Assistance needed!

[theatokos]

I had dinner last night with a wonderful friend, a guy I met while in grad school. We don't see each other much, mostly because he's a flake with scheduling and partly because he teaches high school two towns over. But he's wonderful, brilliant and one of the few people I unreservedly dork out with over Christian theology.

He teaches theology and Latin at an all boys Catholic high school. This semester his theology classes are focusing on social justice. He is planning to do a unit in February on abortion and he's asked me to come in and present. He thinks a male teacher in a room full of boys needs a woman's perspective on this issue. I agree, and I am honored that he's asked me.

I have about three weeks to prepare. Of course, this is not health or sex ed. A feminist perspective is vital, but must be carefully trod as this is not my classroom and the boys don't have any feminist theory under them. So I ask you (and particularly queen_of_wands) for any suggestions - on material, presentation techniques, places to mine for info, etc. My plan is talk for no more than 20 minutes and then do some discussion.

Just so you know, I am not required - and my friend doesn't want me - to just parrot the Catholic Church's view that all abortion is bad. The aim is to get the boys to think about how the issue is interconnected with other issues, to see the decision with some compassion, and to see beyond the black and white language that the abortion "debate" is couched in.

Comments

[erinya.livejournal.com]

The women's health issue--that even abortion laws that allow abortion to prevent the death of the mother don't take into account the health of the mother.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

I assume by health you are referring not just to physical health, but also mental health?

One of my ideas is to ask the boys to think about resources: some of us have money, some have strong families, some have good health, etc - these are all resources, and are necessary for dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. If they had to face the decision would which resources would they need to face the decision, and which do they have in their lives now? Does that make sense? My goal is to get them to think about "walking a mile in another's shoes" in a more concrete way.

[queen-of-wands.livejournal.com]

I really like this idea.

I assign a bunch of readings on abortion/reproduction to my college students, but I'm not sure any of them will be terribly helpful for what you're planning.

You might consider whether it is useful to broaden the conversation a little to put it in the context of other reproductive issues - prenatal care, postpartum support, adoption, contraception, sterilization, etc.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Yes, my aim (and my teacher friend's aim) is to make the discussion about social justice, rather than just - abortion? pro or con? Health care, family support, and issues such as sexual violence are all going to be part of the discussion. Which is why I was thinking about getting the boys to reflect on the resources they have or don't have in their own lives. Also getting them to think about the fact that only women have to carry the physical repercussions of a sex act. Statistically, there should be one or two (or more) boys in each class who have been sexually abused - what if they were girls? Statistically, about a third are sexually active. What if their birth control fails? Or their self-restraint fails? How would the boys support their girl friend, sister, etc, if she faced this problem? I don't want to scare them, but I do want them to think concretely and not abstractly about this issue.

I think being concrete and personal is where the theology comes in. I know a little bit about how my friend approaches theology so I know that short of parroting dogma (not wanted) the only way to link this issue to theology is to get personal and compassionate.

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

I had to TA intro to Xn ethics in our seminary here and the professor assigned several essays from The Ethics of Abortion--there were some first-person perspectives in there that might be useful. I hated all the "feminist anti-abortion" perspectives in it myself, as they just seemed delusional, but there were other perspectives too.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the recommendation.

[bravenewcentury.livejournal.com]

I have a fairly long reading list on Christian theology and the ethics of abortion for a potential essay, some of which is definitely from a feminist perspective, which I'd be happy to copy up for you- I don't know how much of it would be available in the States, but some of it might be useful.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

I hesitate to get too much into ethics, because this isn't an ethics class per se. Plus, I really hated my Christian ethics class, but then, the prof was an idiot. If there's stuff that you particularly liked, I would be happy to take a look though. Can you link it? I don't want you to have to photo copy and mail stuff to me...

[bravenewcentury.livejournal.com]

I can't link, unfortunately, as the list's on the university internal thingummy, but I can c&p the list. I've not read much that's on there, unfortunately, as I've decided to do a different question, but some of the stuff is definitely good- I'm lucky enough to have a brilliant ethics lecturer, so I trust his judgement fairly far on the other material.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Well, if you just have to cut and paste, then please! I am amassing resources to pull from. Thank you.

[hrafntinna.livejournal.com]

This blog is excellent: http://abortionclinicdays.blogs.com/

Some of those stories might get you thinking, and one or two might be good examples for class.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. I'm going to check it out. I also just made plans to hang out with my boss's daughter who is a sex educator in the Fruitvale part of Oakland. She's going to give me tips on presenting this stuff to teens. Yay!

[miss-ogyny.livejournal.com]

this reminds me of a story i once read about a journalist in the 70s. She traveled from her home state of Yugoslavia to talk about communism to a room full of men at Columbia University about living in a Soviet satilite. What the men were expecting was a lecture on Marxist theory, and how great it was...instead she talked about how she couldn't find any sanitary napkins in Yugoslavia. And how there was one point where all the women had red hair a because that was the only dye they could get.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Um.... are you saying that I'm going to walk into a room full of 15 year old boys and talk about how great being pregnant is because I don't get my period anymore and my hair is silky?

[miss-ogyny.livejournal.com]

i expect nothing of the sort