Rape and Abortion in the Western News: Hidden and Hijacked

You wouldn’t necessarily know it but there is a lot in the news about sexual violence and abortion rights at the moment. Needless to say these issues don’t need to be gendered, they are inherently so, but their presentation in the media says a lot about the society we live in.

On Friday 27^th November there was a shooting at a Planned Parenthood sexual health clinic in Colorado in the US which killed 3 people and damaged the clinic detrimentally. Planned Parenthood is the United States’ number one provider of abortions for those in need but they also take care of other sexual health problems including screening for cervical cancer. The male attacker has been named as Robert Lewis Dear who was supposedly heard shouting ‘no more baby parts.’ He was arrested following the shooting. Unfortunately, this story has been hijacked by the election agenda and anti-gun activists alike, missing the real issue here. Whilst Obama condemned the access to and use of guns in random shootings like these in the US, he said little about the political statement this man was trying to make and the political environment in which these views are curated. Additionally, whilst much has been written about scaling down the anti-abortion rhetoric in the US, few have deemed this an act of terrorism against women and their right to their own bodies. As is often the case when an incident is played down and presented as a ‘bad egg’ incident in the press, the attacker has been presented in the news as a loner and a basket case. In reality, anti-abortion misogyny is rife in the United States and beyond. The political and gendered nature of this shooting has not been addressed by the mainstream media.

Across the pond in the UK the chancellor’s autumn statement (budget) revealed that after a lot of dissent from women and ironically right-wing eurosceptics, the 5% VAT that is charged on sanitary items because of their status as ‘luxury items’ (see my thoughts on this here)  will now fund women’s shelters and charities. That is, instead of, not on top of pre-existing government funding to these shelters and charities which has been cut to an almost negligible amount throughout Britain’s austerity program. This is yet another swipe at women from today’s conservative government in the UK. Of course, men can and do get raped however we have to acknowledge the preponderance of rape, sexual and domestic abuse as happening to women. This does not mean to say it should be classified as a “women’s problem” and this so-called solution manifests an unpleasant image of Osborne and Cameron sitting around discussing the budget and how to solve the problem of tampon tax:

Osborne: “Why not make them feel guilty for complaining by funding those shelter-thingies for slutty women with the money!"

Cameron: “Brilliant idea Osborne! Now that’s all the women’s issues sorted let’s get on to the important business like slashing those tax credits and our invasion of Syria!" 

(...incidentally the very same tax credits that hit single mothers the hardest and the very same bombs that will hit refugee families in Raqqa which is long since an ISIL HQ.) It leaves a nasty taste in your mouth and perpetuates a vicious circle of poverty and violence. Not to mention it does not stop this issue continuing to be hijacked by anti-Europe politicians.

Furthermore, today northern Ireland’s anti-abortion laws have been condemned as against human rights following a judicial review of the law which currently states that a woman can only have an abortion if a woman’s life is in danger, not in cases of rape, incest or foetal malformation. The religious anti-abortion rhetoric is equally as sinister in Northern Ireland and remains a political and religious football as opposed to any genuine concerns for the lives of women. In the midst of all of the Islamic State chaos much of these issues can be drowned out and when they are bought to the surface they are often commandeered by other political agendas. It is crucial to look at the real issues here and how they reveal underlying patriarchy in many of our western societies.