A question I recently put in the FAQs, which has been asked by several snide antis, is “well, if you’re so proud of getting abortions, why do you only use first names?” Instead of firing off a snarky “get your own site if you don’t like it,” I gave it some thought. Around this time, I had participated in a panel at the University of Richmond law school about the damage the Bush administration had done to the ideals of Roe vs. Wade. The panel consisted of the current president of the Virginia League of Planned Parenthood, who’s a lawyer and a long-time lobbyist; the head of the Virginia branch of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (a great group, another link I need to get on the site); her daughter, who works for VLPP as kind of a volunteer administrator … and me, feeling horribly undereducated and out of place. I was the last one to speak, and I spent the time hastily scribbling on my notes, trying to recall statistics and cases that the others seemed to reference with ease, positive that I was going to crash like a ValuJet and look like an idiot.
But when it was my turn to speak, I found myself speaking of the site, the stories, the e-mails I get, the people I’ve met, and my own experiences. Normally I loathe public speaking, being terminally self-conscious, but it just flowed and the audience responded. At the reception after the panel, I was surrounded by people thanking me for coming. One law student said to me that I had given the abortion issue a human face.
So why only the first names? Maybe in the hope that an anti-choicer will look at the list of names … and see their daughter’s name, their wife’s, girlfriend’s or sister’s and maybe think “what if it happened to her?”
The summer after INS went online, a Canadian visitor sent me an link to an amazing article called The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion. I have told so many people about this article that I’ve lost count, because it so perfectly illustrates the hypocrisy displayed by anti-choicers when it comes to facing the choice of abortion themselves. They will scream and wail about the murdered babies and immoral women, but if it happens to them they’re demanding an abortion right now!. Once they get the abortion, many of them take up right where they left off, because … well, it’s different when it’s your own, you know. I have personally witnessed clinic protestors who brought in their daughters and girlfriends wanting an abortion for them one week–and right back out front with their signs the next.
Too many people on both sides argue about abortion in the abstract–but it’s those of us who have actually had them and have gone on with our lives who need to be talking. Not the drama queens who blame their abortions for their damaged lives because it’s the only acceptable scapegoat they can find, but us. The wives, the mothers, the girlfriends, the sisters, the co-workers, the friends. It’s said that forty percent of American women have had abortions. That’s a whole hell of a lot of women. How many of them are talking (not counting our SNM friends)? Not even one percent, I’d bet. If we could get one percent talking, it would be enough to get attention, to let it be known that abortion is just a choice among many. Remember, it’s the other side that demands that we feel a wrench. We need to show that’s not always the case.
You’re not seriously saying that all ‘anti choicers’ would get an abortion if faced with a crisis, unplanned high risk pregnancy.
Because I wouldn’t. Ready for the replies “you don’t know what you’d do if you were in that position” etc etc .I accidentally posted this somewhere else.If I had any intelligence I’d be dangerous .
She didn’t say all that every single person against abortion would have one if they got pregnant. Stop putting words in people’s mouths. It’s rude.
But read the article she linked, or talk to someone who works at a clinic. You will see that it happens often enough, that a protestor comes in saying “The condom broke, I need an abortion!” or someone brings in their niece or daughter, and next week they’re out on the sidewalks again.
Just like pro-choice does NOT mean that every pregnancy must end in abortion, then this article does NOT mean every pro-lifer will have an abortion.
It is very easy to make straw-man arguments, takes real skill to actually read through an article and think about it though.
I have seen people who are vehmently against abortion argue that it is okay in their case ‘because that was different, you don’t know why I had it done’.
None of us know exactly why a woman has an abortion – that is why it is so wrong to catagorically state what is right for another. Until you have walked a mile in my shoes do not presume to know what is right for me, and I will accord you the same.
You’re not seriously saying that all ‘anti choicers’ would get an abortion if faced with a crisis, unplanned high risk pregnancy.
Nah – most of them would get an abortion even if the pregnancy wasn’t high risk. *grin*
And as for the children of pro-lifers, TONS of them show up all the time to ask for abortion information or to tell abortion stories.
How many of your children have had/will have abortions, Ann? You’ll never know, because they won’t tell you. “I never told/can never tell my parents because they are pro-life.” I hear this on abortion communities all the time.
That’s what you give up, being pro-life… the trust and confidence of your children.
No shit.
A couple months ago I met an unfortunate female character who spent hours detailing me all her troubles, (including the mental ones), and amongst them an abortion she got because ‘My bf told me he’d stay with me if I aborted, but I’m SOOOOOOO against abortion! That baby was never asked his opinion, yanno??’
