choice and the march for women's lives (with some very interesting observations)
some very interesting points about how the anti-choice, pro-forced birthers actually ignore the existence of women:
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In addition to articulating a broad meaning of choice, marchers also challenged key pro-life claims. Since the mid-1960s, pro-life advocates have used fetal imagery in support of their arguments. Tapping into the common-sense belief that photography reflects reality, pro-life advocates argue that if fetuses look like babies, they must be babies. Importantly, however, as used by the pro-life movement, fetal images are cropped, magnified, and profoundly out of context. Indeed, pro-life imagery does not even depict the women in whose bodies the fetuses reside.
Participants in the March challenged pro-life advocates' depiction of fetal life in several ways. Many people marched in family groupings, wearing signs indicating that they were mothers, fathers, daughters, and sisters for choice. By marching in family groupings, these participants called attention to the radical isolation of fetal imagery and highlighted the fact that reproductive decisions are always made in the context of relationships. Reinforcing this message, several speakers told the stories of women who died as a result of illegal abortion, reminding the crowd that when abortion rights are limited, family ties are broken.
In another challenge to pro-life fetal imagery, pregnant women in the crowd called attention to their bodies. Some wore tee shirts with slogans, others wrote directly on their bared stomachs, informing viewers that “this is my choice, not yours” and defining themselves as “Mothers by Choice.” In contrast to fetal imagery that erases the presence of women, these marchers brought women back into focus.
Finally, several marchers echoed the decontextualization of the fetus common in pro-life rhetoric through a similar decontextualization of women's body parts. For example, one set of marchers carried a giant three-dimensional paper mâché uterus on which was written “My Body My Choice” and to which was connected two fallopian tubes ending in pink ovaries in the shape of boxing gloves. Another woman carried a sign with an image of a uterus colored like an American flag underneath which was written “Proud to be an American--Proud to Own my Own Uterus.” Perhaps most striking was the person dressed in a costume representing a woman's genital area. Feminists have bemoaned the use of women's body parts in advertisements arguing that such usage dehumanizes women. Given these charges, the use of women's body parts in a march for reproductive rights is a risky strategy. However, it is possible that the images of women's body parts functioned to the advantage of the pro-choice cause.
Neither the sign, the giant uterus, nor the genital costume was presented so as to suggest that it reflected the reality of women's bodies. Rather, the images were brightly colored, exponentially enlarged, and unquestionably out of context. Pro-life counter-protestors stood at the sides of the March route displaying signs of fetal imagery. When these fetal images were seen in the context of the enlarged female body parts, viewers were led to see just how profoundly unnatural pro-life fetal images are, too. The costumes and signs used by participants in the March therefore challenged the common sense belief that photography reflects reality, raising questions about the status of the fetuses in pro-life rhetoric.
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https://www.natcom.org/CommCurrentsArticle.aspx?id=925
