[Marxism] In Defense of Nadya Suleman (or, Hetero Breeding Running Amok)

[David Thorstad <binesi@xxxxxxxxx>]

Artesian wrote:

The implicit Malthusian, eugenics component behind "breeding running amok,"
or "irresponsible breeders," however, is of far greater danger, far more
damaging to the struggle for female, and human emancipation, than the
numbers of children any woman has, or her method of reproduction. The
latter is personal, individual, and quite clearly an exception, an
aberration. The former is a social repression, a wage of demonizing the
poor, not separate at all from racism, and the general repression, and
vilification, of women socially and sexually.

And really we should ban, outright ban subject lines like "hetero breeding
running amok."
===========================================
This is really off the wall. Here, my completely anodyne observation 
that this woman is an example of out-of-control breeding (can any 
reasonable person deny it?!) is distorted into some kind of 
euthanasia-crazed desire by me--as if I had either the desire to "vilify 
women" or state power with which to do so (both ideas are utterly gutter 
level and slanderous). I was one of the first gay men in New York to 
march in a women's demonstration 35 years ago in support of a woman's 
right to choose (i.e., the right to abortion), carrying my own handmade 
sign saying "Gays Support a Woman's Right to Choose," and I have not 
changed that view. But attempting to divert this woman's 
irresponsibility (which could easily turn into outright child abuse when 
her litter turns into teenagers, and she may have regrets over her 
stupidity--she did, after all, refuse doctors' suggestions that she have 
some of the oversupply of fetuses removed, which suggests either that 
she is a Christian of the "abortion is murder" type or she really does 
hope to live off of the taxpayers' subsidies of her foolishness, already 
costing more than a million dollars) into nothing more than a question 
of a woman's right to control her own body is to miss the point. I have 
nothing against large families, and could even use extra hands around my 
farm, but people who have children ought to be able to support them, and 
not use their religious ideology as an excuse to breed.
    I do not believe the state should tell a woman how many kids she 
should have. I am not "demonizing the poor." Such comments show merely 
an incapacity to think clearly and fairly.
    My criticism was directed not only at this woman's selfishness and 
stupidity and the likely problems they will cause her multitudinous 
offspring, but also at Worker's World for its Manichaean worldview. 
Anything and anyone who is out of favor with U.S. imperialism WWP 
supports, such as the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Tiananmen 
crackdown, the grotesque North Korean regime, Mengistu... If this woman 
had not left Iraq for the U.S., but instead was living in, say, China or 
Cuba, and those regimes had taken steps ahead of time to discourage her 
wanton breeding (China! which WWP never has a word of criticism for), I 
am sure Workers World would have been the first to defend those regimes.
    Here I see evidence of faulty thinking on the part of so-called 
Marxists.
    What is this, just another loving mom? To me, it is "hetero breeding 
running amok." I know a number of hetero couples who have responsibly 
chosen not to have children because the world has enough of them 
already. I wonder how many gay people find this woman's behavior 
disgusting (I have heard from a number, as well as from some heteros). 
It plays right into the prevailing hetero ideology so well represented 
by the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches, and subsidized in myriad ways 
by the American tax system. It wouldn't surprise me to see this woman 
turn up someday on /Supernanny/.
David


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