Anyhoo, it's going to be a spectacular show, largely because Emily Davis is a talent and I am but a clown she allows on stage with her who occasionally makes the audience laugh by performing self deprecating tricks. If you've nothing to do tonight or tomorrow, it's on at the Church of the Trinity on Goodwood Rd at 8pm. Oh look, here's a link!
It's funny what the link automator puts in for text, isn't it? Imagine the silly computer calling us robobabes!
IN THE MEANTIME, I'm sure Adelaide based folk are familiar with the fucktard political candidate running for the Upper House in the upcoming State Election. Trevor Grace is a former Family First candidate whose Abort SA campaign is peddling the worst of the abortion debate's misinformation - I particularly like his segment on "Why Women Abort". I particularly, particularly like this bit:
Oh well, if the ABS states it in an elipses bookended statement, given with no context as to the sentences immediately before or after it, meaning it COULD quite possibly say "there are fuckwits who claim abortion is being used as a form of contraception as well as a way of protecting rights of women, but they are wrong", then it MUST be true. I know from personal experience that it was just...I don't know...heaps more convenient to organise two abortions and go on a waiting list and feel emotional and sick and scared and conflicted than it was to throw on a johnny and go for it hell for leather.
I also like how Trevor Grace refers to 'abortion advocates' throughout his website - meaning, I presume, anyone who claims to be pro-choice and has ever expressed so in the past. Meanwhile, Richard Grant - his so-called 'expert' - is quoted heavily and with authority as being a 'social analyst and writer' from the National Observer. Sounds fancy, don't it? What Grace fails to point out though is that the National Observer is an online 'newspaper' (so....a blog) for right wing nutjobs whose latest edition features articles on the threat of Islam and the 'lie' of climate change. Rational thinking people who believe in protecting women are 'abortion advocates' (KILL ALL BABIES! BWA HAHHAHAHA!). Richard Grant, an illogical, right wing loony bin, is a 'social analyst and writer'. Note to Grace: anyone can publish anything on the internet. It doesn't make them an 'analyst', and a sad majority are far away from being 'writers'.
Anti Trevor Grace groups have been popping up all over Facebook, which is heartening to say the least. Rationality wins the day! It's good to know that there are hundreds of people online in little old Adelaide who jumped on the protest wagon mere hours after the campaign was launched. What they should know - in fact, what everyone should know - is that Trevor Grace is most likely a preference feeder for Family First, for whom it would be political suicide to so obviously advertise their anti abortion stance. Grace attracts the hard line wing nuts who are looking for some 'action' on baby genocide, gets knocked out in the first round, and all his directed preferences flow on in percentages to Family First.
I had wanted to organise a protest against Grace and his posters, but my boss advised me that the best option would be to attend as many election forums as I could and ask questions of Family First about their connection with Trevor Grace - is he affiliated with them still, do they endorse his views and his candidacy, where do FF stand on abortion? At the very least, we can hope to make them sweat a little bit. If Grace is indeed a preference vehicle for FF, they deserve to be kicked in the shins hard for it, politically speaking. Not only is his website grossly incorrect, the tactics of using potentially traumatising images to women who've not only had abortions but also miscarriages or late term still births or just have a fucking conscience and don't want this crap rammed down their throats are absolutely despicable.
Anyhoo, I wrote a piece today for The Punch - a letter to Trevor Grace from a fictional supporter. Go ahead y'all and read it and leave comments! There are bound to be some crazies out on it.
If you're Adelaide based, I very much hope you're enjoying the Fringe. If you're visiting the Fringe and you are bearded and tall and delightfully strange then I think you and I should find a quiet corner of the garden and make out with cider tasting mouths and our eyes closed.
For many years, it has been argued that abortion is being used by Australian women as a means of contraception. Whilst this accusation has been rigorously denied by abortion advocates, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2001 Year Book states quite clearly, in light of its findings, "…abortion is being used as a form of contraception as well as a way of protecting rights of women …"
Oh well, if the ABS states it in an elipses bookended statement, given with no context as to the sentences immediately before or after it, meaning it COULD quite possibly say "there are fuckwits who claim abortion is being used as a form of contraception as well as a way of protecting rights of women, but they are wrong", then it MUST be true. I know from personal experience that it was just...I don't know...heaps more convenient to organise two abortions and go on a waiting list and feel emotional and sick and scared and conflicted than it was to throw on a johnny and go for it hell for leather.
I also like how Trevor Grace refers to 'abortion advocates' throughout his website - meaning, I presume, anyone who claims to be pro-choice and has ever expressed so in the past. Meanwhile, Richard Grant - his so-called 'expert' - is quoted heavily and with authority as being a 'social analyst and writer' from the National Observer. Sounds fancy, don't it? What Grace fails to point out though is that the National Observer is an online 'newspaper' (so....a blog) for right wing nutjobs whose latest edition features articles on the threat of Islam and the 'lie' of climate change. Rational thinking people who believe in protecting women are 'abortion advocates' (KILL ALL BABIES! BWA HAHHAHAHA!). Richard Grant, an illogical, right wing loony bin, is a 'social analyst and writer'. Note to Grace: anyone can publish anything on the internet. It doesn't make them an 'analyst', and a sad majority are far away from being 'writers'.
