A Response to Objections on My Pro-Life Movement Post

Last updated on: November 1, 2012 at 5:51 am By Libby Anne

After reading through the massive comment thread on my post on how I lost faith in the pro-life movement, I have put together a list of questions and points to be addressed. I will be writing future, more focused followup posts looking at some of these issues, but I thought I would briefly address some of questions and comments here first.

1. My current position on the morality of abortion

When I first became pro-choice I would have described myself as being pro-choice for pragmatic reasons. I was pro-choice because I became convinced that the policies associated with being pro-choice – i.e. keeping abortion legal while working to make birth control widely available and improve the social safety net so that women can afford to keep their pregnancies – would do more to reduce the number of abortions than the policies associated with being pro-life – i.e. discouraging birth control and comprehensive sex education while also working to dismantle the social safety net and thus making it harder for women to afford children.

However, in the five years since that time I have concluded, based on both philosophy and embryology, that zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are actually potential people. In other words, while they have the possibility of developing, with the aid of a woman’s body, into a woman’s body zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are not actually people with rights. Furthermore, I have also come to better understand that there are two people involved, and now feel that requiring women to remain pregnant against their wills is no more moral than forcing people to donate bone marrow or one of their kidneys. For more on my views, see my page on reproductive rights.

2. Actively Killing versus Letting die

Perhaps the biggest critique of my piece had to do with my argument that putting women on the pill, even with the small risk of it expelling some zygotes as a result, ought to be a moral obligation for those who view zygotes as people if doing so will save a much greater number of zygotes from naturally being expelled from a woman’s body. The counter argument is that actively killing a zygote, embryo, or fetus, even in order to prevent the deaths of a greater number of zygotes, embryos, or fetuses, is always wrong.

In this way we begin to get into that oft-quoted moral conundrum: If you see a train going down a track and know for sure that if nothing is changed it will run over and kill ten people, but if that you pull a lever that will shunt the train to another track where it will kill one person, what should you do? Which choice is the more moral and ethical one? If you pull the lever you are causing the death of one person, but also preventing the death of ten others. If you don’t pull the lever, are you in some way culpable for those extra deaths, since you could have prevented them? On the other hand, if you do pull the lever, are you a murderer?

But there is a second point. Scientific evidence suggests that the pill does not actually prevent implantation. When I played the numbers game with zygotes and the pill, I was using the pro-life movement’s numbers, not the numbers offered by current scientific consensus. If you look at science, what you will find is that neither the pill nor Plan B prevent zygotes from implanting. The reason that I played the numbers game at all was simply to point out that even if the pill did result in dead zygotes, opposing it was not actually so clear cut as the pro-life movement would have you believe.

3. Pro-life movement versus individual pro-lifers

In my post I continually spoke of the goals and policies of “the pro-life movement.” I do know that the pro-life movement is a diverse thing made up of diverse organizations and individuals. When I spoke of the pro-life movement as a whole, I was referring to the chief organizations, leaders, and political rhetoric. In other words, the dominant narrative. I am aware that there are both individuals and organizations who claim the title “pro-life” and yet do work to promote birth control and improve the social safety net so that every women can afford to raise children. I am also aware that there are some who call themselves “pro-life” and yet don’t want to see abortion banned. My purpose was not to speak of every person or organization claiming the title “pro-life,” but rather to indict the dominant voices, organizations, and narratives that are currently so much a part of our politics today.

If someone wants to keep the term “pro-life” and try to reclaim it from those whose policies would increase abortion rates and harm women, I have no problem with that. I would simply urge them to be aware that the term “pro-life” is today owned by those whose policies are not only counterproductive but also anything but pro-life.

4. What about Crisis Pregnancy Centers?

Another critique of my post was that there is no way I could grow up pro-life and think the movement didn’t care about helping women afford to keep their children, because nearly every town has a crisis pregnancy center, often re-branded as “pregnancy resource centers,” available to help women who choose to keep unplanned pregnancies. I probably should have mentioned these centers in my post so as to close off this avenue for criticism.

First of all, crisis pregnancy centers frequently lie to women about the health risks of abortion and engage in emotional manipulation in an effort to do anything possible to talk them out of having abortions. I attended banquets to raise money for these centers. Sure, there is talk about caring for the woman, but it is more geared toward caring about her as a sacred vessel than caring for her as an individual. The entire point of these centers is to save the lives of babies by talking women out of having abortions by any means possible. So no, I don’t count crisis pregnancy centers as evidence that the pro-life movement cares about women.

Second, giving a woman a crib and diapers is great, but that’s not the real expense involved in raising a child. I could buy a new crib every week for what I pay in daycare costs for one child. The same is true for things like healthcare and, eventually, college expenses. The claim that the the pro-life movement does care about helping women afford to have children because it hands out formula and baby clothes is absurd. Those things are helpful, but they are wholly insignificant compared to the costs of raising a child from infancy through high school.

5. Are the Studies I Used Biased?

Many commenters claimed that my mistake was in believing something I read in the New York Times, or believing research put out by the Guttmacher Institute. Why do I trust the facts these organizations put out? Well, the New York Times engages in fact checking and issues corrections when it gets something wrong. For its part, the Guttmacher Institute uses peer review and refuses to take money from organizations that would compromise their objectivity. It seems to me that the pro-life movement approaches science in much the way young earth creationists do: as though scientists are engaged in some sort of grand conspiracy and every scientific fact is somehow biased one way or another. Any time they are presented with a fact they don’t like they claim “liberal bias” as a way to get out of having to actually deal with that fact.

It seems as though both the pro-life movement and young earth creationists hold tight to pre-conceived ideas and uses cries of “liberal bias” to reject any data that contradicts these ideas. In other words, the pro-life movement starts from the assumption that abortion causes women physical harm and that the birth control pill causes zygote “abortions” and then simply rejects all evidence to the contrary. The thing is, that’s not how I roll. If you want to be right, or at least as close to right as you can come, you have to be open to changing your mind. If you start out with an assumption and then throw out everything that indicates the contrary, well, that’s a problem. In contrast, I place a great deal of value on being willing to be wrong. When I approach facts, I consciously work against my biases. If I am wrong, I want to know so that I can change my mind.

So if you have evidence that the abortion rates in the Guttmacher report are wrong, do tell. If you have evidence that widespread birth control would actually increase the abortion rate, I’m all ears. If you have evidence that making birth control affordable doesn’t decrease the rate of abortions, I’m prepared to listen. But don’t just assert to me that scientific studies are biased and therefore wrong, and then think you can leave it at that. I’m all ready to listen to contrasting arguments and look at all the evidence, but I’m not okay with starting from an assumption and then rejecting everything that contradicts it.

6. Why Do I Compare First and Third World Countries?

Several commenters took issue with me comparing abortion rates in third world countries with abortion rates in first world countries. The thing is, I was not arguing that the legality of abortion is the only variable, and I was not arguing that making abortion legal makes the number of abortions drop. Perhaps I should have been more clear. My point is simply that banning abortion is not correlated with low abortion rates. Instead, it is both accessible and widespread use of birth control and comprehensive social safety nets that are correlated with low abortion rates. These statistics on abortion rate make it clear that the pro-life movement’s argument that birth control leads to more sex and therefore more unwanted pregnancies and therefore more abortions is quite simply false. They also make it clear that the idea that simply banning abortion would somehow get rid of it is false. And finally, they suggest quite clearly that the most effective way to bring down abortion rates lies in things like widespread birth control access and comprehensive social safety nets.

7. What about the Argument that Abortion Harms Women?

One point that was made is that opposing abortion is not simply about saving babies, because women suffer from abortion too, so working to end abortion will help them as well. The trouble is that claims that abortion causes health problems or mental problems have been soundly refuted. The pro-life movement frequently cites studies that are openly acknowledged as flawed – such as those tainted by recall bias or not differentiating between causation and correlation – to back up its argument that abortion harms women while ignoring more comprehensive evidence that contradicts this idea. The problem here is much the same as in point five: the pro-life movement as a whole seems less interested in actual scientific accuracy than in proving the point it has already made up its mind on, that abortion hurts women.

But I want to point out something else. Even if the evidence showed that abortion did have harmful side effects, that would not change my position on whether it should be legal. The side effect of a pregnant woman not having an abortion is having to carry her pregnancy to term and then either raise a child she did not plan on having or give it up for adoption. Thus even if abortion did have harmful side effects, whether or not to have an abortion should still be up to the individual woman.

And finally, as for the argument that abortion harms women long-term because they live in haunted regret, well, you might want to take a look at the stories of some of the many women who are not sorry that they had abortion. Sure, we all sometimes make decisions we later regret. However, the fact that some people later regret an action is not enough of a reason to ban it. And also, it is a bit disingenuous that the pro-life movement trumpets the idea that women who have abortions live lives of guilt while simultaneously doing everything it can to induce that guilt in women who have abortions.

