6 thoughts on “A Stopgap Response to Robin Marty’s Coverage of the March for Life”

1. In reply to a tweet from Jill Stanek to Robin Marty, related to Marty’s article, I sent a tweet that ended with a link to “A Stopgap Response to Robin Marty’s Coverage of the March for Life.” At 5:24 AM – 13 Feb 2015 (MST?), Marty began to reply with a series of tweets, and Andy Moore once joined in:

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR @JillStanek context for the two statements – which were both about mainstream cultural issues

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR @JillStanek’s statement was at dinner. I said I was amazed by this abundance of “prolife” versions of mainstream things

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR @JillStanek there is media (traditional) and “prolife” media. movies, then prolife movies. checks and “prolife checks”

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR @JillStanek license plates, and “prolife” license plates. it goes on and on…

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR @JillStanek the prolife movement is at a point where you can be born in religious hospital, go to religious school, read..

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR @JillStanek watch movies, get in your car, purchase only prolife or prolife friendly goods, birth to death

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR @JillStanek it is a bubble, a separate alternate prolife world one can stay in from 1st breath to last if you choose

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR @JillStanek ? was about creating and living separately, or taking over mainstream enough that it’s the ONLY choice

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR @JillStanek is it enough to have those alternatives, or make them the general culture that the rest of us must be in, too

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR so @JillStanek said she wanted to take over culture. @thirtyone_8 when I spoke to him later said he’d be happy w separate

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @NoTerminationWR did that make the discussion a little more clear? @JillStanek

   Andy Moore @thirtyone_8
   @robinmarty @NoTerminationWR @JillStanek both are satisfactory outcomes. Although I would prefer the former.

   Robin Marty @robinmarty
   @thirtyone_8 probably why @JillStanek gave you a big “really?” when you said it. but said you liked having a “bubble” :) @NoTerminationWR

    

   I very much appreciate Marty’s efforts to make the discussion (among her, Stanek and Moore) a little more clear. Adding this tweeted information, now, to the contents of Marty’s article, here is the story that emerges:

   ● Marty found pro-lifers in general and the March on Lifers in particular to be equipped with pro-life media, pro-life movies, pro-life think tanks and pro-life paraphernalia. (I personally have lived outside the US almost since Roe v. Wade, so my not having encountered that paraphernalia does not cast any doubt on its existence. However, I would guess that that paraphernalia would be much more in evidence at the March for Life, no doubt a marketing opportunity, than out in Peoria.)

   ● Marty told Stanek (possibly in the presence of Moore, as we learn from the tweets) that what stuck out to her most from everything she’d witnessed through the day was the idea of an alternative culture that could stand as a complete counterpart to the world that other people interact in, creating its own reality that anti-abortion and especially Christian conservative true believers can exist in, untouched. She then asked Stanek whether pro-lifers’ goal was to have a completely separate culture that they could feel comfortable in without being forced to interact with the rest of American society, or to infiltrate the mainstream and take it over. (Marty does not give a direct quote of the words she used on this occasion. Apparently she offered Stanek only two options.)

   ● Stanek replied, “Well, of course we want to get into the mainstream.” (Thus accepting Marty’s framework in which pro-lifers are not part of mainstream American society, and in which their strategy would not be to bring pro-choicers over to their side straightway, nor to increase their own ranks through reproduction, but to bring pro-choicers over to their side by first infiltrating the pro-choice side. “Infiltrate” is defined as “to enter or become established in [as an organization] gradually or unobtrusively and in large numbers.” Another dictionary makes “surreptitiously” part of the definition. Marty’s article first used “mainstream” in quotes. She might have been quoting pro-lifers, and those pro-lifers might have been calling themselves out of the mainstream, or the quotes might have been Marty saying “Let’s call pro-choice society ‘mainstream’ for want of a better word.” The quote marks would not have been audible to Stanek, but perhaps when she replied to Marty, she also meant “for want of a better word” or “for the sake of argument.”)

   (Stanek does not remember either the question or her answer, but then it was not her job to keep a record, and it was Marty’s.)

   ● John Jakubczyk then championed “embodying [the Christian] religious and pro-life worldview into the mainstream.” Marty — not, apparently, Jakubczyk — phrases this as “infiltrating the mainstream.”

   ● Moore later, at the Dubliner, said (in answer to Marty’s same question, apparently), “We’d be more than happy to keep separate,” and that he liked having a “bubble.”