Of course her bf had dumped her a few weeks afterwards. Can’t blame him.
And last time I heard of her she was still pregnant from another shady, half-solid male form, and unable to keep a job. Let’s see if she’s going to give a shit about the baby’s opinion this time *snickers*
It’s like the SNM chicks. “Abortion’s so bad. That’s why I had 5 of them.”
“well, if you’re so proud of getting abortions, why do you only use first names?”
uh, duh, because anti-choicers attack and ostracize women who have had abortions.
I don’t necessarily want to be denied a job because my pious employer wants to punish me for my Evyl.
Commanderd, very well said! It does take real skill to think through an article, as it does when thinking about hard choices in life. Skill, education, common sense…and heart & soul as well.
So glad to see this blog thread! Several friends of mine who are escorts at a very large clinic have told me the same thing that the webmaster writes about. They say that roughly every 3 months (this varies), one of the antichoice protesters comes into the clinic – either pregnant themselves or with a pregnant relative (daughter, whatever). Then they say (this is a freakin’ riot) the pregnant antichoicer is always very rude to staff once inside the clinic. They use nasty language and treat everyone like crap. One nurse told my friend that an antichoicer said: “I hate being here, I hate all of you, you all suck and will burn in hell. I’m only here because I have to be.” ??????
Of course they’re back out on the protest line, a few weeks later – wearing a wig – or a big hat. My friend said the one with the big nose and mole on her cheek is not very good a disguises. Hah hah hah hah.
Lily, I don’t really need you telling me I’m rude.Maybe writing ‘some’ anti choicers would helped my rude brain.And I’m well aware of the hypocrites who are pro lifers.
I did read the article.The pro lifers who do do that are complete hypocrites.
I will not discuss my children or their ages or anything to do with them.
Its not just pro choice people who get abused I’ve had my fair share.
If you knew about the anti-choice hypocrites, why’d you even pretend to ask about it? You knew that some people already go ahead and have abortions.
The fact that they are hypocritical doesn’t change the fact that they are out there, harassing women and clinic staff and trying to make abortion illegal.
As for abuse, well, I don’t really think you’ve had your “fair share” until someone tries to shoot you, or someone DOES shoot you for doing your job, or people stalk you, or send letters to everyone on your block saying that you murder babies, or protesting outside your house, telling your children that you’re a murderer, and having your picture posted all over the internet with your name and address.
That’s what people of your movement do, Ann. You may not, your friends may not, but it happens. If a pro-choicer has harassed you, that was wrong of them. But you need to start facing up that YOUR movement has a lot more to answer for before you start throwing stones at us.
I will not discuss my children or their ages or anything to do with them.
Its not just pro choice people who get abused I’ve had my fair share.
I’ve yet to hear about pro-choicers picketing a pro-lifer’s house, or sending abusive OmG YOU LIVE NEXT TO AN EVIL PERSON lit to a pro-lifer’s neighbors.
Those sorts of things are done to pro-choicers all the time.
Yup, cos prochoicers run the Nuremburg site! Oh no wait…that’s a “prolife” site. Then there was Paul Hill, the prochoice murderer…oh hang on, he was “prolife”…and on and on.
My best friend in high school was a rabid anti-choicer. We argued about it constantly. She was very, VERY religious and her mom was very strict with her. She was always rattling on about abortion being murdered.
A few years ago she called me to apologize for being so judgmental about women who got abortions. Turns out that her sophomore year in college she got pregnant by her drunken, abusive ass of a boyfriend.
She knew her mom would “kill” her if she knew, and quite frankly, my friend didn’t want to give up on her education (as well she shouldn’t!), so she had the abortion.
She says she didn’t regret it then and she doesn’t regret it now. She says if she had to do it over again, she’d have done the same thing.
Now she donates to NARAL and is fiercely pro-choice.
So who says nothing good can come of an abortion?
Lucky for her, it was still legal. Wouldn’t it be nice if the forced-birthers would just concede that they don’t have the right to impose their belief system on anyone else? Jesus didn’t, so why should they do so?
Of course, the forced-birthers would say she was “selfish” (just as she probably did before experiencing the situation first-hand) for not subjecting herself and her potential child to poverty and untold suffering at the hands of an abusive ex, because we all know poverty is just a TRIVIAL circumstance. (/sarcasm)
Yup, poverty and abuse are trivial, mental health doesn’t matter and parenting is just an inconvenience. Didn’t you get the memo?
Hearing the word “selfish” bandied about always puts my teeth on edge. It’s just daft.