Check Your Privilege

[Farm Boy]

You do so as long as you have the luxury of being able to. Once you lack this luxury, you find yourself involved in a religious war, one of which human history is so rich in.

Agreed. With the note that if one side has a binding set of principles worth dying for, once the shooting starts rumbling, the other side best rally around a set of principles just as binding and also worth dying for, or it's simply going to lose. Reality doesn't actually have a liberal bias. Comfort does.

 

[classical_hero]

who are denied bodily autonomy, etc.

If they do have such bodily autonomy, they why do they get pregnant? Surely they could simply tell their body they don't want to get pregnant. But where is the bodily autonomy for the baby?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

The US.

The US what?

 

[sophie]

The US what?

The US:

Well that's all I can think of, but they're not actually being denied abortion access are they? The only place I'm aware of in "the west" where this is not an option is the Republic of Ireland, but even they have a pretty easy workaround I believe. I might be wrong though, hence why I'm asking.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

You must have a different grasp of grammar to me because "The US" doesn't appear to be a coherent response.

If you're saying that women are being denied abortion access in the US then can you expand on that? How can there be attacks on abortion clinics if they don't exist? Or do they only exist in some states? Basically... what's the issue in the US?

 

[sophie]

You must have a different grasp of grammar to me because "The US" doesn't appear to be a coherent response.

If you're saying that women are being denied abortion access in the US then can you expand on that? How can there be attacks on abortion clinics if they don't exist? Or do they only exist in some states? Basically... what's the issue in the US?

The right to an abortion has been guaranteed by the Supreme Court - all women in this country have the right to get an abortion, however there are no restrictions on the sorts of hoops individual states can make a woman jump through in order to get that abortion.

Mandatory wait periods, doctor referrals, mandatory counseling (before and after), requiring parental consent in cases of minors, restriction of funding (federal - not state funding) to groups that provide abortion services, changing rules about who is and is not qualified to provide abortions all contribute to making abortion de facto illegal in a majority of states in this country.

There is one center that provides abortion services in Mississippi. one. Five in Alabama, three in Louisiana, and one in Kentucky.

To give some examples:
In the state of Missouri because of funding and zoning restrictions there exists exactly one abortion clinic in the entire state. It takes 4-5 hours to drive across the state. In addition Missouri also has a mandatory 72-hour wait period on any and all abortions performed. This means that if a woman wants an abortion she has to drive to the one abortion clinic (which could be 4+ hours), put her name down, drive back home (or get a hotel room for 3 nights), then drive back in 3 days to get the abortion. If you don't own a car abortions are effectively illegal in Missouri. If you work a job that doesn't let you take 3 consecutive days or 2 nonconsecutive days in a work-week abortions are effectively illegal in Missouri.

In Ohio they recently passed a law mandating that all clinics providing abortion services have transfer agreements with private hospitals. Which seems fairly innocent at first except that nearly all hospitals which are deemed "private" are religiously affiliated or funded meaning they will not grant an agreement to an abortion clinic meaning abortion is illegal in Ohio. Ohio is even debating a bill right now which would require women to provide burial or cremation services for their aborted fetus, adding potentially hundreds if not thousands of dollars onto the cost of the abortion.

In Texas requirements have been placed mandating that clinics maintain standards consistent with a large hospital rather than a small clinic providing family planning services. They've also placed restrictions on the types of techniques that can be used in an abortion, making abortions performed after certain dates impossible even though those rights have been affirmed by the Supreme Court. In the whole of the state of Texas there are 9 abortion clinics and none between El Paso and San Antonio - a distance of 551 miles. Texas also has mandatory 24-hour waiting periods and further requires that a woman wanting an abortion: a) be read material about the risks of abortion from a doctor, and b) undergo a physical examination at least 24 hours before the procedure.

In the US abortion is, in a lot of respects, no different than it was pre-Roe v Wade. If you have money and a support structure and live in a place with few restrictions or have the economic security to travel to a place with few restrictions then abortion is legal. But then, it's more or less always been legal for those types of people. If you're poor, live in a red state, or work a job that doesn't give you much or any requested time off, no, abortion is not legal in this country.