    

   One of Marty’s last tweets said, “so @JillStanek said she wanted to take over culture. [Moore] when I spoke to him later said he’d be happy w separate”

   Moore then tweeted in reply, “both are satisfactory outcomes. Although I would prefer the former.”

   Marty then said to Moore in the last tweet of hers that I received, “probably why @JillStanek gave you a big ‘really?’ when you said it. but said you liked having a ‘bubble’ :)”

   This gets a little confusing. If Marty’s “why” is based on her accepting that Moore prefers “taking over the culture,” then probably Stanek would accept that also, so how would that preference of Moore’s account for Stanek’s saying “Really” when Moore expressed that preference?

   And if Moore said at one point that he preferred “taking over the culture,” why didn’t Marty originally report that as well as reporting Moore’s “We’d be more than happy to keep separate”? If she did remember both, apparently she originally gave more credence to the latter, and maybe she means (contrary to what the “why” in her tweeted wording literally suggests) that Stanek also doubted the former.

   And when were Marty and Stanek and Moore all together? In the article it had appeared that Moore was not present when Marty and Stanek and Jakubczyk had dinner, and Stanek was not with Marty and Moore at the Dubliner; but now it becomes clear that Marty and Stanek and Moore must all have been together at least at the Dubliner.

   Anyway, what has been gained from the tweets is mainly the information that:

   1. Marty’s use of the word “bubble” — and not only her use of “[out of] the mainstream” — refers in part to the culture of “’prolife’ versions of mainstream things.”

   2. Moore would prefer to take over the culture.

   3. But Moore used the word “bubble,” and according to Marty says he likes “having a ‘bubble’.”

   4. Marty’s —

   “? was about creating and living separately, or taking over mainstream enough that it’s the ONLY choice”

   — tweet, where “?” refers to —

   “was the goal to have a completely separate culture that they could feel comfortable in without being forced to interact with the rest of us, or to infiltrate the mainstream and take it over?”

   — in her article, makes more clear than did the article itself that Marty considers it to be a serious possibility that many pro-lifers would not mind the continuance of unrestricted abortion in pro-choice society, as long as they (pro-lifers) do not have to socialize with the pro-choicers.

   (If some pro-lifers find an alternative, satisfactory to them, to “taking over mainstream enough that it [pro-life policy] is the ONLY choice,” then clearly those pro-lifers are willing for women outside their own circle to continue having choice and exercising it, if they wish, for the destruction of their unborn offspring. I don’t get this. Why, in Marty’s view, would many of the pro-lifers who journeyed to the Supreme Court, the Capitol and the White House in the dead of winter, by the hundreds of thousands, have made the trip if they did not mind what pro-choicers do to their — i.e., pro-choicers’ own — unborn children? Just for the “reunion”?

   Personally, while I don’t use pro-life license plates and would always want to keep up communications with pro-choicers, I feel that if the present signs of progress on the incremental-legislation front begin to wane and it looks as though large numbers of the unborn will not be saved in that way, then the pro-life states should secede from the Union. But I would not support secession out of any lack of caring about what pro-choicers do to their children. I would support it only because other avenues toward saving those children had become hopeless; and that being so, the best chance of saving them would be to set an example of real seriousness and moral integrity. If Kansans, for example, are pro-life and would be free to live, if they wished, under laws that protect unborn life, and opted not to do so, how much of their moral integrity on that issue would they preserve, and what message would they send to others? But most pro-lifers are not yet committed enough to make secession happen. And anyway, let’s move on.)

   I said, “Marty considers it to be a serious possibility that many pro-lifers would not mind the continuance of unrestricted abortion in pro-choice society . . .” However, as long as that possibility is only a possibility in Marty’s mind, it is not an issue for me.

   So what, after all the background I have given (and my big secession digression), are the actual issues that I still find or newly find with Marty’s position?

   The Issues

   Some of the confusion about the details of various conversations at the March for Life may not be worth anyone’s time to try further to sort out. But I think the focus now of anyone concerned about fair reporting of pro-lifers and their activities will be:

   1. Marty’s claim that US pro-lifers are out of the mainstream — as I think most readers will understand the word “mainstream.”

   2. Her claim that many (if not all?) US pro-lifers, in addition to being out of the mainstream, live in a bubble — as I think most readers will understand the word “bubble.”

   3. Her reporting that Moore, and other, unnamed, pro-lifers as well, recognize the bubble as a bubble, and yet want to stay in it.

