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Sacrificing junk food to end reproductive rights

There's a new anti-abortion website called Until Abortion Ends that is asking people, like those hip youngsters on the Facebook, to give up something until abor

There's a new anti-abortion website called Until Abortion Ends that is asking people, like those hip youngsters on the Facebook, to give up something until abortion ends. Or as the inimitable Jay Smooth says in his latest Ill Doctrine video blog above, until (legal, safe access to) abortion ends. Think of an indefinite, Internet-driven Lent for people seeking to obstruct medical services. (Can UntilObamacareEnds.com be that far behind?)

What's so interesting to Jay is what they're willing to, um, sacrifice:

Almost everybody is giving something up that you really should be giving up anyway because it's bad for you. They're all promising to sacrifice something that's really crappy and you should be cutting down on just for health purposes.

He goes on to cite examples of what anti-abortion folks are bearing "until abortion ends": french fries, tobacco, Dr. Pepper, sour Skittles, alcohol, and that Greatest of All Commercial Nutrition Evils™, carbohydrates! Jay calls that "taking another shot at your New Year's resolution and calling it a protest," which doesn't exactly work.

He sees a bright side, though:

The only thing that's good about this, the only thing I like is that for those of us who are pro-choice, from now on, whenever we fight for our side, we will also be bestowing an act of kindness upon our enemies. From now on, we won't just be fighting to protect safe, legal affordable access to abortion; we'll also be helping all of these people stick to their diet plan! How great is that?...I'll gonna make my own vow today, that as long as you keep up yIf you really think abortion is murder, if you really think it is an abomination, if you really think that fetuses are unborn children with souls and full Constitutional rights, then, yeah, giving up Diet Coke seems like a proportional reaction to the fact that abortion is still legal.our side of it, as long as you keep up your noble sacrifice of eating a Whopper instead of a Double Whopper, or whatever you're doing...I'm going to support you on that by doing my part to make sure that women's reproductive rights never come to an end.

Time's Person of the Year issue honoring the Protester went to print before they could put on its cover a guy giving up french fries to deny others' rights. Alas.

Bonus: Jay's important addendum to the video, posted on his Tumblr.

Even more bonus: My friend, Feministing editor Chloe Angyal, has a snarky take on the logic of Until Abortion Ends's very selective fast. An excerpt is after the jump.


If you really think abortion is murder, if you really think it is an abomination, if you really think that fetuses are unborn children with souls and full Constitutional rights, then, yeah, giving up Diet Coke seems like a proportional reaction to the fact that abortion is still legal...Every day, when you walk past the vending machine and just keep on walking – or stop and get a Fresca or a Vitamin Water instead of a Diet Coke – remember that you’re doing it for the fetuses. You have made a bold and brave choice, not to raise money for anti-choice causes, not to spend time calling your congressional representative, not to volunteer to take in foster children or provide free childcare, not even to brave the winter cold harassing [insert offensive term for women] outside of Planned Parenthood on Saturday morning, but to give up Diet Coke. You are a hero.