8. Do I want to save the Zygotes?

My discussion on zygotes raised a couple of questions. First, several commenters said that my argument was akin to saying that if we weren’t trying to cure cancer then it would be okay to kill people with cancer. That is not what I was saying. Rather, my argument was simply that if the pro-life movement was consistent, it would be concerned about the zygotes that die naturally. That it in point of fact demonstrates utterly no concern for these zygotes indicates that the pro-life movement does not actually view zygotes as people, regardless of how much they argue they do when contending against abortion and birth control. In other words, the argument has nothing to do with whether we should give zygotes the same consideration as people.

While we’re on the subject, several commenters said that it was fine that these zygotes die since they do so naturally. I find this response extremely strange given that dying from cancer is also natural, or dying from diabetes, or dying from appendicitis, and yet we work to find ways to prevent these deaths. Unless these commenters are willing to say we should suspend modern medicine because deaths that occur “naturally” are a-okay, they’re being inconsistent, applying a different standard to zygotes than they apply to people. And that, quite simply, was my point.

Third and finally, one commenter who works in embryology pointed out that the zygotes that fail to implant do so for a reason – they are not healthy zygotes. This commenter was concerned that I was actually advocating spending time and resources on saving these zygotes because even if that could successfully be done it would simply bring a lot of extremely severely disabled people into the world. I was indeed aware that these zygotes generally fail to implant because there is something wrong with them, but I don’t think that changes my argument. After all, we do what we can to help severely disabled people out of the womb, including ones that would die without modern medicine, so if pro-lifers are consistent in their claim that a zygote is a person just as much as you or I they should insist on doing the same for zygotes, even ones that suffer from abnormalities. However, because I do not view a zygote as the equivalent of you or I in any way shape or form, I do agree with this commenter that such research would be a waste of resources. My point was not to argue that we should be working to save the zygotes but rather simply that if the pro-life movement was genuine in its claim that zygotes are people like you or I, it ought to be doing so.

9. On Sex, Consequences, and Responsibility

Of all the comments on my post, the ones that I found most strange were the ones arguing that sex is about making babies, and people need to be responsible and accept the consequences of their decisions. I found these comments odd because they revealed that someone could somehow read my entire post and then make my point for me. For these commenters, being pro-life is not about saving babies, or at least not primarily about saving babies. Instead it is about making sure that sex has consequences.

But why? Why must sex have consequences? When an obese person becomes diabetic we don’t deprive him of insulin and tell him his diabetes is his own fault and he just has to deal with the consequences. Should we deprive people of coffee because if you’re tired it’s your own fault for not getting more sleep? We do things to mitigate the consequences of our actions all the time. Birth control and abortion are just one more way of doing this. If someone argues that sex must have consequences – that sex and baby making must always go hand in hand regardless of the technology we have developed to separate the two – they are simply trying to impose their personal beliefs on everyone else.

Furthermore, seeing abortion as a way for people to be irresponsible is disingenuous. When a woman finds herself with an unplanned pregnancy, she has to consider her options and choose a course of action. That is called being responsible. Having an abortion is one of those options. In other words, there is no reason abortion should be seen as an irresponsible way of handling an unplanned pregnancy, just like there is no reason having a baby should be the mandated consequence of having sex.

If you are one who believes that abortion is murder, you will probably have some problems with the two previous paragraphs. But my point is that if it is all about preventing the murder of unborn babies, well, talk of “consequences” and “responsibility” is a bit disingenuous. When you talk about how sex should have consequences or about how abortion is an irresponsible way to get out of dealing with the results of sex, well, you are moving the conversation away from saving babies and toward controlling people’s sex lives. So if it really is about saving babies, and not about pushing your sexual morality on society in general, you shouldn’t be making this sort of argument. If you’re interested, I’ve actually written about this twice, in posts called “When It Really Is about Controlling Woman” and “When you do the thing that makes babies…”

10. Why I Used the Label “Pro-Life”

Several pro-choice commenters wondered why I used the term “pro-life” and “pro-life movement.” I usually try to use the term “pro-life” when I write a post I hope will gain some audience among those who oppose abortion. I do this because I remember how quickly the doors of my mind used to slam shut whenever I heard someone using one of those other labels for me. It was an immediate conversation stopper. It was the end of any productive dialogue. I didn’t want phrases like “anti-choice” to put people off my post. However, I generally have preferred the term “anti-abortion.” I’m going to write a post sometime in the future about these different labels, and as I do so I will likely further hone my own thoughts on which labels are most appropriate and in what situations.

11. There Are Huge Differences between Protestants and Catholics

One thing that was frequently pointed out to me in the comments is that I couldn’t assume all pro-lifers were the same because there are large differences between how Protestants and Catholics approach this issue. I am very aware of this. While I grew up evangelical, I actually spent a couple of years as a Catholic before leaving faith behind entirely. I think the most interesting difference, and I will discuss this further in a future post, is in the reasons for opposing birth control. Catholics oppose birth control entirely, believing that sex should not be separated from procreation. In contrast, Protestants who oppose birth control do so because they believe it causes abortions.

In other words, Catholics oppose birth control because they want others to follow their own religious and moral beliefs while Protestants oppose birth control because they believe it kills babies. Of course, Protestants also voice concerns about birth control encouraging premarital sex, which they believe as sinful. Regardless, this difference is fascinating, and indeed should not be ignored. The ways in which Catholics and Protestants have influenced each other over time on issues of abortion and birth control is also fascinating.

12. What about Natural Family Planning?

Several commenters asserted that people should stop complaining about birth control access and just use natural family planning, so I wanted to make a couple of points on that issue. First, there are a variety of different birth control methods out there and people should be allowed to pick which works best for them, not forced into using any one method because of someone else’s religious or moral beliefs. The reason the Catholic Church is okay with natural family planning is that it involves an “openness” to procreation. That fact alone should make it clear that natural family planning is not for everyone, and is perhaps most especially not for those who are not open to having children.

That said, I actually happen to know a lot about natural family planning. Before getting an IUD this past summer I actually used natural family planning as my only form of birth control. If you will remember, I spent several years as a Catholic. I will say that natural family planning worked for me, in that both of my children were indeed planned and I did not have any “oops” babies. However, keeping track of everything was extremely stressful – it is absolutely critical to get every sign correct – and the amount of abstaining we had to do took a tole on our sex life. I worried every month as I waited for my period, and every month the first sex I had after my fertile period I was tense and full of worry that I might have misread the signs and be risking pregnancy. I’m not saying it was all bad – I did enjoy learning about my body and my cycle. However, natural family planning is not some sort of easy fix to throw out there when people talk about birth control access. Given amount of time and effort it involves, natural family planning is for all intents and purposes a hobby.

13. Is Planned Parenthood Involved in Some Sort of Evil Conspiracy?

There are two issues here. The first is whether or not Planned Parenthood is engaged in some sort of conspiracy to force women to have abortions. The thing is, being pro-choice means supporting a woman’s right to choose. Pressuring woman into having abortions would be antithetical to choice. There is is not space here to get into all of the arguments I grew up seeing thrown around regarding Planned Parenthood, nor do I have time at the moment. Suffice it to say that I find the idea that that organization could be staffed by pro-choice individuals all somehow complicit in forcing women to have abortions without word leaking out. It would have to be a conspiracy on a simply massive scale. Based on what I know and have experienced, the idea that Planned Parenthood is engaged in a scheme to push women into having abortions appears ludicrous.

But that said, those who make the argument that Planned Parenthood is engaged in some sort of conspiracy seem to assume that if this was the case it would somehow be an argument for abortion. If Planned Parenthood really were trying to force women into have abortions rather than allowing women to make their own choices and supporting them in those choices, I and every other pro-choice individual I know would be horrified and work to expose the organization and bring reform and accountability. I would not, however, suddenly decide that abortion should be banned. If one health food store chain turns out to be embezzling people’s money, does that mean we should ban organic food? Um, no. Whether or not Planned Parenthood is engaged in some sort of conspiracy has no bearing on whether or not abortion should be legal.

14. Did I Become Pro-Choice So That I Could Be Promiscuous?

I saved this issue for last because I found it rather humorous. Several commenters accused me of changing my position because I wanted to have sex, and of being a swinger who is anti-monogamy. In fact, one commenter suggested that I just wanted to be able to get out of having children. The reason I find all of this so funny is that I have only ever had sex with one man, my husband, I married young, and I have two young children. Of course, I don’t see anything wrong with having multiple sex partners or with choosing not to have children at all. Even if I were sleeping around and swearing off children entirely, that would not invalidate the arguments I was making, because those arguments had nothing to do with my personal preferences. But the assertion that I, a young married mother of two, became pro-choice because I didn’t want kids and didn’t believe in monogamy? That made me laugh.