   4. An issue with her “I will never, ever believe” sentence that I didn’t mention in my original “stopgap” response.

   Since I will find fault with the accuracy of Marty’s portrayal of pro-lifers — as it will come across to the reader, at least — let me repeat, for balance, that the good-heartedness of her portrayal (as distinguished from its accuracy) seems, in turn, to have won the hearts of pro-lifers. One tweet:

   Charlie Camosy @nohiddenmagenta · Feb 1
   stunning piece from @robinmarty as she joined “the other side” at March for Life. hope for true dialogue on abortion https://contributoria.com/issue/2015-02/5489c05855f1bf033400004b …

   Though I am less familiar with Marty and her record than many pro-lifers may be, she does come across in her article, to me also, as very likeable. Her writing contains a lot of gentle humor. I would join in welcoming her to the pro-life side any time! — even if just for another visit.

   Some of the concern that her article might be unfair to pro-lifers (in how it comes across) hinges simply on semantics and usage. Does “[out of] the mainstream” necessarily downplay a group’s numerical strength and/or their intellectual credibility, as I understand the word to do? A bubble certainly involves a wall; does “bubble” necessarily include a meaning of denial of reality, as I understand the word to do? Or can it simply mean “consciously and perhaps wisely shielding oneself from a perceived, and perhaps genuinely, pernicious influence”? “Bubble” is slang, and both “bubble” and “mainstream” are susceptible to different interpretations. Therefore I don’t really know what Marty expected those words to mean to readers. But if they are understood by readers as I would expect them to be, then I think the impact of those words in the article, on readers, will be unfair to pro-lifers.

   And the rest of the evaluation of the fairness of the article — other than the semantic factor — hinges on whether, even if “[out of] the mainstream” and “bubble” are pejorative, as I understand them, those pejorative characterizations of pro-lifers are necessarily inaccurate.

   To evaluate now my four concerns:

   1. Marty’s claim that US pro-lifers are out of the mainstream — as I think most readers will understand the word “mainstream.”

   If her first use of the word, within quotes, reflects that she found pro-lifers to be using that word to speak of pro-choice society, then of course she can’t be blamed for using it herself, though she could have made it more clear that it was their word and not hers. In terms of how that word will come across to the reader, I think it will come across as her word.

   Google says it means “the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are shared by most people and regarded as normal or conventional,” and gives as synonyms for the word as an adjective “normal, conventional, ordinary, orthodox, conformist, accepted, established, recognized, common, usual, prevailing, popular.”

   It’s hard to escape from the conclusion that Marty’s article, intentionally or not, is calling pro-lifers abnormal, unconventional, out of the ordinary, unorthodox, non-conformist, unaccepted, unrecognized, uncommon, unusual and unpopular.

   Moreover, to my sense of the word, I don’t think Google’s “most people,” since that might be just 51%, is strong enough. Being out of the mainstream doesn’t mean simply coming in second. I believe NBC and CBS both lose out in ratings to ABC, yet are considered part of the mainstream media. I believe Fox News is considered out of the mainstream, but in order to merit that evaluation, it needed not only to be conservative, but to come in a distant fourth in ratings.

   So Marty’s article will give many people the impression that she considers pro-lifers to be a small minority and not quite normal, and thinks that the half or less than half of Americans whose views presently happen to enjoy the support of the Supreme Court are entitled to be called the mainstream. This will be readers’ impression regardless of Marty’s intentions, and will be their impression even if some pro-lifers themselves use the word “mainstream” (possibly among themselves, the word has a less positive connotation).

   And is that view that readers will understand from her a fair one? A 2014 Gallup poll —

   http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/Abortion.aspx

   — said that 71% of participants thought that abortion should never be legal or should be legal in only certain circumstances, and only 28% thought that abortions should always be legal. 47% labeled themselves pro-choice, 46% pro-life.

   I do not say that this poll proved, or that any isolated poll can prove, that there are as many pro-life Americans as there are pro-choice. But I would say that all the data I have seen taken together shows that pro-lifers are not out of the mainstream as I understand the word.

   And surely if a numerous population should be considered part of the mainstream, and we find a certain population to be numerous, then the leaders of that population, though few, could not be called out of the mainstream either. Marty and the rest of the pro-choice leadership are few in number, but she considers herself part of the mainstream.

