Personally I’m looking forward to the Top Gun sequel – that really is urgent and timely.
Samir Iker
1 year ago
The problem with this whole debate is that the pro-abortion activists pretend it’s about abortion per se (the majority of even conservatives are fine with first term abortions) or evil right wingers banning contraception or making it illegal even in rape cases etc.
All that is just drama, emotional blackmail to try and browbeat people for the real issue: second and third term abortions, and not just for emergency health reasons but at the whim and fancy of the mother. At s stage where the “foetus” is clearly not s clump of cells.
It’s hard to take conservatives seriously when state reps (see OH) wanted to ban even ectopic pregnancy abortions, OK reps want to ban at the moment of conception, TX & MO want to prosecute state residents for out of state services, and McConnell has floated a national abortion ban.
Republicans are as extreme as they say they are. They will absolutely force an 11 year old to carry a product of rape and incest to term, even if it kills her. Plenty of state bills say this. Stop excusing extremists and embrace what Rs have become: extreme.
Those cases are rare. Most Republicans are like DeSantis in Florida, which bans abortion after first trimester except in cases where the mother’s life are in danger. Oklahoma and Alabama will always be nutty and are not the majority.
The view that abortion should be legal up until birth, however, has become a mainstream Democrat position.
Christopher Peter
1 year ago
Good article, which nails completely the problematic relationship between activism and art. Of course there will always be such a relationship, and it will always be complicated. The biggest problem usually arises when the “right” message trumps all else, and when conventional opinion fawns over art just because it already agrees with the message – how comforting! All of which is a classic warning sign that the art in question is crushingly conventional – how can it be otherwise if the entire “enlightened” establishment falls over itself to proclaim it (and by extension, themselves) “brave” and “important” and “edgy”? Art should only challenge other people, or make uncomfortable those who disagree with me, apparently.
Abortion is of course a fraught issue, dominated by two sides too concerned with screaming at each other to try listening to each other. What is routinely ignored, however, is the root cause, which is modern society’s determination that sexual intercourse can and should be a risk-free and consequence-free choice. This film’s protagonist “becomes pregnant” – an interesting choice of words, as though this event just “happened”, and a supposedly intelligent and well educated young person was helpless to (and had no knowledge of how to) prevent it. Of course we can all make mistakes. But the consequences of those mistakes in some things can change a life – or end it. (I am of course ignoring the small minority of abortions where the woman has been raped – there is a broad consensus, even I would suggest among many or most “pro-lifers”, that abortion should be legal in such cases.)
Your point about the crushingly conventional nature of the current art establishment is well made. Since the article isn’t just about abortion but about art itself, this really matters. If artists are no longer able to (or feel able to) express dissent with the current groupthink – or if they’re marginalised as part of ‘cancel culture’ – a major route out of the cultural impasse is blocked; but only for so long…
Lennon Ó Náraigh
1 year ago
But her brilliance is alluded to by heavy-handed gestures — a facile lunchtime conversation about Camus and Sartre
We can all throw in a casual reference to JP Sartre to boost our intellectual credibility. As the great HJ Simpson once said, Scooby doo can do, but Sartre is smarter.
Personally I’m looking forward to the Top Gun sequel – that really is urgent and timely.
The problem with this whole debate is that the pro-abortion activists pretend it’s about abortion per se (the majority of even conservatives are fine with first term abortions) or evil right wingers banning contraception or making it illegal even in rape cases etc.
All that is just drama, emotional blackmail to try and browbeat people for the real issue: second and third term abortions, and not just for emergency health reasons but at the whim and fancy of the mother. At s stage where the “foetus” is clearly not s clump of cells.
It’s hard to take conservatives seriously when state reps (see OH) wanted to ban even ectopic pregnancy abortions, OK reps want to ban at the moment of conception, TX & MO want to prosecute state residents for out of state services, and McConnell has floated a national abortion ban.
Republicans are as extreme as they say they are. They will absolutely force an 11 year old to carry a product of rape and incest to term, even if it kills her. Plenty of state bills say this. Stop excusing extremists and embrace what Rs have become: extreme.
This isn’t drama and shouldn’t be used as such.
Those cases are rare. Most Republicans are like DeSantis in Florida, which bans abortion after first trimester except in cases where the mother’s life are in danger. Oklahoma and Alabama will always be nutty and are not the majority.
The view that abortion should be legal up until birth, however, has become a mainstream Democrat position.
Good article, which nails completely the problematic relationship between activism and art. Of course there will always be such a relationship, and it will always be complicated. The biggest problem usually arises when the “right” message trumps all else, and when conventional opinion fawns over art just because it already agrees with the message – how comforting! All of which is a classic warning sign that the art in question is crushingly conventional – how can it be otherwise if the entire “enlightened” establishment falls over itself to proclaim it (and by extension, themselves) “brave” and “important” and “edgy”? Art should only challenge other people, or make uncomfortable those who disagree with me, apparently.
Abortion is of course a fraught issue, dominated by two sides too concerned with screaming at each other to try listening to each other. What is routinely ignored, however, is the root cause, which is modern society’s determination that sexual intercourse can and should be a risk-free and consequence-free choice. This film’s protagonist “becomes pregnant” – an interesting choice of words, as though this event just “happened”, and a supposedly intelligent and well educated young person was helpless to (and had no knowledge of how to) prevent it. Of course we can all make mistakes. But the consequences of those mistakes in some things can change a life – or end it. (I am of course ignoring the small minority of abortions where the woman has been raped – there is a broad consensus, even I would suggest among many or most “pro-lifers”, that abortion should be legal in such cases.)
There’s no such broad consensus, for the reason Ann gives in her article. If you view abortion as you view child murder, there isn’t any wriggle room.
Your point about the crushingly conventional nature of the current art establishment is well made. Since the article isn’t just about abortion but about art itself, this really matters. If artists are no longer able to (or feel able to) express dissent with the current groupthink – or if they’re marginalised as part of ‘cancel culture’ – a major route out of the cultural impasse is blocked; but only for so long…
We can all throw in a casual reference to JP Sartre to boost our intellectual credibility. As the great HJ Simpson once said, Scooby doo can do, but Sartre is smarter.