Dear Righties: DPB edition

Okay, righties.  You’ve got me.

I don’t personally know any young women who have had difficulty accessing abortion in NZ.

I don’t actually know any young women who don’t know about contraception and how to get on the Pill or other forms of contraception.

I don’t know any women who wouldn’t put their foot down about practising safe sex with their partners.

This may, of course, all have something to do with having been raised in a white, middle-class family, in “safe” “well-off” (i.e. white, middle-class) neighbourhoods in Auckland.  Or attending a semi-private school which offered comprehensive sex ed.  Or avoiding the classic student-flat living experience at uni.  Or selecting – and being able to select – a group of likewise knowledgeable, privileged friends.  Or any other number of factors in my white, heterosexual, middle-class, liberal-democracy, privileged upbringing.

I suspect, given your oft-stated opinions, you are much the same as me.

The difference between us is that I don’t pretend that everyone else had the same advantages as me; and I don’t tell myself that the only reason those others lack my privilege is because they’re stupid.

I just have one request:  the next time you want to shit all over beneficiaries and talk about “lifestyle choices”, just try to imagine not having your education, your wealth, your family, your edgy blase cynicism, and being a scared, pregnant teenager, maybe in a small town, maybe a victim of sexual abuse, maybe certain only of your faith in God and belief that life begins at conception.  Try to have a little fucking empathy for someone who did not only not get dealt your royal flush of life but didn’t even get any fucking cards.

And then tell me, even if you still can’t summon up some basic fucking humanity, why that woman’s child should grow up poor and hungry in order to punish her.

5 comments

  2. stargazer

    oh, i’m just waiting for someone to turn up and say “i had all of those disadvantages and managed just fine, so i don’t see why everyone else can’t do the same”. like one paula bennett for example?

  3. Leanne

    I did have all those advantages and still was a mother by 19. My daughter also (luckily) had all of those advantages and was a mother by 16. Not a choice either of us took lightly and not due to stupidity or anything else other than some get lucky and doge the bullets and some don’t. However, we made our choices and we lived by them. What really does my head in about stone throwing righties is their complete lack of acknowledgement of the dedication and commitment we put into parenting. We did the benefit thing so we could be there for our kids, giving them what they needed and what a few more kids could do with – time, love and family!
    Isn’t that what the righties hail as the cure to all social issues???

  4. Julie

    Yes Leanne there is a certain hypocrisy on saying you can’t stay home with your kids if you would need state assistance, but really women should stay home with their children e.g Mrs Key.

  5. Craig Young

    Except back in the thirties, my nanna’s sister, for whom my mum is named, didn’t have the chance to grow up. She was raped. In desperation, she sought out a backstreet abortionist and died in a filthy disused room.

    I despise those misogynist shitheads…