   2. Her claim that many (if not all?) US pro-lifers, in addition to being out of the mainstream, live in a bubble — as I think most readers will understand the word “bubble.”

   For “bubble,” Google gives “used to refer to a good or fortunate situation that is isolated from reality or unlikely to last,” and gives as synonyms “illusion, delusion, fantasy, dream, pipe dream, daydream, chimera, vanity, castle in the air.”

   One example that I found of the word in use several years ago: “Bush’s handlers keep him in a happy little bubble, comfortably isolated from something kind of important for a president: reality.”

   So Marty’s article will give many people the impression that she considers a lot of pro-lifers, perhaps all, to be out of touch with reality.

   Is that view that readers will understand from her a fair one? As I mentioned in my blog post, the most likely justification that Marty might seem to feel for that view, if it is her view, is her belief that an unborn child is a “life,” whereas its mother is a “person” — a view that is normally admitted by both sides to be highly subjective.

   I’m not Christian, so by definition I question some Christian views of reality. But neither I nor Marty is in a position to flatly reject any of those views; and the view of theirs that is most relevant to the abortion issue — the view that the unborn is a person — is held by many atheists as well, and can be defended on the basis of good science; and hence it would be still more presumptuous to flatly reject it.

   Though Marty — carefully, perhaps — did not specifically say anything about religion, it is no doubt true that many American pro-lifers literally believe abortion to violate the command of God. I myself think there is good reason to be skeptical about that idea. But I think that many abortions violate the command of our deepest selves, so I don’t see pro-life religious believers as being far off in this way.

   To me the biggest denial of reality in the whole context of the abortion issue is when some pro-choicers, apparently including Marty, assign to a small and undeveloped organism a moral value as if it were frozen in time, rather than hour by hour growing itself and preparing itself imminently to join the sub-group of the born in addition to the larger human family it has already joined. (See also the Christopher Hitchens quote below.)

   An important theme of Marty’s article is her surprise:

   “Perhaps anti-abortion leaders really do care a little about the wellbeing of children after they are born.”

   “I will be honest – as a pro-choice activist I had always found it hard to believe the crowd estimates that I would hear . . .”

   “They were young. . . . They were everywhere.”

   “. . . the march was a completely different event – full of joy and energy and youthful exuberance.”

   “. . . a reminder that behind every caricature of an anti-abortion activist is a person with a real story . . .”

   “the openness and generosity of everyone I met”

   “the march has reminded me once more that those who oppose abortion have their own set of truths . . .”

   The main takeaway here is Marty’s extraordinary ability to let go of stereotypes. But we also have to ask, considering our subject matter here, Who had previously been in a bubble? Someone on Secular Pro-Life’s Facebook page commented “It’s so weird to hear that people are shocked that so many pro-lifers are young or that there are lots of us – do they really believe their own press that it’s a small group of uber-religious white men?”

   3. Her reporting that Moore, and other, unnamed, pro-lifers as well, recognize the bubble as a bubble, and yet want to stay in it.

   Considering the meaning of “bubble” and Marty’s interpretation of Moore’s “We’d be more than happy to keep separate,” I think that Marty’s article will give many people the impression that she considers Moore to be saying in effect, “I like being out of touch with reality, and I don’t mind if the unborn kids of pro-choicers are being killed, as long as I do not have to socialize with pro-choicers.”

   Is that view that readers will understand from her a fair one? I’m regretfully not at all familiar with Moore or his work, but I highly doubt that any pro-lifer accepted in a leadership position would say any of those things.

   It seems that in terms of the abortion issue, the most relevant meaning of the question Marty posed to Stanek, Moore and Jakubczyk — whether pro-lifers’ goal was to have a completely separate culture, or to infiltrate the mainstream and take it over — was really, in her mind, simply “Do you want pro-life policies to prevail in US society as a whole?” I think that if she had phrased the question that way, Moore would not have given the no answer that she feels she got from him.

   And Jakubczyk’s analysis of Frank Capra movies would have been a very roundabout answer if she had asked the question in the above way. I think that if she had asked the question in the above way, both men would have simply have replied, “Of course.”

