Abortions For All!
Barbara Kay on T-shirts with political slogans:
T-shirt messaging is such an efficient communications shortcut that I was halfway to thinking these were my kind of people, when the more attractive and dominant of the two women said: "... and the first thing I ask anyone I date is if they are pro-choice. If he is, great. If not, out he goes ... ." This statement was accompanied by an air-shovelling gesture, a pantomime of the hapless pro-life suitor's swift ejection into the void. The others nodded endorsement for her policy.
She was eavesdropping on a conversation in a public place, which, if I'm not reading a book or, far rarer, having a conversation with someone, is something I do all the time on the bus. It's hard, though, because for me to be able to listen in closely, I have to be maintaining eye contact, and maintaining eye contact is a pretty obvious signal that you're eavesdropping.
In the next paragraph, she makes a good point and then makes a very bad one.
At that point they were no longer my kind of people at all, but the very opposite: dogmatic ideologues resisting compromise on a divisive social issue. I wondered if, when she isn't campaigning against casinos, Ms. Pro-Abortion ("choice" doesn't cut it for me) wears her other opinions on her sleeve, chest or back. Given the militancy on abortion that I overheard, it's quite likely that she has an entire "issues" wardrobe.
Emphasis added. Sorry, nobody other than the criminally insane is "pro-abortion", which (at least to me) means one favours aborting every pregnancy. It's like that bit on The Simpsons, when Kang, the alien, took the form of Bob Dole in the 1996 Presidential election:
Abortions for all! [crowd boos]
Very well, abortions for none! [crowd boos]
Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others! [crowd cheers]
So anyway, that little bit ruined an otherwise good article on how political slogan t-shirts discourage dissent rather than encourage it.
