Abortion Pride

Sorry if this picture offends you. There are no nice pictures of abortion. The author below describes abortion as a "loving" thing to do. For whom, may I ask? After decades of warring against the proabortion industry and those individuals and institutions that support it, this has to be the most profoundly egregious piece of garbage I have ever read regarding abortion "rights." I could hardly make my way through it. I hope you have better luck than I. Horrid stuff. Written by Marcy Bloom (click on her name for full article).

The importance of abortion as a human right integral to women's dignity, the destigmatization and normalization of the experience as common for women - there are now more than 46 million abortions occurring in the world today (close to half of which are illegal and unsafe) and one in three U.S. women will have an abortion by the age of 45 - and ending the silence and shame that women may still feel cannot be underestimated in the global struggle for reproductive justice and gender equality. When we normalize abortion as a fact of women's lives, and discuss abortion as an honorable and loving choice that helps women to become better mothers in the future, we are showing respect, understanding, and support for the complexity of women's choices.

(SNIP)

I passionately agree. I also believe that the framework for such a movement already exists and is quite powerful. Talking about abortion pride as a social change movement, destigmatizing abortion - and by extension, destigmatizing women - are concepts I have believed in and fought for all of my adult life. Apple refers to the stigma that abortion still carries: "In contrast to women who have foregone abortion, women who have chosen to terminate their pregnancies are rarely encouraged to take pride in their decisions. This is unfortunate...women who step up to the ethical plate and have the strength to say, ‘This is the wrong time,' or ‘This is the wrong fetus,' should hold their heads up high in the street."

Yes, they should - and many do. I also agree with the writer - because I witnessed it for more than 35 years in my clinical work of abortion care provision - that the difficulty and pain of a private decision such as an abortion that a woman may feel does not mean that she has any doubt regarding the moral clarity and ethical foundation of her abortion choice. We all frequently experience ambivalence when faced with a deep and life-changing crossroads in our lives, and the choice of an abortion is an example of that. Women can feel initial sadness, but simultaneously know what she needs to do, that the abortion is the absolute best choice, and ultimately feel resolution, peace, and pride. In fact, many women do feel goodness, empowerment, increased self-esteem, and pride in the wisdom and the awareness that they took control of a frequently chaotic situation - unwanted pregnancy - and made a moral and ethical decision that was beneficial for their lives, their futures, and, ultimately, was also good for society.

Of course, we don't live in that world yet. Like Appel, describing abortion as safe, legal, and rare" has always deeply offended me...the rare part, that is. Should women be rare? Should our sexuality and sexual expression be rare? Should abortion providers be rare? (They already are.) Should sexual activity be rare? It is, of course, unwanted pregnancy that needs to be rare. Unfortunately, due to misogynistic beliefs and policies, it isn't. As a result, there needs to be as many safe, legal, accessible, funded, and compassionate abortions as women freely chose. As Appel writes: "Choice is merely a foundation. Ultimately, women - if they so desire - should feel comfortable expressing public pride in their brave and wise choices."

Of course they should - and this is the goal of the movement for the normalization of abortion. Women are already speaking out about their abortions, normalizing its occurrence in our lives, and sharing feelings about the importance of voluntary motherhood. This is not a trivialization - a common anti-choice attack - but a recognition of the significance that the abortion experience has in women's lives. We actually already have an Abortion Pride Movement. We need to make it more powerful, more visible, and more influential as a social justice change mechanism and continue to strive to change attitudes about abortion. Society needs to know that safe abortion is a moral good for women, understand more fully why women make this choice, and provide support and respect for women's moral and ethical decision-making. We need to create a world where a woman having an abortion is as respected and supported as a woman having a baby. As the movement for abortion pride and the recognition of women's human rights progresses, we will continue to speak out with our voices, our experiences, our bodies - and our lives. YES - ABORTION PRIDE!

I wanted to include one letter in the comment section on this article. It was written by Colonel Neville and it is just simply brilliant. Having given him full credit, I hope he won't mind my using his words. He said it so much better than I.

Marcy Bloom Celebrates Abortion! Bravo and five stars for the logical dead end of leftard liberal freakville. Abortions are FUN! What part do you like best? The blood or the screaming? I already know you DON'T like that they're "rare!" Riiiight. Yeah, of course we need MORE abortions. Millions and millions more! We ALL need dead babies. Day and night. Er, NO. Ah, the hideous brave new world of inverted nihilist immorality and without limits. The madness of equivalence, parading as an ironically single pushed "choice". Choice means more than one uber-dominating PC paradigm. Yeah, I can see ya really care. Balls. Thus Margaret Sanger was a racist eugenicist admired by Hitler and was an avid speaker at KKK rallies, and thus a left liberal Democrat heroine! Since 1973 13 million black babies aborted out of a black population of 14 million! And a huge money spinner at $70 million for one clinic chain. [PP clinics etc are often proportionately over-represented in poorer and black areas.] "I'm proud to have aborted a million babies" said the male owner. If the rest of America had the same rate, that'd be around 280 abortions since 73! Yes, chopping up live babies that scream and wriggle is "normal? How "right on". How freakishly crazy. "Exterminate the negro race". Margaret Sanger founder of Planned Parenthood. margaretsanger blogspot com. But then the Marxist left liberal has ALWAYS been utterly pro-eugenics. Thus ALL left liberal "values" rest on support for the expanding eternal welfare state, abortion and identity politics. It pay$ off in a permanent voter base, eh? Are you an insane moral vacuum or just merely a perfectly indoctrinated Marxist leftard liberal? Could your mentality be any more of a pure smiley faced void of Nazi-like indoctrination, fascist and totalitarian control freak rottenness? Your "values" are that you HAVE no values. Your core values are a narcissistic "normalisation" of violent death. Thus you have NOTHING. You are profoundly, wilfully deluded. You are sickening as you are terrifying. A "respectable" nihilist.