 

[Farm Boy]

The right to an abortion has been guaranteed by the Supreme Court - all women in this country have the right to get an abortion, however there are no restrictions on the sorts of hoops individual states can make a woman jump through in order to get that abortion.

Mandatory wait periods, doctor referrals, mandatory counseling (before and after), requiring parental consent in cases of minors, restriction of funding (federal - not state funding) to groups that provide abortion services, changing rules about who is and is not qualified to provide abortions all contribute to making abortion de facto illegal in a majority of states in this country.

There is one center that provides abortion services in Mississippi. one. Five in Alabama, three in Louisiana, and one in Kentucky.

To give some examples:
In the state of Missouri because of funding and zoning restrictions there exists exactly one abortion clinic in the entire state. It takes 4-5 hours to drive across the state. In addition Missouri also has a mandatory 72-hour wait period on any and all abortions performed. This means that if a woman wants an abortion she has to drive to the one abortion clinic (which could be 4+ hours), put her name down, drive back home (or get a hotel room for 3 nights), then drive back in 3 days to get the abortion. If you don't own a car abortions are effectively illegal in Missouri. If you work a job that doesn't let you take 3 consecutive days or 2 nonconsecutive days in a work-week abortions are effectively illegal in Missouri.

In Ohio they recently passed a law mandating that all clinics providing abortion services have transfer agreements with private hospitals. Which seems fairly innocent at first except that nearly all hospitals which are deemed "private" are religiously affiliated or funded meaning they will not grant an agreement to an abortion clinic meaning abortion is illegal in Ohio. Ohio is even debating a bill right now which would require women to provide burial or cremation services for their aborted fetus, adding potentially hundreds if not thousands of dollars onto the cost of the abortion.

In Texas requirements have been placed mandating that clinics maintain standards consistent with a large hospital rather than a small clinic providing family planning services. They've also placed restrictions on the types of techniques that can be used in an abortion, making abortions performed after certain dates impossible even though those rights have been affirmed by the Supreme Court. In the whole of the state of Texas there are 9 abortion clinics and none between El Paso and San Antonio - a distance of 551 miles. Texas also has mandatory 24-hour waiting periods and further requires that a woman wanting an abortion: a) be read material about the risks of abortion from a doctor, and b) undergo a physical examination at least 24 hours before the procedure.

In the US abortion is, in a lot of respects, no different than it was pre-Roe v Wade. If you have money and a support structure and live in a place with few restrictions or have the economic security to travel to a place with few restrictions then abortion is legal. But then, it's more or less always been legal for those types of people. If you're poor, live in a red state, or work a job that doesn't give you much or any requested time off, no, abortion is not legal in this country.

You just described as the principal road blocks the crap people go through to be employed, or do anything, outside our munificent metropolises. No crap you have to have a car to do anything. No crap you can't get significant treatment for any condition or an abortion while you work a normal person job. This is not news. This is why the plan B pills exist. Because people outside where nearly all the damned services are can't effectively use those services. And it's not getting easier. The more regulations we toss onto say, new cars for example, drives up the complexity and ownership of transportation. It makes them age worse. It inhibits people so that the people who need personal transport the least feel better about one of the options for transport that they have.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

But strictly speaking doesn't religion also have whatever level of ties to the mechanisms of capitalism as well? For example, Marx made the famous quip about "opium of the masses". Doesn't that suggest that religion can also be as much of a part of the dynamics of oppression as LGBT can?

EDIT: Thanks for the detailed answer BTW.

What Marx said about religion was that it was "the opium of the people " meaning that it serves as a painkiller to dull the torture of real life. Here is the full excerpt:

"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself."


So as you can see, religion is merely a symptom of oppressive class relations. It is not a basis for material classes.

And even if they were, gender is only one of many factors that make up how "privileged" your life will be.

I never said it wasn't.

Are women oppressed by men? Do men dominate relations with women? Let's ask men:

Ideological nonsense. Women as a 'class' are not oppressed and men as a 'class' are not oppressing women.

Funny how the SJWs are always rich people with loads of time on their hands, from the patriarchal EU/colonies

Stuff do not change by shaming. Ever. No person will be shamed to change and at the same time be honest and set to keep said forced change.

Well issues like abortion and the wage gap don't really support cheezys statement that men use their superior place in society to dominate all interactions with women which is a really extreme statement.

