The coat hanger as a symbol and weapon in abortion politics is back-- or did it ever go away?
In an earlier post, I talked about the symbolic power of the coat hanger for pro-choice activists, regardless of how widely it was used in actual self-abortions.
Pro-life activists tend to miss the point of the coat hanger-- the question is not how often coat hangers were actually used before the constitutionalization of abortion in 1973, but how the coat hanger symbolically represents the desperation of women to have abortions and the lengths to which they will go to obtain one-- like using coat hangers, knitting needles, wires, etc. Especially for poor and working-class women, it is undisputed that many women experienced danger, pain, injury, and death in undergoing an assisted or self-induced abortion.
And then there's Erick Erickson, RedState blogger and pundit. He appeared to display a superlative level of willful obtuseness and sadism while gloating over the recent pro-life legislative victory in Texas: He tweeted, "Dear Liberals, go bookmark this site now:" followed by a link to a coat hanger sales web site. The natural first reading of Erickson's tweet is that he was gleefully celebrating the possibility that pregnant women in Texas who wanted an abortion would have to resort to dangerous, coat-hanger-like methods going forward.
Erickson's tweet produced a furor, and he pushed back on his RedState site in the form of a non-apology apology, titled "My Sincere Apology to the Kid Killing Caucus." He explained, in essence, that he was not taunting women with unwanted pregnancies and few options. Instead, he asserted, he was making fun of pro-choice activists and their coat hanger symbolism. He was pointing out in a funny way that pro-choicers, in opposition to the Texas legislation, would go overboard and hyperbolically predict a return to the bad old days. He also employed the tried-and-true "you don't find me funny, which shows you don't have a sense of humor" device-- usually employed, without irony, by someone who traffics in anger and resentment for a living (read RedState and judge for yourself).
Let's take Erickson at his word here. He still misses the point in two ways.
First, he focuses on the part of the Texas legislation that bans abortion after 20 weeks. This, I would assert, is not the most significant part of the legislation. Instead, the law's biggest impact is through its TRAP provisions-- that is, the parts of the legislation that unnecessarily impose regulatory burdens on Texas abortion clinics in order to regulate them out of existence. This is the part of the legislation, denying access to legal abortion for most Texas women, that will produce the conditions under which women will use alternative, and less safe, means to terminate a pregnancy.
Second, he does not understand that coat hangers are symbols of an empirical reality, rather than the empirical reality itself-- just as pictures of late-term aborted fetuses do not pictorially represent the vast majority of aborted fetuses and embryos, but symbolize and bring home the humanity and cost of an abortion (so assert pro-life activists). Erickson either doesn't get political symbolism (which is not good for someone in the pundit business) or he gets the symbolism and doesn't like the fact that it is effective.
Links:
Article in The Daily Beast (July 16, 2013): Meet The Pundit Who Thinks Coat-Hanger Abortions Are Funny
Article in Media Matters for America (July 13, 2013): Fox's Erickson Directs Liberals to Coat Hanger Sales Site After Texas Abortion Bill Passes
Erick Erickson "apology" in RedState (July 13, 2013): My Sincere Apology to the Kid Killing Caucus
Analysis in PolicyMic of a Democratic lawmaker's use of a coat hanger to make a point during the Texas abortion bill debate (July 10, 2013): Senate Bill 5: Texas Rep Resorts to Coat Hanger to Make Her Point
In an earlier post, I talked about the symbolic power of the coat hanger for pro-choice activists, regardless of how widely it was used in actual self-abortions.
Pro-life activists tend to miss the point of the coat hanger-- the question is not how often coat hangers were actually used before the constitutionalization of abortion in 1973, but how the coat hanger symbolically represents the desperation of women to have abortions and the lengths to which they will go to obtain one-- like using coat hangers, knitting needles, wires, etc. Especially for poor and working-class women, it is undisputed that many women experienced danger, pain, injury, and death in undergoing an assisted or self-induced abortion.
And then there's Erick Erickson, RedState blogger and pundit. He appeared to display a superlative level of willful obtuseness and sadism while gloating over the recent pro-life legislative victory in Texas: He tweeted, "Dear Liberals, go bookmark this site now:" followed by a link to a coat hanger sales web site. The natural first reading of Erickson's tweet is that he was gleefully celebrating the possibility that pregnant women in Texas who wanted an abortion would have to resort to dangerous, coat-hanger-like methods going forward.
Erickson's tweet produced a furor, and he pushed back on his RedState site in the form of a non-apology apology, titled "My Sincere Apology to the Kid Killing Caucus." He explained, in essence, that he was not taunting women with unwanted pregnancies and few options. Instead, he asserted, he was making fun of pro-choice activists and their coat hanger symbolism. He was pointing out in a funny way that pro-choicers, in opposition to the Texas legislation, would go overboard and hyperbolically predict a return to the bad old days. He also employed the tried-and-true "you don't find me funny, which shows you don't have a sense of humor" device-- usually employed, without irony, by someone who traffics in anger and resentment for a living (read RedState and judge for yourself).
Let's take Erickson at his word here. He still misses the point in two ways.
First, he focuses on the part of the Texas legislation that bans abortion after 20 weeks. This, I would assert, is not the most significant part of the legislation. Instead, the law's biggest impact is through its TRAP provisions-- that is, the parts of the legislation that unnecessarily impose regulatory burdens on Texas abortion clinics in order to regulate them out of existence. This is the part of the legislation, denying access to legal abortion for most Texas women, that will produce the conditions under which women will use alternative, and less safe, means to terminate a pregnancy.
Second, he does not understand that coat hangers are symbols of an empirical reality, rather than the empirical reality itself-- just as pictures of late-term aborted fetuses do not pictorially represent the vast majority of aborted fetuses and embryos, but symbolize and bring home the humanity and cost of an abortion (so assert pro-life activists). Erickson either doesn't get political symbolism (which is not good for someone in the pundit business) or he gets the symbolism and doesn't like the fact that it is effective.
Links:
Article in The Daily Beast (July 16, 2013): Meet The Pundit Who Thinks Coat-Hanger Abortions Are Funny
Article in Media Matters for America (July 13, 2013): Fox's Erickson Directs Liberals to Coat Hanger Sales Site After Texas Abortion Bill Passes
Erick Erickson "apology" in RedState (July 13, 2013): My Sincere Apology to the Kid Killing Caucus
Analysis in PolicyMic of a Democratic lawmaker's use of a coat hanger to make a point during the Texas abortion bill debate (July 10, 2013): Senate Bill 5: Texas Rep Resorts to Coat Hanger to Make Her Point
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