Weblogs: Do you trust women?

Bitch Ph.D.: "When pro-choice feminists like Wolf, or liberal men, or a lot of women, even, say things like, 'I'm pro-choice, but I am uncomfortable with... [third-trimester abortion / sex-selection / women who have multiple abortions / women who have abortions for 'convenience' / etc.]' then what you are saying is that your discomfort matters more than an individual woman's ability to assess her own circumstances. That you don't think that women who have abortions think through the very questions that you, sitting there in your easy chair, can come up with. That a woman who is contemplating an invasive, expensive, and uncomfortable medical procedure doesn't think it through first. In short, that your judgment is better than hers.

Think about the hubris of that. Your judgment of some hypothetical scenario is more reliable than some woman's judgment about her own, very real, life situation?

And you think that's not sexist? That that doesn't demonstrate, at bottom, a distrust of women? A blindness to their equality? A reluctance to give up control over someone else's decision?

Because if you cannot see that, then I don't care who you are. Male, female, feminist, reactionary asshole. You are acting as a conduit for a social distrust of women so strong that it's almost invisible, that it gets read as 'normal.' The fact that abortion is even a debate in this country demonstrates that we do not trust women."