And of course, there is something else here that some commenters seemed to forget. I am a happily married mother of two, and I use birth control (an IUD in my case). Why? Because two children are all my husband and I want and can afford right now. Birth control is not something that is only used by those who are not married or those with multiple partners. We consider it normal and desirable in this day and age to be able to plan whether, when, and how many children to have, and that means birth control also for those who are married. I for one have no desire to return to the days when women spent their entire reproductive lives either pregnant or recovering from pregnancy.

15. My Commenting Policy

I know this isn’t a response to an objection, but given that the comment thread on my pro-life movement post ballooned, I think it’s a good idea to make sure everyone knows my commenting policy. If you’re knew, please read it. It’s not very long, but I do try to maintain a specific sort of tone in the comment threads on my blog.

Guest Post: Rebecca recounts her childhood in Operation Rescue

Last updated on: September 9, 2013 at 5:22 pm By Libby Anne

A guest post by Rebecca

I was dramatically opposed to abortion from the time of my very earliest memories. My evangelical family was pro-life and had taught me to view abortion as the number-one evil facing our country. I remember being a kindergarten-aged girl and sobbing in the kitchen, overwhelmed with the horror that somewhere out there, babies were being murdered.

My parents were very extreme in their pro-life viewpoint. They were a part of Operation Rescue and other radical pro-life groups that organized illegal sit-ins in front of abortion clinics. Both my parents and some of my older siblings– teenagers at the time– were arrested for these activities. I was too young to join in these “rescues” so I was simply recruited to carry anti-abortion picket signs. They never made me carry the gory signs but I was surrounded by them at the protests. I can still call to mind all the pictures of dismembered fetuses and how much they horrified me as a child. I especially remember one illustrated pamphlet that depicted a “partial-birth” abortion, which was traumatizing to me.

For me, those gruesome photos weren’t just a part of the protests. I encountered them in the multitude of pro-life books and literature we had at our house as well. We had videos of Holocaust footage combined with slideshows of abortion pictures and the music of Randall Terry. We had anti-abortion fiction by people like evangelical author Frank Peretti and pro-life leader Paul DeParrie, and entire pro-life albums by contemporary Christian musicians. The message was clear: Abortion was akin to slaughtering children, and upstanding citizens who didn’t do everything in their power to stop it were responsible. With all this indoctrination, it’s no wonder that I had become convinced that I was somehow complicit in the worst mass-killing of all time: abortion.

To me, the fact that there was even a debate about abortion was baffling. I couldn’t understand how anyone could defend something so barbaric. I assumed that most pro-choice people had been deluded into believing “the lies of the abortion industry” and they simply hadn’t seen enough dismembered fetus pictures. Abortion doctors were twisted monsters in my view, and women who had abortions fell into two rough categories: confused victims of the agenda of the “pro-abort” side or malicious, selfish women who simply didn’t care that they were killing a baby. The difficult realities of unwanted pregnancy was very much downplayed in the pro-life culture I was raised in. Why didn’t those women simply wait nine months, give birth, and put the baby up for adoption? I wondered. Didn’t they know there were lots of pro-life people who would want to adopt such a baby?

When I became an adult and continued examining the issue, I began to understand the different positions to the point where I could see why there was a debate. Information I didn’t know, like the development of a fetus’s sentience and pain response, and how painful and difficult pregnancy really is, came to light. I also found out that a modern medical abortion is 14 times less fatal to a woman than live childbirth. From that perspective, I could see how any abortion could fall under the “life of the mother” exception. I felt the strength of my pro-life viewpoint falter just a bit. I stopped speaking out against abortion and telling people I was pro-life at this point.

Although I had been raised to think that men were the superior sex, by the time I was in my 20s I had begun to take an interest in feminism. Even though I embraced most feminist principles, I felt awkward being a pro-life feminist. I knew that I was not the only one who felt that way, but I began to worry that there was something I still wasn’t understanding about the abortion issue. One interesting viewpoint I eventually encountered stated that the “When does personhood begin?” question is a red herring, and that the real issue of abortion boils down to a matter of bodily autonomy. From this viewpoint, the question became: “Why should a woman be legally forced to risk her life, freedom, and well-being to keep someone else alive inside her body, even if that someone else is also (possibly) a person?” This was the first time I had heard the pro-choice viewpoint phrased in a way that didn’t try to diminish the personhood of a fetus. That piqued my interest. It wasn’t long before I realized I found the pro-choice side the more convincing of the two, and I even began to allow myself to question the “personhood from conception” belief.

Of course I never would have gotten to that point without first truly understanding the personhood of women. A million arguments against fetal personhood didn’t do anything to change my mind, it was feminism that got through to me. Before, a woman was a baby-carrying vessel, but through feminism I could see the importance of living a life free of the burden of unwanted pregnancy. Nowadays I am fully pro-choice. I cannot say for certain when “personhood” starts, but to me the right to an abortion must exist regardless of how much of a person an embryo or fetus is. Maybe someday I will be able to say with certainty, as a lot of pro-choice people do, that a fetus is absolutely not a person, but I’m not quite there yet, because the pictures of aborted fetuses still haunt me. The scars you’re given in childhood don’t go away that easily.

When It Really Is about Controlling Women

Last updated on: September 7, 2012 at 10:18 am By Libby Anne

A reader offered the following in a comment on a recent post on abortion:

“What I had really wanted to say is that, except in the case of a rape, the pregnancy had to have resulted from a voluntary decision on the part of the woman, and therefore she should take responsibility for it, and carry the baby to term.”

I’ve been encountering this argument with growing frequency, and it really bothers me. Just last week my awesome husband helped me understand why. Put simply, this argument lays bare the misogyny of the anti-abortion movement, and makes opposition to abortion a blatant attempt to control women. Let me explain.

As I see it, there are two main reasons people oppose abortion:

First is the argument that the zygote/fetus is a person with rights. I call this the “save the babies” argument. It is passively anti-woman in that it almost always involves erasing women from the equation and ignoring women’s right to control their own bodies.
Second is the argument that women shouldn’t have sex unless they’re willing to be mothers. I call this the “slut shaming” argument. It is actively anti-woman in that it involves shaming women for having had sex and seeking to impose a measure of social control on women.

In the last several decades pro-lifers have been distancing themselves more and more from this second reason and focusing on the first. But the second reason has not disappeared. Growing up in pro-life circles, I thought it was “save the babies” all the way. And I have to admit, I was taken in. I honestly thought abortion was about saving babies, not about controlling women. And I’m not the only one so taken in. As long as they focus on the “save the babies” argument, pro-lifers can claim that they aren’t being anti-woman (even if, by erasing women from the picture, they actually are). But when they start using the “slut shaming” argument, they don’t have any such excuse.

And that, quite simply, is the problem with the comment I quoted above.

If abortion is murder, the argument that women need to “take responsibility” for the “voluntary decision” to have sex by carrying the pregnancy to term is irrelevant. It should not matter. If it’s just about “saving babies,” then abortion is wrong because it’s murder, not because it’s a woman failing to “take responsibility” for having had sex. When someone makes the above argument, then, they make clear that some proportion of the anti-abortion movement is not simply interested in “saving babies,” but rather in depriving women of control of their own reproduction. Some proportion of the anti-abortion movement, then, is actively anti-woman, not simply passively anti-woman. They make opposing abortion about “slut shaming,” about trying to control women who want to have sex but not to have children, not about “saving babies.”

And then they wonder why women get upset. They wonder why they’re called anti-woman. They shouldn’t. It should be obvious.

A Rebuttal

Just because I want to be crystal clear, let me explain the many problems with the “slut shaming” argument. Feel free to leave a comment with additional problems.

1. Having an abortion is taking responsibility. As another reader said in a comment:

Why isn’t having an abortion taking responsibility for her actions? It’s not responsible to create a child if you’re not in a position to give it a decent chance at a certain quality of life so the really irresponsible thing for women to do would be to carry every pregnancy to term.

Exactly. This should be obvious. Having an abortion is one way of taking responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy, just as deciding to go through with the pregnancy and either keep the resulting baby or give it up for adoption are other ways of taking responsibility. We should trust women to make their own decisions, not force them to take the course we personally think they should take. Unless, of course, it really is about punishing women audacious enough to have sex without wanting to be mothers by forcing them to go through pregnancy and have a child.

And if you read the above paragraph and then say “but wait! it’s a baby! abortion is not ‘taking responsibility’ because it’s murder!” then why in the world would you make the “take responsibility” and “deal with the consequences” argument in the first place? If abortion is murder, then why talk about women needing to “take responsibility” for their “voluntary choice” to have sex? Shouldn’t you just be focusing on the whole murder thing, rather than talking about a pregnancy and resulting baby like they’re some sort of “consequences” that a woman choosing to have sex should have to be shouldered with? If abortion isn’t murder, the only reason to oppose it is in an effort to control women’s sexuality. If abortion is murder, than whether or not women should “take responsibility” should not matter. Only inveighing against murder should matter.