Well that was fun. Since I can tell you're all so very well read and experienced in the lives of women and the social structures that engage them.

I think a much better way to do this would be a "check our privilege" session at the start debates of the social justice kind where all participants basically shares their life story as related to privilege, wealth, location, family, education, upbringing, class, ethnicity, race, culture, disabilites, or any other general issues related to privilege. Thing I always see in these debates are people making lots of presumptions about each other and I think this would ease it up a bit, make people see each others as human rather than as a list of various crude groupings they can assign people visually and define what their life must have been like based on that.

"Check your privilege" seems to me a very condescending, generalizing buzzphrase that is very often used to waste away opportunities to make an actual good in depth argument. I mean what's even the goal of it? "Ok I checked it and am convinced now."?

It also points in a weird direction for me with the accusatory tone, that is the kind of argument that will only steel your opponent, rather it should be check their privilege or lack thereof, consider the plight of the unprivileged. Argument from compassion rather than argument from accusing people of having privilege like thats a bad thing when thats what we want more of for basically everybody.

To be honest, "check your privilege" isn't supposed to really accomplish anything, it's just a rebalancing of interaction to give oppressed people control of the conversation, especially in subject matter that deals with their own experiences and their own oppression. We aren't going to change anything in society with privilege-checking, that's silly and idealistic. It's for interpersonal interaction in specific circumstances with a specific goal. Pretending it's anything other than that is strawmanning and dishonest.

 

[warpus]

Parts of Canada are large and empty as well, many Canadians live in small towns far away from large cities. And yet, we don't seem to have an "access to reproductive centres" issues here in Canada, or at least none that I know about.

 

[Daw]

Parts of Canada are large and empty as well, many Canadians live in small towns far away from large cities. And yet, we don't seem to have an "access to reproductive centres" issues here in Canada, or at least none that I know about.

Better public transport system?

 

[abradley]

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/check-your-privilege

I saw the phrase "check your privilege" used in an argument recently. It was between an atheist and a theist. I may not be relaying the argument reasonably accurately but it seemed to go essentially like this (to be brief):

Theist: The teachings of Christ are my guide and they are wonderful.

Atheist: the teachings of Christ are immoral and ludicrous.

Theist: You seem very agitated, you must be possessed by a demon. I'll pray for you. And I find it odd that you are oppressing me by denying my right to believe in my faith.

Atheist: Check your privilege. Atheists have it difficult in society because they are viewed as being "possessed" or they are going to go to hell, etc. when they express their views as a minority.

The argument was between two white guys so it seemed a little odd to me to see "check your privilege" invoked by one against the other.

My personal view in life as an agnostic has been to accept that IF there is a God then I am probably "unworthy" to any God that may exist because I am a non-believer. I suppose I have "low self esteem" in that respect. I don't really fight it. I just sort of accept it. Clearly the atheist above is actively fighting the stigma associated with his beliefs.

So here's my question: Should I NOT accept such a label that may be consigned to me by theists? That there maybe is a God, and if there is, because I am not a "believer" I am probably somehow "less good" or whatever than a believer? Should I instead be "standing up for myself" and be actively trashing the religious views of my "oppressors"?

Thoughts?

Late to the thread, haven't read it all, but this opening post is silly IMHO.

In all my 80 years as a theist I've never heard 'Your possessed because you don't believe', maybe in the movies, but not in normal everyday conversation, even amongst the religious.

As for being good or bad because you believe or not, I'd bet that the pedophile priests believed.

Being 'tempted' to commit evil isn't the same as being 'possessed':

The Aurora Murders and Demonic Possession
Demonic infestation is a rare, strange and terrible psycho-spiritual affliction. It's also real. Was James Holmes possessed?

By Fr. Dwight Longenecker, July 23, 2012
http://www.patheos.com/Catholic/Aurora-Murders-Demonic-Possession-Dwight-Longenecker-07-24-2012
{Snip}
The first level of demonic influence is temptation. This is not just the mild desire to drink too much, overindulge, or have a sexual dalliance. That's just part of being human. If there is a demonic element, the "temptation" is to do something radically and extremely vile. This can happen in a person's life without any sign of supernatural activity.
(Continued)

This is a Catholic view.

