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Univ. Of Michigan medical students walk out on openly anti-abortion keynote speaker
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Incoming medical students walk out at University of Michigan’s white coat ceremony as the keynote speaker is openly anti-abortion
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1:22 PM · Jul 24, 2022
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LetMyPeopleVote
(174,963 posts)
dalton99a
(92,127 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(36,631 posts)Roe, Roe, Roe your vote
against theocracy!
Republicans revoke your rights
and kill democracy!
PoindexterOglethorpe
(28,454 posts)But don't think your beliefs should control anyone else.
pazzyanne
(6,747 posts)
bobacatt
(23 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 25, 2022, 12:24 AM - Edit history (1)
We pro-choice people need to push back and loudly defend women’s health and reproductive rights. This is especially true for pro-choice people in healthcare. So part of me wants to thank them for standing up and making a statement.
On the other hand, I am fundamentally opposed to walking out on (or worse, booing/heckling into silence) a speaker because the speaker holds a position that is not your position. It’s childish and rude. And obviously everyone on earth, even my best friend and my mom, holds some positions I find reprehensible.
If I were going to act like these young fools, I would walk out on every speaker who is Christian or Muslim (as those two religions believe in converting and conquering the world, and thus are guilty of centuries of invasion and slavery and mass murder and forced conversions and destruction of cultures, plus they mostly think I am going to hell). And I would walk out every time a speaker is a known Republican (nuff said). And I’d walk out if I know the speaker eats eggs from factory-farm chickens (who are tortured in tiny cages). And I’d walk out on everyone who has voted differently from me on anything significant.
But should we do this: turn our backs and stick our fingers in our ears because the person speaking doesn’t agree with us on Every Single Thing?
If you think pro-choice students are noble for walking out on a prolifer, then you must accept that this ostentatious rejection can be done by anyone to anyone. Expect that all the pro-life students will walk out if there is an openly pro-choice speaker. All the non-Christians will walk out on the speaker who happens to be Christian - and then all the Christian students will walk out when a known atheist steps to the podium. When a speaker is a known Trump supporter, half the audience will ostentatiously walk out - and when the next speaker is a known Biden supporter, they willl return but the other half the audience will walk out.
What a comically stupid and horrible way to behave toward each other.
Fact: some people really believe that there’s a soul in every fertilized egg; that every fetus is already a person and that abortion is murder and is therefore wrong. I don’t happen to agree with those people. Politically, I fight them, and on my own time I am actively helping pregnant women access abortions. But that doesn’t mean I think all pro-lifers are by definition hateful or evil - just like I don’t think most Christians or Muslims or Republicans are by definition hateful or evil. They are just people with beliefs different from my beliefs. People who have different beliefs from me don’t deserve my hatred or rudeness.
Med students are generally young and young people are into performative “protests.” I guess when I was 22 I too would have been excited to join with my friends in publicly walking out on a speaker I disagreed with. I would have felt daring and noble and Part Of Something. But I don’t think that way anymore.
TiberiusB
(524 posts)From the petition:
“While we support the rights to freedom of expression and religion, an anti-choice spokesman representing the University of Michigan undermines the university’s position on abortion and supports the non-universal, theologically-rooted platform to restrict access to abortion, a key one Element part of medical care,” the petition reads. “This is not simply a disagreement about personal opinion; With our demand, we stand in solidarity against groups that try to violate human rights and restrict medical care.”
Personally, I agree that the platform of “a fertilized egg is a person” is theologically rooted (and therefore anti-medicine because it elevates the fetus to be equal to the woman, which I don’t think is true or sensible until maybe the third trimester).
But I also get that to pro-life people, that fetus is a baby.
The students’ written statement is good.
It’s the students walking out because the speaker has a position they disagree with, that I find wrong, rude, and dumb.
Shipwack
(3,001 posts)The Bible says no such thing, though many so-called christians pretend it does...
Cassidy
(223 posts)They will be imprisoned because this woman and people like her believe an embryo is more important than a woman's life.
The forced birthers are putting medical people in an untenable situation. Health care professionals will have to watch some pregnant women become close enough to death that the hospital lawyers give the go-ahead to try to save their lives, although the embryo or fetus may already have zero chance of survival.
Fact: some people really believe that a soul is an imaginary human construct. Those beliefs don't kill people or force 10 year old children to carry their rapist's fetus to term.