2. Women should not have to risk becoming a mother every time they have sex. To quote from a reader once again:

Women can’t live without sex during all periods of their lives in which they aren’t able to care for a child (they should be extremely careful with contraception during these times but accidents do happen).

Women need to “take responsibility” for what, exactly? Since birth control sometimes fails and I doubt this argument includes exceptions for birth control failure, I have to conclude that the argument is that when a woman chooses “voluntarily” to have sex she must “take responsibility” if a pregnancy results. In other words, if a woman chooses to be sexually active, well, she is assenting to motherhood. This used to be true, and was one reason women could not reach parity with men – they faced constant childbearing, with all of the difficulty, invasiveness, and risk it involved. But this isn’t true anymore, and those who want it to be true, whether they realize it or not, are hearkening back to a time when women “stayed in their places.”

And before someone says that women can just abstain from sex if they don’t want to become pregnant, let me point out two things: a) in the case of premarital sex, this is a free country and you are not allowed to impose your personal views on another and b) in the case of marital sex, remaining celibate is silly, since sex is important to maintaining a healthy marriage (Getting married should not mean becoming a constant baby machine. I’m in my twenties, married, and the other of two children. My husband and I don’t want more at this point in time, or perhaps ever. Should we then be celibate until I reach menopause?).

Unless we women can control when and if to have children, we cannot reach equality. Being able to control our reproduction is, in my opinion, one of the most important advances in women’s rights in the twentieth century. And damned if I’m giving that up.

3. How messed up is it to see children as a form of punishment?!? While the comment discussed here didn’t use the word “punishment,” just the other day on facebook I saw someone talking about how women need to deal with the “consequences” of their actions, aka children. In other words, “oh, you had sex and got pregnant and yet you don’t want to be a mother? too bad! when you had sex you were assenting to motherhood, so you have to take the baby regardless!” This is not okay. We do not punish people by forcing them to raise or bear children! And beyond that, we don’t punish people by forcing them to let a foreign entity grow in their bodies for nine months! That is wrong on so many levels!

In other words, pregnancy and motherhood becomes a consequence that any sexually active woman must bear whether they want to or not. You had sex? Well then deal! This is part of the package! Of course, this completely ignores the fact that it does not have to be part of the package. This is what the sexual revolution was all about. Thanks to birth control and abortion, women can be sexually active without becoming mothers. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Because at some level, the people talking about how women need to “take responsibility” for “voluntarily choosing” to have sex don’t want women to be able to be sexually active without facing the attendant pregnancies and children. Opposing abortion is a way to control women’s sexuality, and through their sexuality, their lives.

Conclusion

And again, if the person making this argument believes that abortion is murder, they should not be making this argument! If someone wants to make this argument and then read my three points above and say “oh but wait, abortion is really murder,” then why the heck did you make that other argument, the one about “taking responsibility” for having had sex and dealing with the “consequences” in the first place? If it’s just about “saving babies” and not about being anti-woman, none of that other stuff should matter!

I suppose someone could oppose abortion for both reasons – both believing that it’s murder and that women shouldn’t be sexually active unless they are open to pregnancy and motherhood. But also believing that abortion is murder does not make the argument that women must “take responsibility” for “voluntarily choosing” to have sex any less about controlling women. Anyone who makes the “take responsibility” argument, regardless of whether they also believe abortion involves “murdering babies,” opposes abortion at least in part out of a desire to control women and their sexuality. And then the act all confused when people point that out. “It’s all about saving babies!” they say. Really? Then drop the “take responsibility” for your “voluntary choice” to have sex bit. Because you’re not fooling anyone.

Ultimately, this is about betrayal. The argument made in the comment I quoted at the beginning of this post bothers me because it lays bare the reality that there is a blatantly and actively anti-woman aspect in the anti-abortion movement. I grew up ignorant of this. I thought it was all about “saving babies.” I really believed that. And now, every time I see this argument and realize that it is not simply about saving babies, that to many people it is about controlling women, including me, well, I feel betrayed. And angry. My childhood innocence and trust is gone.

Note: Ironically, every politician who makes an exception for rape is doing so based on this argument – the idea that when women “voluntarily” choose to have sex, they have to “take responsibility” for the “consequences” of that, and that rape victims are exempt because they never “voluntarily” chose to have sex. After all, if abortion really is murder (the “save the babies” argument) it doesn’t matter how those babies were conceived or who their fathers are. It’s still murder. In other words, someone who opposes abortion in all circumstances has plausible deniability when it comes to being anti-woman (i.e. they may actually think it’s all about “saving babies” and not realize that they’re erasing women) but someone who allows rape exemptions does not. Weird, I know.

Dear Pro-Lifers: STOP ERASING WOMEN

Last updated on: January 25, 2013 at 4:27 pm By Libby Anne

I’ve talked before about pro-lifers erasing women in their discussion of abortion. Well, I was perusing the Patheos evangelical channel and I found this YET AGAIN.

“I’m sure evangelical youngsters everywhere would rejoice if their elders decided that they should have sex with great frequency because “if a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.” But alas, there is a key distinction between a sperm and a zygote. A zygote, left to develop naturally, will tend to develop into a human being. You can have a tank of millions of sperm, but without an egg not a single one will develop into a human being.”

Did you see where women got erased? Here, let me help you out:

A zygote, left to develop naturally, will tend to develop into a human being.

There, right there, is where women are removed from the picture entirely. Somehow zygotes magically develop into human beings…like, by themselves. Nothing else involved there. No one else effected. But that’s simply untrue. A zygote will NOT develop naturally into a human being if left to itself. Rather, in order to develop into a human being it has to have massive intervention from an outside source. Namely, a woman. Without this intervention, a zygote will not become a human being.

I’m sorry if it seems like I’m splitting hairs here, and I realized perfectly well that the author of that piece probably didn’t even realize he was doing this (which almost makes it worse), but every time a pro-lifer erases women like this, I can’t help but cringe. No, more than that, I want to yell.

I am a person! I matter! You can’t erase me like that!

And yet they do. Over and over and over again. Sometimes I think they are blissfully unaware that they’re doing this. And then they wonder why women get mad. And then they react with confusion when people accuse them of being anti-women.

So, note to pro-lifers: STOP ERASING WOMEN.

Because that’s the problem, isn’t it? If zygotes didn’t live inside women’s bodies, this wouldn’t be an issue. Sure, keep the zygotes alive! Care for them until they’re fully mature, put them up for adoption! Great! Who would oppose that? The trouble is, zygotes aren’t some sort of physically independent entity. Rather, they have to live inside of and feed off of women. If you want to legislate that all zygotes must be allowed to develop into the physically independent entities we call babies, you have to come to terms with the fact that that intimately involves women and their bodies. And yet, pro-lifers can’t seem to do that. Or, when they do admit this, it’s to offer pregnant women free cribs. And baby clothes. Or, you know, to talk about how women are supposed to sacrifice.

If someone wants to make a case against abortion, they need to actually address the reality that this discussion involves women’s bodies in an intimate and completely invasive way. They need to stop pretending they can talk about zygotes and fetuses without mention of women. They need to listen to women and understand what is involved. They need to realize that “saving babies,” if that is what they must call it, involves convincing or forcing women to allow the zygote or fetus to physically occupy their bodies, turning their lives upside down for nine months. Maybe if they actually act like they understand what it is they are asking, maybe then we can talk about it. Until then, I can’t. I’m too angry

Pregnancy and abortion intimately involve women’s bodies. You can’t separate that out of the equation and just talk about zygotes and fetuses. It’s time pro-lifers realized this. I am tired of being erased. Enough is enough.

Edit: The article I quote in the OP stated that “You can have a tank of millions of sperm, but without an egg not a single one will develop into a human being.” Reader Adele just left a comment pointing out that “You could have a tank of millions of zygotes but without a woman not a single one will develop into a human being.”

Worthwhile Reads: Feminism, “Love,” and Kidnapping

Last updated on: August 10, 2012 at 8:50 am By Libby Anne

It Really Wasn’t That Long Ago, on Permission to Live:

I’ve heard from conservatives that feminism is a silly endeavour today, women have all the rights they could ever want today, that all this anti-women stuff was a long long time ago. (But was it really? Go ask your grandmother!) The thing is, I grew up believing the same stuff. That women had to please men, that athletics would risk a woman’s reproductive health which was pretty much the most important thing about her. In other parts of the world today millions of girls are still fed that message that they are not worth as much as men, that they are not as capable as men.

A Fundamentalist Christian Paradox? “Love is an Action, Not a Feeling” vs. “Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner”, on The Phoenix and the Olive Branch:

If love is a feeling, I suppose you can love someone while acting against their best interests. You can love somebody and still be a selfish idiot, after all.