   4. An issue with her “I will never, ever believe” sentence that I didn’t mention in my original “stopgap” response.

   She wrote:

   I will never, ever believe that the rights of a life developing in the womb outweigh the rights of the person carrying it, or that she has an obligation once pregnant to provide society with a live, full-term infant regardless of her own emotional or medical needs.

   regardless of her own emotional or medical needs, literally at least, means “regardless of any emotional or medical needs.” This exaggerates the pro-life position. No one advocates the legal prevention of abortion when the woman’s life is at great risk, and some, I at least, would not advocate it if the risk were even significantly greater than in a best-case pregnancy. Some pro-lifers advocate exceptions for certain kinds of cases. Considering the range of opinions within the pro-life movement, we would have to say that the real common denominator and the best definition of “pro-life” would be this unrevolutionary idea: When there are opposing interests between two innocent parties in human society, all of the decision-making power should not be vested in one of the two parties. To do so would violate a fundamental principle of justice. And if one of the parties is unable to speak for itself, it should have representation.

   As Christopher Hitchens said, “I feel a responsibility to see the occupant of the womb as a candidate member of society in the future, and thus to say that it cannot be only the responsibility of the woman to decide upon it.”

   Reply ↓

2. I think you made good arguments about the mainstream and the bubble, with poll results.

   I thought your words were too loaded in the passage below:
   “It’s hard to escape from the conclusion that Marty’s article, intentionally or not, is calling pro-lifers abnormal, unconventional, out of the ordinary, unorthodox, non-conformist, unaccepted, unrecognized, uncommon, unusual and unpopular.”
   My reaction started with “abnormal”.

   During the first (and only complete) read, I was overwhelmed – late last night – with the language and logic of the tweets and who was present at the quoted passages and your interpretations. I thought this morning that I could have benefited from a Table of Contents and Executive Summary. Contents to include New Tweets with Marty, Longer Summary.

   Maybe your other readers don’t need the Table, and I see that the Tweets are the news and your springboard for commentary.

   I was surprised you emphasized the following as it differentiates the status of an unborn “brother or sister” from the born among us, by calling him/her a “candidate,” and “member of society in the future”:
   As Christopher Hitchens said, “I feel a responsibility to see the occupant of the womb as a candidate member of society in the future, and thus to say that it cannot be only the responsibility of the woman to decide upon it.”

   I’m just highlighting some of my reactions in case they might be helpful. I don’t expect to be a regular reader or commenter on these issues. My main reaction though is your logic is good and you seem to be advancing the plot.

   Reply ↓

   • Thanks for your input. I’m glad that the logic seemed to be good.

     ” too loaded. . . . My reaction started with ‘abnormal’.”

     We might have to go a step at a time here. First I’d like to confirm: it was clear that all of my adjectives, starting with “abnormal,” were the standard opposites of Google’s adjectives, wasn’t it? If that was clear, was that approach in itself unsatisfactory? Or, do some of the “opposites” happen to have connotations that are more negative than the exact opposites should be?

     “a ‘candidate,’ and ‘member of society in the future’”

     Good question. Yes, I’m aware of those weaknesses in the quote whenever I use it, but still I use it. I find the rest of it such a good formulation. We are a society, and if the unborn is a member of society, then we all have a responsibility for it.

     And Hitchens has such good atheist credentials. Though Marty does not say so, I thought that her finding pro-lifers to be out of touch with reality might have to do with her associating pro-life with certain religious beliefs.

     Reply ↓

3. Ken responds to Facilitator:

   Thank you for your reply to my Feb 17, 2015 comment.

   Facilitator: “First I’d like to confirm: it was clear that all of my adjectives, starting with “abnormal,” were the standard opposites of Google’s adjectives, wasn’t it? ”

   It’s probably clear enough though I didn’t fully get that.

   Facilitator: “If that was clear, was that approach in itself unsatisfactory?

   Yes. A list of synonyms should be considered separately (for the best connotation(s)), not cumulatively.

   Facilitator: Or, do some of the “opposites” happen to have connotations that are more negative than the exact opposites should be?”

   And, yes.

   Reply ↓

   • Thanks. I guess I was thinking, first, that since Marty was saying that pro-life is out of the mainstream, readers would find me to be prima facie within my rights interpreting her as saying that pro-life is the opposite of whatever the word “mainstream” is officially defined to be.

     And I was thinking, secondly, that the fact that the connotations were more negative was so clear that readers would find what I was doing to include straight-faced humor or an attempt at it.

     Reply ↓

     • Thanks for addressing my issues. It’s embarrassing to loosely repeat: “It’s probably clear enough though I didn’t get that.”
       I can partially forgive myself because of the further straight-facedness of your Feb 24 questions.

       Reply ↓