Anti Trevor Grace groups have been popping up all over Facebook, which is heartening to say the least. Rationality wins the day! It's good to know that there are hundreds of people online in little old Adelaide who jumped on the protest wagon mere hours after the campaign was launched. What they should know - in fact, what everyone should know - is that Trevor Grace is most likely a preference feeder for Family First, for whom it would be political suicide to so obviously advertise their anti abortion stance. Grace attracts the hard line wing nuts who are looking for some 'action' on baby genocide, gets knocked out in the first round, and all his directed preferences flow on in percentages to Family First.
I had wanted to organise a protest against Grace and his posters, but my boss advised me that the best option would be to attend as many election forums as I could and ask questions of Family First about their connection with Trevor Grace - is he affiliated with them still, do they endorse his views and his candidacy, where do FF stand on abortion? At the very least, we can hope to make them sweat a little bit. If Grace is indeed a preference vehicle for FF, they deserve to be kicked in the shins hard for it, politically speaking. Not only is his website grossly incorrect, the tactics of using potentially traumatising images to women who've not only had abortions but also miscarriages or late term still births or just have a fucking conscience and don't want this crap rammed down their throats are absolutely despicable.
Anyhoo, I wrote a piece today for The Punch - a letter to Trevor Grace from a fictional supporter. Go ahead y'all and read it and leave comments! There are bound to be some crazies out on it.
If you're Adelaide based, I very much hope you're enjoying the Fringe. If you're visiting the Fringe and you are bearded and tall and delightfully strange then I think you and I should find a quiet corner of the garden and make out with cider tasting mouths and our eyes closed.
Pardon my pedantry, but shouldn't it technically be DON'TabortSA.com?
ReplyDeleteI am all that you seek, however i cannot guarantee that i wouldnt get distracted by my Bulmers, and leave you rather alone in your corner while i frolicked with the delicious bubbles in my mouth.
ReplyDeleteWell now Steve..tell me more.
ReplyDeleteTrevor Disgrace did you say? why is it male pollies feel abortions are their business? Isn't this a women's issue for women to decide.Let's have a referendum.
ReplyDelete偶爾上來逛逛，下次不知是否還有緣再進來，先祝您平安順利!!! ........................................
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. I am sick to death of religious right-wingers trying to hijack public policy while pretending not to be religious right-wingers. Nice writing.
ReplyDeleteI'm a left leaning Catholic union supporter that will vote Labor at the next election and will vote for Trevor in the Upper House. Catholics,other Christian denominations, Muslims I stress, are impossible to categorize in the usual Left/right political spectrum. Why this hate for a man that wants to oppose killing the unborn? This man is the ultimate "lefty", in a social sense. The left hate war (I protested against the Iraq war)and yet endorse abortion. Go figure?? I despise the hard right and their philosophy of greed but am dissapointed that the hard left (this website) endorse an anything goes society.
ReplyDeleteStan, if you're a left-leaning Catholic you'd be mad to vote for Trevor in the Senate because he's a loopy right-wing religious nutter. Don't vote for him just because you both share a belief in stopping abortions. Because he comes with a lot more baggage which is anti-union, anti-left, anti-social & a whole bunch of other anti-things. Pardon me, Audrey, for imposing myself on your blog.
ReplyDeleteWhen you have seen the Obstetricians place a large bore sucker and forceps up the vagina of a pregnant mother to crush the bones of the live baby and suck the little bones, organs and blood out into a big container you might think twice..
ReplyDeleteI have some beautiful children and would hate to have ever even thought somebody could take their lives when they were so defenceless in their mother..
Jeff, I know what happens in abortions and it still doesn't make me think twice about my conviction that women have the right to determine the outcome of their pregnancies. I don't regret the two abortions I've had at all - probably because I recognise the difference between a fully formed child and a fetus, and I also value the life of a fully formed woman who knows what is best for her over the idea of a life.
ReplyDeleteTake your propaganda elsewhere.
What we are dealing with here is one human being killing another. Abortion is not an issue of choice anymore than saying to a Nazi or anyone well you kill whom ever you like (I won't do it) but that is your choice.
ReplyDeleteIf my life is not safe from my parents abuse then how is anyones life safe?
My mother became pregnant with me outside of marriage. Both my Mum and her family raised me.
I have got to know my father in recent years.
This is not opinion. What right did my Father or Mother have to kill me? After they had sex and concieved me what right should anyone have to kill someone like me? My life would have ended in a bucket and my children and my childens children would never have been. What RIGHT can you have to take another INNOCENT human beings life after conception and it is growing?
What if it was you?
Deesis, if it were me I would never know about it. If your mother had aborted you, you would never know about it either.
ReplyDeleteI notice that your father wasn't around while you were growing up. How fortunate that your mother had a supportive family to help her raise you while your father was notably absent. Many women aren't that lucky, and even if they are have no interest in taking on the huge responsibility of raising a child while the father skips out.
I see a lot of anger here, but not a lot of reasoning. Besides one possible example of quote mining on the part of Grace, I just see a lot of hyperbole and some name-calling.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit ironic, given that you are championing reason and rationality. Can you more clearly and specifically define what you dislike about Grace?