If love is an action, though, how can you punish someone and love them at the same time? How can you claim to love someone in an active sense when your actions directly harm them? How can you claim to love them when you don’t honor, trust, protect or forgive them? How can you claim to be loving toward them when you are impatient and furious with them? How can you love them when you believe they are inferior?

What kind of love demands that you change everything about yourself?

With love like that, I think I’d rather be hated.

Conservative pundit wants “underground railroad” to kidnap children of gay parents, on Blag Hag

The truly bizarre thing is that Fischer frames this as a way to protect your child. As if all children in same-sex households were originally kidnapped by The Gays from wholesome Christian families, where Peter Pan gathering up Lost Boys is a literal interpretation of the gay agenda. Is this seriously a concern of conservative opposite-sex couples? “How do I protect my child from being raised by The Gays?!” Maybe you could…I dunno, not put your child up for adoption? Not become gay? There seem to be less radical options than kidnapping other children available.

So you say you don’t hate gay people, Part I

Last updated on: August 8, 2012 at 6:04 pm By Libby Anne

One thing I have heard a lot recently is Christians who oppose marriage equality insisting, over and over again, that they are not homophobic. They don’t hate gay people, they love them, they really really do! Or at least, that’s what they say. And I remember being there – I remember saying the same thing, and meaning it. And so now, with all the recent hubbub over Chick-fil-a, I have to ask myself. Is it true? Can someone could be against marriage equality, and even think that homosexuality is wrong, and yet not “hate” gay people?

I’m not going to give you my answer to that question up front. I’ve been mulling over this for days now, and I’m going to hash out my thoughts on the subjects in two posts, one today and one tomorrow. So, you’re just going to have to keep reading! (more…)

Raised Quiverfull: Lisa’s Story

Last updated on: February 2, 2013 at 11:51 am By Libby Anne

A post in the Raised Quiverfull series.

Part 1: Introductory Questions

Please introduce yourself before we get started. Are you married or unmarried? Are you in school, holding down a job, or staying home? Do you have children? What religious beliefs or lack thereof do you ascribe to today? Provide whatever additional information you like.

I’m Lisa, I’m 24 and I now live in Germany. I was born and raised in the U.S. but left the U.S. when I left my parents and siblings about two years ago. I have an American father and a German mother, and found shelter with my mother’s family here. I’m not married and I don’t have any kids. Right now I’m working on getting a high school degree. Since I was home schooled and didn’t do well, I never got one when I lived with my family. Besides school I work at as a waitress. I’m not quite sure what I believe at the moment. I do believe there is God, but I can’t make sense of anything else.

How did your parents first come under the influence of Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull teachings? What leaders did they follow and what publications did they receive?

Both my parents grew up in moderate Christian families. They first got involved with the P/QF teachings shortly after they married. Back in the 1980s my Mom found out about Mary Pride’s teachings (The Way Home) and both my mom and dad were quickly fascinated by her teachings and approaches to family structure. Among their favorite “leaders,” if you can call them that, are Mary Pride and the Pearls, and especially the Gothard teachings. My parents took several trips to meetings and seminars hosted by Gothard’s IBLP.

In what ways was your family a “typical” Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull family? In what ways was it “atypical”?

My parents believed that contraception was a sin, that the man is the head of the house and the woman must be in absolute submission, that he is the authority for his daughters until they get married or he dies. We were home schooled, believed in modesty and only wearing skirts.

We were atypical in a sense that my mother never quite let go of her Catholic roots. We did some things Catholic such as Catholic Easter traditions. My mother spoke German with us kids and my Dad couldn’t understand much at all. This kind of enabled my mother to say things to us that my Dad wouldn’t understand, and if he did, he’d tell us how wrong they were. For example, whenever us kids made a mess or someone got hurt, she would exclaim “Holy Virgin Mary help us.” It’s a very Catholic thing to say and my mother always spoke about Mary with great admiration. I think she could never quite let go of her belief in Mary as a living saint.

Due to our language, a lot of P/QF people considered us Amish. This didn’t really mean that they didn’t accept us – they did, they just thought we did things differently. We never had any connections with the Amish though and us kids had to do a lot of explaining. I remember being asked if my family would support the tradition of “rumspringa” (“running around” as in living in the real world to decide if you want to stay with the Amish). We had a lot of explaining to do!

Part 2: Living the Life

What sort of a church did your family go to while you were growing up? Were the other families who attended the church also involved in the Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull movement?

Since my Dad didn’t find a denomination that suited him, we switched churches a lot. He thought he had some sort of say in the church community, which caused us to be cast out rather quickly. In some churches, they didn’t want us because we were too legalistic, others we left because they didn’t represent what my Dad believed in. I can’t tell you just how many churches we tried out, but it was certainly more than 10 communities we were involved in over 20 years. Some churches we stayed in for months, others we visited once or twice and didn’t like the people, or the pastor, or something else. But it was mostly Baptist communities, and they were also the ones we stayed at for the longest time. We met a whole lot of like-minded families, some we stayed in contact with, many others changed their ways and didn’t agree with what we believed in (any more). My Dad thought those families had a bad influence on us, so we cut the contacts.

In many ways, every Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull couple has a different dynamic. What sort of a dynamic did your parents have? Was one more sold on the Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull ideology than the other? Or, if you grew up in a broken family, how did this affect your experience?

My parents turned to the QF theologies before I was born even, so I can’t really tell you. It’s just what I think, but I think my Mother was much stricter at first. I also think she kind of pushed my Dad into those very fundamentalist ideas. I mean, he wanted to be the provider, but not at all cost. My Mom kind of forced him into dominating her. That changed when I was young, my Mom seemed to realize what kind of monster she made of my Dad. But at that point, he had been completely consumed by the theologies and was obsessed with being a leader himself.

How often did you, your siblings, and your parents read the Bible? Were you guided by your parents or pastors in how to interpret the Bible, especially certain passages, or were you generally free to form your own ideas about what the Bible said?

My mother got up early in the morning to do 10 or 20 minutes of reading by herself. My Dad took a few minutes a day for private study as well. Us kids, we were encouraged to take off a few minutes each day for private prayer time. Reading, studying, interpreting certain chapters was also part of our daily home schooling. My Dad tried to do daily bible hours with the entire family, but of course, in a family this large, it hardly ever came down to this. Some days he had too much work to do to collect everybody in the living room. Other days, one was sick, another one wasn’t done with home school and so on. We managed to sit together as a family and do bible studying an average twice to three times a week. Then my Dad would pick out passages that somehow suited our situation and problems we were facing during that time and tried to work out a message from there.

My parents, especially my Dad, believed that his beliefs must be our beliefs. He told us what to make of every single passage. At first, when I was younger, he sometimes praised pastors for their sermons. In my teen years, those weren’t good enough anymore. He told us pastors are corrupt and he had found the right way. All we believed was his, and we weren’t allowed to question it. That was considered rebellious and usually had consequences.

What role did race play in the Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull community in which you grew up? Were there any black or Hispanic families? Were they treated differently?

While my parents said that all human beings were perfectly made by God and equal, my Dad didn’t like us mixing with the black families. There were two families we had closer contact with, and my parents were very friendly, but we weren’t allowed to play with them. I think that was because my Dad didn’t want us to consider one of them as a possible spouse. He was against interracial marriage. I remember a nice lady who was married to a Mexican, she was treated differently, as were their son. Not that anybody said anything, but she was never invited and people avoided talking to her too much.

Part 3: A Gendered Childhood

How many siblings did you grow up with? Did responsibilities in your family differ by gender, with the girls having certain chores and the boys having others? Explain.

I “grew up” with 10 siblings, but I have more now – one more sister who was born about a year before I left, and another little sister who was born in 2011. We are more girls than boys, but the two kids after me are both boys, so I was much older than my sisters. I was pretty much the leader of the girl pack, supervising all housework we had to do. The girls had to do all kinds of housework, the boys had to do minor tasks such as making their own bed. Real housework wasn’t for boys.

All housework chores were given to me, first of all, and then it was on me to make distribute the tasks among the girls, to see that everyone did what they were supposed to do and that the work was done well. If something went wrong, I was punished along with the offender, or it was simply me getting punished with an option of punishing the offender myself. Say, if the sweeping wasn’t done clean enough and I had given this task to my sister, I would face the consequences for her failure as well. The smaller ones who couldn’t do things by themselves just yet were paired up with older ones to instruct them as well as to delegate chores themselves. It was pretty much run like a business.

The boys took care of things like gardening and fixing things up, changing light bulbs etcetera. Generally I feel like the boys had more free time, but then again, they also had to study harder for school as they were supposed to be providers later. But my brothers are smart and not doing their school resulted in harsh punishments, so they all got their work done pretty quickly and had time to go outside, play games in the garden and such.

