”

“What if it were taught only in high school and students could choose to take the 'gender spectrum' course or not to take it?”

“That would be okay,” he said.

“The California Teachers’ Association, the CTA, is paying for this. That’s the teachers’ union,” I explained.

“Why?” he asked.

“Teachers’ unions all over the country are very left-wing,” I said. “They think this stuff is wonderful, and teachers’ unions are the most powerful groups in the Democrat Party.”

“You’re not left-wing,” said a girl.

“I’m unusual,” I said. “There are very few conservatives in this profession.”

“And you’re retiring.”

“Yup.” “This kind of gender-bending stuff is happening all over the country,” I explained. “The Maine legislature, for example, is about to vote on a bill that would prevent males who claim to be females from suing when they’re not allowed to use the ladies’ room in middle school or in a restaurant. In two cases, a boy’s parents and a man have sued a school and a restaurant and the Maine Human Rights Commission has agreed with them. Now the Orono Middle School is being forced to allow a boy to use the girls’ bathroom. A Denny’s Restaurant was forced to allow a man dressed as a woman to use the ladies’ room there.”

“In both cases here, the newspaper article refers to the boy and the man with the personal pronouns of ‘she’ and ‘her’ as if they were indeed females,’” I explained. “I don’t do that.”

“If you were in the Maine Legislature, how would you vote?” I asked. “How many of you would vote ‘yes,’ which would allow schools and restaurants to prevent males from using female bathrooms or locker rooms?”

Five or six hands went up.

“Who would vote ‘no’?”

Two hands.

“Who isn’t sure?”

Another five or six hands went up.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll see what the legislature does.”


The Vagina Monologues

“The Vagina Monologues” just won’t die. When I first read of the play more than a decade ago, it sounded bizarre. When I saw the playwright, Eve Ensler, interviewed on TV, she was another kooky, man-hating feminist and her play was becoming a rallying point for NOW (National Organization for Women) types and “Women’s Studies” majors across the country. When I spoke disdainfully of it last year in front of a young, female colleague, she asked, “Have you ever read it?”

“No,” I admitted and she offered to lend it to me. I promised to check it out, but not to read it all if it didn’t grab me. It was interesting the way train wrecks are interesting and so short that I read it all. It was even more bizarre than the newspaper descriptions because most of its content couldn’t be published in a newspaper. Women chanted several dozen slang terms for that part of their anatomy - way more than I’d ever heard. Then they described what their vagina looked like, smelled like, what it would say if it could speak, and what it would wear if it could get dressed up. It reminded me of puerile conversations sixth grade boys would have about their anatomy when out of the earshot of adults. But these were grown women.

My wife didn’t want to read the book last year, but I persuaded her to watch an HBO film of the play I rented from Netflix starring its author, Eve Ensler. Her impression was the same as mine - bizarre. Then a local theater company decided to produce it at the Magic Lantern in nearby Bridgton, Maine - a community whose newspaper carries this column. I thought it would be interesting to watch local women willing to shout the C-word to an audience and see if the audience would join in the chant. Again, it would be interesting the way a train wreck is. I bought tickets, but then gave them away when the date conflicted with a trip to Ireland.

Last weekend, a theater company in North Conway, New Hampshire produced it - another community whose newspaper carries this column. My wife said, “Nah. I’ll stay home. You go.” It was a very small venue at M&D Productions, but nice enough and quite reasonable at $15. They even served wine which I could take into the theater with me - very civilized. Most of the actresses were my age - late middle age - and so was the audience - mostly women and about 80% late middle aged. The script was modified with local writers adding monologues, but the flavor was the same. Women offering feminist laments about bad treatment of them and their vaginas by the world at large - especially by men, of course.

Being familiar with the script, I was more interested in watching the audience. Most laughed in that way some junior high school girls will when they’re shocked at outrageous sexual comments made by junior high boys. They don’t consider the remarks funny, but laugh because they don’t know how else to react. It seemed that some of the men laughed because they thought they were supposed to and it would have been impolite not to. I smiled at one performance by a local woman mimicking a triple orgasm. She bettered Meg Ryan’s performance in “When Harry Met Sally.”

The play’s nadir was a monologue by an actress playing a 13-year-old girl describing her seduction by a 24-year-old woman.

“Vagina Monologues” explored many aspects of vaginas except what I would consider their most important one - procreation. Vaginas are, after all, vehicles for pregnancy and birth. Ensler said in a revised version of TVM: “I had been performing this piece for over two years when it suddenly occurred to me that there were no pieces about birth. It was a bizarre omission.”

Um, yeah.

Radical feminists’ disconnect from the maternal is the essence of what’s bizarre about them. Ensler went on: “Although when I told a journalist [about] this [bizarre omission] recently, he asked me, ‘What’s the connection [between vaginas and birth]?’”

Uh-duh. It’s hard to imagine any journalist asking that question. I know there are dumb ones out there, but still. Ensler then described how she was present at a birth and what she saw. I’ve been present at four and it wasn’t a bad piece of writing.

TVM’s forward was written by feminist guru Gloria Steinem, who seems to deny that women have a maternal instinct at all. In his television special “Boys and Girls Are Different: Men, Women, and the Sex Difference,” ABC’s John Stossel asked Steinem: “Aren't women, in general, better nurturers?” Icily, she answered: “No. Next question.” In TVM’s forward, she referred to the women’s movement as an alternative to the “patriarchal/political/religious control over women’s bodies as a means of reproduction.” Is Steinem referring to abortion here? I learned elsewhere that she’s had at least one herself and described it as “a pivotal and constructive experience.”

Constructive experience? Abortion?

Given that vaginas are the vehicle for 40 million-plus abortions in the United States alone, and given that abortion is the single most important issue on the radical feminist agenda, it’s very interesting that it's completely ignored in what has become the iconic feminist play. Maybe that’s because the worst and most horrible violence perpetrated on a vagina is by a woman’s own choice.