[evolveme]

Originally Posted by Martina

But the assumption that women who are parents involuntarily are necessarily living any lesser a life than you and i are is incredibly elitist. Do i think the world should change so that all women get to choose? Absolutely. But those who aren't given the choice in the sense that we mean here -- and that is probably most women on the planet -- are not by definition dehumanized by this. It's arrogant to assume so.

I'm confused by this assertion. While I think that much of what we assume about the rest of the world can be and is effectually ignorant, I'm unclear on what looks like a contradiction in standards in the above remarks.

While a certain contingent holds that Western interference in, for example, the genital mutilation of girls taking place in certain African nations is misplaced and "elitist," I disagree. I believe that our global citizenship is more important than our ethnocentricities would have us believe, and that while we need always be mindful of other regions' cultures and perspectives, whenever and wherever a woman or girl is being harmed in the name of social ideology, I say down with that social ideology. But that's me, just one of the 'elite.'

Women and girls all over the world are harmed and, in fact, killed because of a lack of access to contraception, no access to safe and legal abortion, and forced social ideologies which impress upon them a standard which says 'no' to education but 'must' to childbirth as soon as their bodies are capable and until their bodies are no longer able. I do not and cannot see how this way of life is acceptable for any of my sisters. I'm just that arrogant.