Walking out is a completely legitimate and appropriate protest.
bobacatt
(23 posts)They believe it is just as much a person as the woman carrying it.
So to them, aborting because the woman’s life is in danger is wrong because it amounts to “Let’s kill person A to give person B a better chance.”
Like if a woman were dying of liver failure and could probably be saved by a transplant from her infant, you would (I’m guessing) agree that it’s not okay to harvest the baby’s liver and thus kill the baby so the (more important) mom can live.
Pro-lifers extend that exact argument to fetuses since to them fetuses are people too.
eShirl
(20,080 posts)we don't do involuntary organ donations in this country
Farmer-Rick
(12,480 posts)Not equal rights to people and fetuses but Special Rights just for an embryo or fetus. And they know it.
There is no law that forces a person to give up control over their bodies so another person can use it, without consent of the donor.
I do not have to give my kidney to a child if they needed it, not even my own child. I do not have to give a piece of my liver to my husband if he needs it to survive. No one forces me to give blood or bone marrow.
But the Christians are forcing woman to give up control of their bodies, give up bodily autonomy, give up the right to their own uterus, so a fetus can use it. That is an extra special right no person in the US has over another person. It's not equal. Women are given a lower right to life, and bodily autonomy then men, embryos or fetuses.
The fetal life is given priority over another person's life because of some imaginary soul or God. Funny how the soul of the woman is ignored by their magical sky daddy.
NJCher
(42,486 posts)I’m reading bobacat’s post on my iPad at 4-something a.m. and thinking this is the most f*#ked up thinking I’ve read in a long time but I am not up for explaining that on an iPad at this time of day.
GoneOffShore
(17,979 posts)"When you stand on the ground of truth and justice, let others find their way to you. If you stand firm, many will in the end. Not everyone will; that does not change what truth and justice are.”
~~ Rebecca Solnit - https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-on-not-meeting-nazis-halfway/
Jon King
(1,910 posts)These students did not walk out on a person who decided to be a different religion. These students did not walk out on someone who thinks student loan debt should not be forgiven.
These students walked out on a person whose beliefs could cause a child who is raped to be forced to carry a pregnancy. These students walked out on a person whose beliefs could force them to carry a pregnancy, lose their careers because child care is now rare. They walked out on a person whose beliefs could literally destroy their lives and the lives of the females they love.
bobacatt
(23 posts)the opposite argument exists:
Pro-life students should walk out on pro-choice speakers because “That speaker believes in murdering babies!”
I think it’s stupid and crazy and no good when 50 percent of the audience “nobly” walks out every time a new speaker takes the stage - the pro-choice faction leaving if the speaker is prolife and the prolifers all stomping out if the speaker is a “baby murderer.” That’s what you’re supporting here.
I disagree with the rest of your argument as well. Many many people have beliefs that - to me - contribute to human misery. Conversely, I am sure many many people can look at my beliefs, and claim that I am actually the one contributing to human misery!
If you support this war or that war, this government or that one, this immigration policy or that one, this drug policy or that one, M4A or not, Socialism or not, etc, you can always be accused - by all who think differently - of being “on the wrong side! the side causing massive deaths! massive human misery!”
GoneOffShore
(17,979 posts)
vanlassie
(6,219 posts)would a university book a vocal advocate of a sore subject at this time and place? Forget the pedantic reminders here that some people “see things the opposite way.” Yea, duh!
Farmer-Rick
(12,480 posts)You have every right to walk out. Even the forced birth crowd should walk out if they want. It's called bodily autonomy. Something the forced birthers are against for women but support for fetuses and men.
But there are so few forced birthers in nonreligious colleges that walking out makes a minimal impact. And that's the real reason forced birthers don't want people walking out.
usonian
(23,564 posts)when hurled, may be a form of free speech. (IANAL, OK?)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/truckers-peoples-convoy-egged-oakland_n_6265e1a1e4b07c34e9e2cfec
Demovictory9
(37,113 posts)
Lucinda
(31,170 posts)Randomthought
(992 posts)Who the bloody hell booked that speaker?
Rhiannon12866
(250,299 posts)
Shrek
(4,390 posts)It's not that surprising that she'd speak at a commencement ceremony.
Farmer-Rick
(12,480 posts)The speaker was an assistant professor at the medical school.
She is an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, and the director of UM Medical School’s Program on Health, Spirituality and Religion.
She seems one of those who Force their supper sky daddy religious beliefs on other people.