As for your being unworthy, God determines that.

Ain't no theologian, just my view.

 

[Daw]

Abradley, thanks for showing up.

As a non-believer, this is my only hope:

12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law,
15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)

Will that work, what do you think?

 

[abradley]

Abradley, thanks for showing up.

As a non-believer, this is my only hope:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Romans 2:12-15
12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law,
15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)

Will that work, what do you think?

Again. ain't no theologian but that is what I believe. In other words 'Be good.' Why be a Catholic, because I feel that Christ's life and teachings are a good guide.

Pope Francis and the Salvation of Non-believers
Posted on 26 December 2013
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2013/12/26/pope-francis-and-the-salvation-of-non-believers/
{Snip}
Pope Francis:
“I invite even nonbelievers to desire peace,” he said. “Let us all unite, either with prayer or with desire, but everyone, for peace.”
{Snip}
In my view, the term “non-believer” includes atheists, agnostics, as well as persons who adhere to belief systems that do not include any discrete Divine being (e.g. Jainism). So “non-believer” is not synonymous with “atheist”.

 

[Gary Childress]

Late to the thread, haven't read it all, but this opening post is silly IMHO.

In all my 80 years as a theist I've never heard 'Your possessed because you don't believe', maybe in the movies, but not in normal everyday conversation, even amongst the religious.

The topic of demons was brought up by the theist and suggested that the atheist was possessed because the atheist was vehemently attacking the theists religion. EDIT: Despite the fact (I will add) that the theist was being very civil in tone.

 

[warpus]

Better public transport system?

I doubt it, I think we just don't have politicians and other groups able of shutting down existing centres that women can turn to. But I don't really know.

 

[abradley]

The topic of demons was brought up by the theist and suggested that the atheist was possessed because the atheist was vehemently attacking the theists religion.

IMHO Hitchens ain't possessed:

Link to video.

Just wrong.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

...

Are there any restrictions on travelling to another state to get an abortion? Can they only be performed in the state in which you reside? I have no idea how the health system in the US works on that sort of level. Having said that, I always get the impression that the health service over there is pretty hellish in general if you're poor.

 

[Gary Childress]

IMHO Hitchens ain't possessed:

Link to video.

Just wrong.

What do you think Hitchens is wrong about, for example? Personally I say he's wrong to be dogmatic in his attacks. But I don't discount the possibility that theists are incorrect in their metaphysical and transcendental assertions about God. Then again I also don't discount the possibility that theists are correct, either. As I say, I'm agnostic for the most part with respect to religion.

 

[sophie]

Are there any restrictions on travelling to another state to get an abortion? Can they only be performed in the state in which you reside? I have no idea how the health system in the US works on that sort of level. Having said that, I always get the impression that the health service over there is pretty hellish in general if you're poor.

You can travel to another state, but depending on where you live that just might not be viable. The US is huge and the most restrictive states are also among the largest geographically. If you live in Tupelo, MS, the nearest clinic is in Memphis, TN which is a 2 hour drive, or Jackson, MS which is a 3 hour drive. Both have mandatory waiting periods - Tennessee's is for 48 hours. The nearest state that doesn't have a mandatory waiting period is Florida, which has clinics in Gainesville, or Jacksonville, both 9-hour drives, or Illinois, which has a clinic in Granite City which is a 6-hour drive. Every other state in that area - Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, The Carolinas, The Virginias, Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania - all have wait periods of 24-hours or more. The only state in the Midwest and South that don't have mandatory waiting periods other than Florida and Illinois is Iowa, and Indiana kind of because their waiting period is for "a mere" 18 hours. And Indiana also requires in-person counselling so you still need to make 2 trips in that state.

 

[abradley]

What do you think Hitchens is wrong about, for example? Personally I say he's wrong to be dogmatic in his attacks. But I don't discount the possibility that theism is incorrect in its metaphysical and transcendental assertions about God. Then again I also don't discount the possibility that theism is correct, either. As I say, I'm agnostic for the most part with respect to religion.

Everything.

The church doesn't have rules and doctrines that say massacres are good, or that pedophilia is ok, and on and on. These thing happen in spite of church's teachings because the church is made up of humans, with our flaws.