Adriana Pérez, Abortion and Sexuality, Under Attack (via moriartree

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I’m putting this here because I believe a big part of all this anti-abortion bullshit is an attempt to remove people’s abilities to consent to what happens with their bodies which is very clearly a part of rape culture.  Sure all of this “proper education” nonsense is paternalistic, infantalizing, deeply rooted in misogyny, and heinously patriarchal in that it allows for the belief that the (white, wealthy, well-educated, cis, het, able-bodied, able-minded, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Christian) menfolk in charge have a right to decide what rights the rest of us are permitted but it also allows them to have a say over what people can and cannot consent to when it comes to their own bodies.  

Questions of consent and bodily autonomy are inextricably tied up in rape culture because rape culture is all about saying what does and does not constitute consent and what does and does not qualify for bodily autonomy rights.  If a person is doing something those in power have deemed socially unacceptable that person’s right to consent and bodily autonomy come into question.  People are more likely to blame a victim of sexual assault who is behaving in a way they consider “slutty” at which point that person’s right to consent and bodily autonomy has been trumped by the social desire to control hir body and behavior.  The same issue is at play in abortion rights - a person who is having sex for non-procreative reasons is considered by these people to have given up hir right to consent and bodily autonomy which is why they seek to deny hir a right to choose an abortion.  

(via rapeculturerealities)