We Had Abortions

From Ms. Magazine via AlterNet:

At the time of the original Ms. petition, illegal abortions were causing untold suffering in the United States, especially for poor women who had to resort to unsafe self-induced or back-alley abortions. Today, in the developing nations, approximately 70,000 women and girls die each year from botched and unsafe abortions. Another 500,000 needless maternal deaths occur. Most of this suffering and loss could be prevented. U.S. international family-planning policies contribute to the death toll: first, by conditioning U.S. aid on a global gag rule that prevents medical workers from even giving out information on abortion (let alone providing the service); second, by withholding or providing inadequate funds; and finally, by funding "abstinence-only" rather than comprehensive sex education.

We are now starting a new petition, beginning with the names of some of the original 1972 signers. They signed "to save lives and to spare other women the pain of socially imposed guilt." Their purpose was "to repeal archaic and inhuman laws." They recognized that because of the "social stigma still wrongly attached to abortion" many would not be able to sign publicly. But they invited all women to sign-"to help eliminate the stigma."

Click here for the rest.

Okay, this is great. It reminds me of the "I had an abortion" t-shirts that have been available for a couple of years now. There needs to be much more activism along these lines. While I applaud the numerous efforts across the country and over the years to keep abortions rights, or what I like to think of as the right, for all Americans, both men and women alike, to control one's own body, on the books and an important part of civil and human rights in general, the sad truth is that the war of ideas is being lost. There are enormous pockets around the country, Baytown, Texas, for instance, where the conventional wisdom is that abortion is a horrible, awful thing. When I was teaching in Baytown, I was aghast at first about how many teenaged girls, seemingly the overwhelming majority, were pro-life. Later, I accepted it as reality, which made it only slightly less disturbing, and had little success in persuading people that women couldn't truly be equal in our culture unless they had complete control of their bodies. In short, the "immorality" of abortion is fast becoming a dominant idea, and there's no way to combat that when abortion rights supporters squeamishly hide behind euphemisms like "pro-life," when women who have had abortions feel too stigmatized to freely speak about it. The bottom line here is that abortion is good when freely chosen--of course, birth control is better, but I'll save that talk for another post. For now, I have to say that Ms. is kicking ass.

You go, girls!

I'm probably going to be slapped for saying that someday.

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