If you were an older daughter, do you feel that you were expected to play “mother” for your younger siblings? Explain.

Well, as the oldest daughter, it was likely I would be the first one to get married. So of course having younger siblings was the perfect chance for me to train my skills as a future wife and mother. It always runs under the definition of “training” for your future but it’s really just a way to get the daughters to help more than an average kids would be expected to do or even capable of. The heavy period of training started when I was around 12, an age I was considered old enough to take actual responsibility for kids. Of course I had to do chores long before that, but the period of really mothering my siblings started at the age of 12. Different chores with the younger ones were given to me, making sure everybody wears appropriate clothing, changing diapers, feeding a small one, making sure they don’t do stuff that will hurt them.

The older I got, the more motherly responsibilities I had. This went as far as me physically punishing my siblings for smaller offenses (like not making their beds, for example). Of course the major offenses were still punished by my Dad. My mother had some physical difficulties during a number of her pregnancies and the sheer number of pregnancies made it impossible for her to do everything a mother usually does. A lot of times my Mother was simply too stressed out or physically drained and my siblings rather came to me with their issues and problems. Nobody wanted to feel like the heaviest of Mom’s burdens. I never felt like I could really talk to her about problems simply because I felt she had too much to do to be bothered with it.

In what ways were boys and girls in your family expected to dress or act differently from each other? Were there certain things it was appropriate for girls to do but not boys, and vice versa?

Girls were expected to wear modest, feminine clothes. The only way to be feminine was wearing skirts and dresses all the time. Pants weren’t allowed – the smaller girls would sometimes wear pants for certain occasions, such as physical activity in the garden, but they’d still wear a skirt over it. Once you were older, about 8 or 10 years old, so shortly before you hit puberty, there were no pants to wear under your skirts anymore. If you couldn’t do something in a skirt without showing skin, you weren’t supposed to do it. Sitting on a swing or climbing trees and things like that were impossible once you were too old.

The boys likewise were expected to wear “manly” things – long pants and a nice shirt. Feminine colors, pinks or pastels for example, weren’t manly enough so they had hardly any clothes in that color. The pants of course enabled the boys to play certain games and do certain things us girls couldn’t do in our skirts – like I said, climbing trees for example.

On the other hand, girls were expected to play with dolls when they were small, but not for too long. After all, we had plenty of real babies to play with. The girls were expected to help in the house, “play house”, sort of, so they would be kept busy, learn skills they’d need and at the same time feel as if they were playing.

In what ways were boys and girls in your family raised differently vocationally (i.e., the boys pushed toward careers and the girls pushed toward homemaking)? How did this play out as you came of age (apprenticeship, college, staying home, etc.)?

Moving out, going to college? That wasn’t an option at all – at least for the girls. We were taught rather strictly that daughters stayed at home until their husband came along. My Dad told me terrifying stories of young women who left their parents to go to college and got involved in “worldly” things. These stories usually ended with the girl being a drug addicted prostitute who’s now in rehab (optionally, her bastard child had been given up for adoption). I imagined colleges to be places where people had group sex right in the classrooms. I couldn’t imagine anything good coming from there. Education wasn’t as important since I was supposed to be a stay at home wife and mother anyway. Even if I didn’t marry and my parents were to die, I could move in with some other P/QF family and help them as a sort of adopted daughter, no matter the age.

Boys were raised to be hard working providers for a family. College was something that was encouraged, but not necessary. My Dad always believed that you could make good money and support a large family as long as you were a hard worker. The boys were also encouraged to grow up and make money rather early in life, in order to find a wife and get married. If you don’t have a job, you can’t get married, so finding something that would pay was elementary for any man. Missions were encouraged but my brothers were too young to do much of that before I left. My oldest brother is getting married soon, so I suppose he won’t be doing any traveling.

Part 4: Homeschooling

Why and when did your parents originally decide to home school? Did their reasons for homeschooling change over time?

My parents said that they always wanted to homeschool us kids. I as the oldest have never seen a public school from inside. My Dad was convinced that public schools were filled with sin (sex and drugs) and that they enforced certain “agendas” on the students. It got worse over time, my Dad thinking that all the bad things in America are rooted in the pro-gay pro-choice pro-everything ungodly schools.

Briefly describe your experience being home schooled, including the amount of interaction you had with other home schoolers or non-homeschoolers (socialization) and what sorts of textbooks or home school program your family used (academics).

I hated school more than anything. I mean, when I was really small and the others weren’t old enough for school yet (many of them weren’t born yet!), it was nice that my mom would spend so much time with me and it was fun, I enjoyed learning something. But the older I got and the more kids my Mom had to tutor, the less fun I had. My Mom had little time for each individual kid and at some point, I guess it was when I was 12, 13, I felt like it wasn’t so important what I had to study, it was more important to help the smaller ones do their studies. My Mom had some tougher pregnancies as well, which put her out of the picture for weeks and months. Those were the times where I was the one responsible for teaching the others. I basically didn’t do much myself since I also had the house to manage and the smaller kids to look after. It was horrible, trying to keep the toddlers satisfied while cleaning and cooking and at the same time looking after the boys who were just screaming and not concentrating.

At one point, once I turned 14, scientific studies lost their importance. My Dad felt it would do no good to teach a girl too much science. So the kitchen became my classroom and, even though I could already manage a house better than most 20 year olds, my Mom made me her fellow “help-meet.” I tried to get in some more math and that, but I didn’t get far. When I was 16 I realized that I wasn’t going to get any sort of degree anyway. My Dad didn’t want me to take SATs – not that I would’ve passed them anyway – and so I settled on studying the “important” things with some other women we knew – sewing, flower arranging. I also read a lot of the P/QF books that were coming out – the Ludy books, Harris, Pride, Pearl and so on. My Dad was torn. At some point, he wanted us to be smarter than kids from public schools and I think that somewhere he hoped I would have finished high school earlier than most people do, but then again, he took pride in the fact that his daughters were so “biblical.” I never quite understood what he wanted us to do.

We didn’t have much contact with other homeschoolers. We went to conventions where we met mostly other Christian homeschoolers, but never many who lived close enough to actually have vivid contact with them. Having friends wasn’t as important anyway, your siblings were supposed to be your best friends.

Since my mother was such a great fan of Mary Pride, Pride’s books on homeschooling were her major resource on how to structure the classes as well as which textbooks to use. We tried out different curricula and different systems, but online-learning wasn’t our major way of studying. I guess we were just too many kids and had too little money to buy the technical necessities for that.

What do you see as the pros and cons of having been home schooled? Do you feel that your home school experience prepared you well socially? Academically?

Well, I do think homeschooling can work if done right, but it just didn’t work for us. Not that my parents were intellectually incapable of teaching us, it’s just that they never used much of a curriculum other than my Dad’s personal opinion. So my big con is that I didn’t actually learn things you need to know in order to get higher education. Academically I wasn’t prepared to live in the ‘real world’ at all. A big part of our girl’s education was “homemaking,” where Mom taught us stuff like knitting and cleaning and cooking and all that stereotypical stuff. We were discouraged from studying things like math and science simply because my Dad believed it would put the wrong ideas into the girl’s minds – going out, getting an education, work, do a man’s job. At some point I think he wanted to keep us dumb so that we wouldn’t even have the chance to think about the situation we’re in. Make sure we do what we’re best at – being homemakers.

I think the social aspect of being home schooled is overrated. I can imagine that you might be just as socially prepared if it’s done right, but then again, coming from the P/QF background, I was in no way socially “normal”. The only people we ever had contact with were other fundamentalist homeschoolers and every family kept to themselves, so there wasn’t much going on. If I was different than I am the aspect of helping my younger siblings with their school would’ve certainly been positive, but then again I was so clueless about the things we had to learn myself that it was a huge fright to explain things to them. It just cost me a lot of energy to get through the day.

Do you perceive of your academic or social abilities differently today than you did when you were being homeschooled?

I considered myself well-prepared for the longest time. When all you’re looking at for your life is being married, raising kids and being a good wife, you don’t need chemistry, you don’t need real friends. You’re not supposed to share private stuff anyway, that leads to gossiping faster than you believe. And after all men want to be the heroes, they want to be admired. A woman smart enough to go to college would just make any man feel stupid, she might question him and that’s something you want to avoid. If he can explain things to her, he’ll feel strong, admired and respected. Yes, I can say I felt like I was going to be a good housewife and I still believe that this was true – I would’ve been well-prepared for that.

Now that I depend on my education to live, I feel every day just how much I don’t know and how much harder things are for me. I will do well in school for weeks and suddenly I’m hit with something that I lack basic knowledge of, and I’ll have to start from scratch to get it. Especially in math, I don’t think I could have even helped my husband with finances if I stayed with my family… Here’s a confession: I can’t calculate. I mean, I couldn’t do the easiest calculations and I’m having major issues even today. A good example would be the multiplications. I still need to use my fingers, and it takes me very long to answer. (And no, I have been tested, I do not have any calculation disorders. I just can’t do it.)

Do you plan to homeschool/are you homeschooling your children? Why or why not? If you do plan to homeschool, in what ways will you/do you do it differently from your parents?

I will never homeschool my children. If I stay in Germany I don’t have a choice anyway since homeschooling isn’t an option here. If I go back to the U.S., I just don’t think I would enjoy doing it.

Part 5: Purity

What were you taught about physical purity, emotional purity, and courtship and dating? How was sex education handled?

Physical purity standards included refraining from kissing, but some forms of touching where okay if you were engaged or close to it, like holding hands. The newer generations of courtships seem to be even more strict. Emotional purity was a huge deal, maybe because it’s so much harder to restrict it. Contact with boys was allowed only for short amounts of time (minutes) and overseen by an adult, typically a male relative. Falling in love, having crushes or even (gasp) fantasies was prohibited, but of course it’s not that easy. I was taught thinking of a boy and imagining him to be my husband was impure. Now of course, all girls dream of a great husband, and most of the time he has a face (one that you know), which complicates the issue. I suffered a lot trying to keep my thoughts elsewhere. It didn’t always work and just thinking of a boy was a sin to me. Even when you were courting, you shouldn’t “dream” of a future just yet. That was all for being married.

Sex education was nonexistent in my family. Not even the birds and the bees. If one of the kids asked where the babies came from, the answer was “They’re a gift from God, he makes them”. I was oblivious that any sort of physical act could be involved. I remember the day of my first period, you can imagine just how shocked I was, I had no idea. I told my mom I needed to see a doc and hinted at what happened, I was too afraid to be graphic with her. She told me that this meant I was now old enough to carry Eve’s sin in me and that it would remind me of my place in the world. She also told me she would tell my Dad, and I was humiliated at the thought of that.

Did you participate in a parent-guided courtship? If so, what was your experience? If not, why not?

I have been in a courtship, yes. My experience was pretty negative. My parents picked the young man. I don’t know if there were any other men interested in me before him, but it could be. My Dad had tested him before even telling me that somebody was interested. When they told me he had feelings for me, he had already been approved by my Dad. I wasn’t really given the chance to say no to this. This has a variety of reasons, one being that a man cleaves his wife (not vice versa) and that I needed to trust my parents and listen to my Dad. I was told to take a look at him because my Dad thought he was the one for me. It doesn’t sound like forcing, but believe me, you don’t get to say no to that without being labeled rebellious.

My courtship was heavily chaperoned and we didn’t see each other very often. Sometimes we didn’t see each other for weeks, or even months – his family lived far away and due to the many children they had, trips were expensive. We also weren’t allowed to do things dating and some courting couples do, like going out for dinner or seeing a movie together. Most interaction was kept inside the house. Even conversation was chaperoned, especially in the first year of courtship. I had a pretty long courtship, for one because the man who was courting me still needed to prepare to provide for a family, because I was needed by my parents (so I figure my Dad didn’t allow him to propose for a long time) and also because we couldn’t have regular meet ups. I broke off my courtship the day the man proposed to me, which ultimately caused me to be shunned by my entire family.

How do you feel about purity and courtship teachings today? Have you rejected some parts of it and kept other parts of it? How do you plan to handle these issues with your own children?

I certainly have rejected a large portion of the courtship teachings. To be quite honest, I don’t think there are any parts I kept. Of course, I believe that a boyfriend should be a real friend, not just a crush. Somebody who really knows you. I believe you should get to know someone before you date, but I wouldn’t label this as general courtship teaching. A lot of secular people believe the same thing.

At the same time I’m trying to get rid off the extreme purity teachings, but that’s so much harder. I still behave strange around men, on one hand because I myself want to stay “pure” and on the other I still believe it’s inappropriate to talk to “somebody else’s husband”, since that makes him impure too. It’s very hard to get over and I can’t really tell you where exactly I stand.

I have no idea how I’m going to handle things with my kids. I suppose that will become clearer once I’m actually faced with the issue. I don’t think I’d want them to do the whole courtship thing, though. I trust that I will raise them to be responsible young people who can recognize good character when they see it. I trust that they’ll be able to pick a person who’s perfect for them, even if they’re not my type. They hopefully won’t need me to tell them what’s marriage material and what isn’t. And I hope that they’ll end up being people who date a man or a woman whom I at least like (even if I don’t love them!), and that they won’t show up with a person I couldn’t stand if I tried.

Do you feel that the purity and courtship teachings you were raised with still have lasting impact on your life today? If so, how?

I’m sure they do, I can’t tell you the full extent (yet). Concerning purity, I have issues with physical touch, feeling dirty or sinful whenever I feel like something is impure. Like a male friend (not boyfriend) touching my arm or giving me a hug. I’m surprised I have a rather healthy image of sex compared to others who left the P/QF movement. Some are deeply afraid of anything sex, I guess I’m lucky I can still view it as something positive, something to be treated with care but not something that will kill you or cause you to do drugs. I’m still not sure what I think of physical touch or even sex before marriage and I’m taking my time to make up my mind on that one.

As for courtship, I abandoned those teachings for the most part. It’s supposed to protect you from bad feelings, thoughts, fantasies. But it just doesn’t do that. You still wonder what it would be like to kiss a guy, or how your Prince Charming looks, or anything that’s normal for young adults. If you’re easily pushed into making the wrong choices, something along the lines of courtship might be better, but I think if you’re not one to be talked into having sex “just to prove you love your partner”, you don’t need a bodyguard every time you grab a cup of coffee with your date. I also think that it’s important to have talks without the factor of embarrassment – some things you don’t want to discuss with your little brother next to you. Of course, there’s more to a person, there’s a family behind everyone and taking a look at that is important too, but not in such a heavy fashion as courtship attempts to do it.

Part 6: Questioning

How were you first exposed to “mainstream” American culture? What were your first impressions?

I got the full blast of American culture when I left my family. I never had much to do with it. It was very much like living in a parallel universe. I was shocked and embarrassed when I first tried to fit in. It was so different, so many things I didn’t understand. I think I acted like some kind of native from a lonely island to the world around me. I didn’t even know how to order and pay at a restaurant.

What first made you question the beliefs you were raised with? Was this initial questioning a frightening or liberating experience?

I didn’t really question any of my parent’s beliefs until I was an adult (over 18). Of course I had “teen phases” too where I secretly thought that one or the other thing my parents did or believed wasn’t right with the bible, but I wasn’t really questioning.

It really started when I was supposed to marry the man my Dad picked for me, a nice young man whom, despite the fact that I liked him, didn’t want to marry. You see, love isn’t a necessity for a courting couple. Not even for an engaged couple. It’s all about doing the right thing, the godly thing, the smart thing, not what emotionally feels right. Seeing that my emotions and my agreement in this was so completely ignored made me incredibly angry and desperate. I didn’t want my Dad to stay the authority in my life, but that would’ve been the case if I married whom he told me to marry. I mean, he would always be there in some way or the other, simply by picking a man who thought just like him. I always believed that once you get married, there’s be a sort of change in your life and I didn’t see that happening. I didn’t want to marry yet another minion.

I struggled with this conviction for a very, very long time and it frightened me so much that I went along with everything my Dad told me to do. It wasn’t until the point of no return that I tried to find a way out of it. At some point I knew that leaving my family was always the only option but I needed the pressure of seeing my life disappear into everything I never wanted it to be to actually take this step. In retrospective I feel sorry for a lot of people involved in that situation. I lied to people for a very long time to please my Dad, hurt feelings and disappointed people who weren’t really at fault for the entire situation. But it was the only way. All in all, this process took me about 2 years – from the first questioning to actually leaving the QF circles.

What did you struggle with most when you were in the midst of questioning and/or leaving Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull ideology? What was the hardest part?

Well, I struggled most with the fact that I wasn’t accepted as a full human being. Kids weren’t either, and I hated that too. The fact that it seemed as if only an adult man could be a full human being, with all rights in the world, that I didn’t understand. Always thought God was very unfair and mean to put me into a position of submission without any fault of my own. I remember many nights of asking God what in the world I did wrong that he made me be a woman.

And the hardest part of it was disappointing and leaving all these people who loved me, and needed me, behind. Just the mere fact of considering leaving just to get my way pained me more than I can explain. I felt like those women I was supposed to hate, the ones who sacrifice family and their loved ones on the altar of being “free”. I despised myself for a long time simply because I craved just that.

Among those you grew up around who were also raised with Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull ideology, what proportion has remained in the movement and what proportion has left?

I know of some young people who have left, but it’s a rather small percentage. I don’t have any contacts with those people anymore so I’m not up to date on how many more have left since I left. Most are just too afraid to sacrifice their families. I think they hide the fact that they think differently and hope to God they’ll find a spouse who thinks the same way, so they can hide it together. It’s all about keeping up that image.

Part 7: Relating to Family

How did your parents and siblings respond to you questioning/rejecting their beliefs? How did those you grew up with respond?

I didn’t have any direct contact with friends of the family during the times of leaving, but I know some felt and expressed that I did the right thing. I know some people approached my family and told them not to be so hard on me and that I might be doing just what God wants me to do, but of course they got nowhere with this.

My mother was disappointed. I don’t know if that was because I rejected her beliefs, or because she knew I was going to leave and she wouldn’t see me anymore, wouldn’t be involved in my life any more. She cried a lot and begged me to apologize to my Dad. She couldn’t understand what I wanted at that point.

My Dad was extremely angry. He said a lot of very hurtful things about me and also about my mother, who obviously didn’t raise me well. He gave me two options: Apologize and return to complete submission, or leave and never come back, never be a part of the family any more. As I told him I’d rather leave than return to a world where my opinion was worth less than a piece of cake, he stopped talking to me all together and commanded my mother to make sure I’d get out of the house by the end of the week. We rarely talk until today, but I do talk to my mother.

My siblings didn’t say much. It wasn’t so much about beliefs there. They asked things like why I didn’t love Jesus any more, but mostly they thought I didn’t love them anymore, and that’s why I’m leaving.

What is your relationship with your parents and siblings like today? What is your relationship with those you grew up with who remained in the movement like?

I don’t have contact with anybody in the movement outside my family. Contact with my family is very rare and not initiated by them.

For those who are no longer Christian, are you “out” to your parents or siblings? If so, how did you do it and how did they respond?

I do not know what I am at the moment, and I do not beliefs about faith with my parents.

Have any of your siblings (or perhaps even parents) left Quiverfull/Christian Patriarchy ideology? How do you approach the relationships with siblings who have not?

None of my siblings left (that I know of). Since I don’t really have any contact with them, I don’t know what’s going on with my siblings and their beliefs.

Part 8: Adjusting

Do you still feel as though you are “different” or that your past experiences emotionally isolate you from society?

Yes, a lot. I can’t really explain. I learned to camouflage myself as „one of them“, but I still feel an outsider. I feel like people look at me and they can tell I’m somehow different. A lot of times, people can’t understand my reactions to certain things. Only my close friends know about it and try to help me when I get into weird situations.

Since most of the world doesn’t understand Quiverfull/Christian Patriarchy culture, do you feel this creates barriers in friendships or in romantic relationships? Do people have a hard time understanding you and your past?

Some people certainly do, yes. Germans are very straight-in-your-face rude (if you’re not used to it) and a lot of people have asked weird questions. There are lots of mix ups with other christian sects. The European public generally knows only about big incidents, such as the Zion group in Texas being arrested for sexual abuse of children, so a lot of associations with that are made. People used to ask me a lot if I was sexually abused, married off to an old man, if my dad had four wives and things like that. But they are all curious to hear the truth and ask many questions to understand. My friends have no problem dealing with my occasional weirdness and help me out a lot. Of course I have some issues where I just can’t get over old habits and beliefs, but I feel like I’m generally accepted pretty well by the people around me. Sometimes, this “Oh it’s because you’re from a cult” thing annoys me, when people try to explain things I do by connecting it to my childhood. Not everything I do has something to do with it. But I can be just as German-rude as they are and just tell them straight to their faces it hurts me to be categorized like that, which helps a lot.

Now, in romantic relationships, it’s different. A lot of things don’t come easily. My boyfriend didn’t understand why I didn’t even want to touch him at first and I think that hurt him a lot, too. Everything is hard, and everything is a fight. I don’t think it would work with someone who isn’t as patient as my boyfriend happens to be. He does get angry at some things too, sometimes, and has to take a few minutes to himself to get over it. I have to be honest, I wouldn’t blame him at all if he left me tomorrow. I know what the bible says about love, but I don’t think that’s entirely true. I much rather quote a woman who said: “Sometimes, you think love will fix it. All we need is love, more love. But sometimes, love just isn’t enough.”

What do you think is the biggest way being raised in a family influenced by Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull ideas has influenced who you are today?

That’s the toughest question on here. I honestly don’t know. I think it has made me value my option of choice more. Choosing what to eat, what to wear, what to study, what to do, which friends to have, all of that. You know, lots of people sit on their chairs and talk about the “land of the free” and think it’s all handed to everybody in this country. No, it’s simply not. We still live in a world where people do NOT get to choose what to do, think, wear believe, even whom to marry. It makes me so angry when people tell you “Well, it’s a free country, you can do as you please if you don’t like the way you live”. No, I can’t. I can’t because I was taught it was evil, and I have no right, and I’m too stupid anyway. I can’t because my parents have taken that right away from me for over 20 years, and I can’t because I wouldn’t know how to, and even if, I’m so scared to do it. So many young people can’t. Choosing all of these things is still a privilege in the world and even in America, and it’s one you have to fight to get it, law or not.

Yes, it has made me value choice a lot more. Even if it’s only the fact that I ate Pizza today, and not something else.

How did you perceive your childhood at the time compared to how do you see it now?

I thought my childhood was normal or even special and I kind of looked down on kids who weren’t raised the way I was. I mean, after all my Dad knew the truth, theirs didn’t. We were on the safe side. I just kept wishing that I could be a better child. I felt like my parents did so much for me and tried so hard to make me a good person. Everything bad that happened I blamed on myself and shamed myself by thinking I wasn’t good enough for my parents. I used to think about all the great things we did, like baking afternoons with Mom or singing and reading and sitting together on quiet evenings, and I felt like I didn’t deserve any of that. I thought all the other kids had to be at home alone late at night and eat fast food and watch TV and I pitied them because they didn’t have a family (working Moms meant no family to me). I thought I was very lucky I had a “real” family.

Looking back, yes there have been great times, especially with my Mom and siblings. But there have been very, very dark days too. But I don’t like to look back and think “Oh, it was terrible” or “Oh, I had such a hard childhood”. That wouldn’t be entirely true. At the end of the day, there are so many worse things that could have happened to me. Of course it shouldn’t have been this way either. I guess I just don’t like excusing every mistake I make today by bringing up my childhood.

Do you sometimes wish to go “back”?

I’d lie if I said no here. There were good times, of course. I love my family. I loved some of the things about P/QF life. But the good things don’t make up for the bad things in this case. I might wish for feelings or moments back, but never my old life, no.

Part 9: Helping Others

What advice do you have for other young adults currently questioning or leaving Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull ideology?

When it comes to questioning, I can only tell you to trust your heart for once, but still use your brain. If something appears to be wrong, try to find out why. You might be the one who’s right in the matter. Just because certain things work for your parents or people in your environment doesn’t mean they’ll work for you. At the end of your life, you’ll be the one responsible for everything you did. Not your Mom and Dad, not your siblings, not your pastor or friends. You’ll have to answer to yourself why you handled things that way. If you feel like you can’t do things the way your parents tell you to do, do what’s right for yourself. It’s hard to disappoint people you love, I know that.

If you feel it’s not necessary to wear skirts all day, you’re probably right. If you feel it’s wrong to have one kid after the other, you’re probably right. If you feel like you’re in the process of marrying the wrong person, you’re most likely right. Remember that you will hurt people when you question their beliefs, but you will hurt even more if you just keep going along with something that isn’t 100% your own conviction.

What was most helpful to you when you were questioning and/or leaving the Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull movement?

I had some support from people who weren’t as strict inside the movement, and that was very helpful and encouraging. I also quickly found out about the ex-P/QF writers on blogs and internet pages, which is where I found my story repeated thousands of times. It was so helpful to know that I wasn’t an exception and that many many others felt the same way I did.

What helps you the most today?

The blogging world! Since P/QF is completely unknown in Germany and the families are super-rare, there’s nobody who is in it or left around here. There’s also no programs or anything. The only way for me to stay in contact with fellow refugees and like-minded people is the internet and my blog.

What suggestions do you have for those who might to help friends or relatives who grew up/are growing up in families influenced by the Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull movement?

First off, don’t abandon them. Don’t attack them with questions, they’ll stop talking to you. Try to stay away from discussions about beliefs. Be there for them, tell them that you’ll always help them if they’re in need. Don’t treat them differently.

If you hear about a person wanting to leave me P/QF movement, try to talk to them in private. Tell them about various blogs and pages where they can read similar stories. Understand their fears, don’t push them. Tell them that they can call you any time they want or need, or show up at your door any time of the day. Tell them you’ll always be there, no matter what they do.

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Lisa blogs at Broken Daughters.