They said it.
Well-known feminist Adrienne Rich writes:
“Abortion is violence: a deep, desperate violence inflicted by a woman upon, first of all, herself.”
Adrienne Rich Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: WW Norton & Company, 1976) 269
Share on Facebook
British pro-choice reporter Daisy Buchanan wrote:
“…we as a society, struggle to talk about abortion. All over the world, over pints, cocktails or cups of tea, we share stories about sex, family, relationships and careers – but terminating a pregnancy is never an easy subject to broach…We rarely have frank conversations about abortion. The subject is shrouded in stigma and shame…
If I thought of it as an entirely medical matter, I wouldn’t be scared to mention it to my friends and I’m sure they’d feel more comfortable asking me for any support they needed. We can’t afford to stigmatise it when it could affect us all.”
Daisy Buchanan “Abortion legal time limit: Why we feminists owe it to ourselves to not ignore this uncomfortable issue” The Telegraph 03 September 2014
Perhaps abortion is stigmatized so much because people realize it’s the killing of a child?
Share on FacebookPro-Choice author Bertha Alvarez Manninen says:
“Some women do feel responsible for the fetus and begin to establish an intimate relationship with it from the moment they discover their pregnancy. Indeed, some women feel this way even toward a fetus they plan on aborting.”
Bertha Alvarez Manninen Pro-Life, Pro-Choice: Shared Values in the Abortion Debate (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 2014) 50-51
Go here to see what a baby looks like after an abortion.
Share on FacebookClare Murphy, a spokesperson for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, a chain of abortion clinics, says there is “not a jot of evidence” that women suffer post-abortion trauma.
But she says:
“There will of course be women who, even if they do not regret their decision, feel devastated that this was a decision they had to take in the first place.”
Radhika Sanghani “The harsh truth about how women feel after an abortion” The Telegraph 14 July 2015
Share on FacebookPro-life authors Terry Schlossberg and Elizabeth Achtemeier wrote:
“We often hear the argument in our society that it is far better for some children to be aborted than to be born into a situation where they are unwanted or where they will be abused and perhaps starved to death.
But the implications of that argument is that we autonomous individuals, who make up our society, will take no responsibility for such children. They are not our problem. They would upset our lifestyle and plans.
They would interfere with our independence and well-being. And so better to kill them in the womb than to let them come forth into light.
As one church woman remarked, “Maybe you want to raise all those unwanted babies. I don’t. That’s why I’m pro-choice.”
When it comes to the question of abortion, our autonomous individualism has turned us all into a nation of independent selves, with no communal obligations and with no responsibilities toward one another.”
Terry Schlossberg and Elizabeth Achtemeier Not My Own: Abortion & the Marks of the Church (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995) 10-11
Share on FacebookPro-choice author Johanna Schoen wrote:
“If many viewed abortion in the 1970s as central to women’s emancipation and a right that women should have, this view began to change in the 1980s as the proliferation of fetal images began to contribute to a reshaping of the public understanding of the fetus.
As fetal images gained in prominence, antiabortion activists began to articulate fetal interests and rights and to advance the notion that a fetus might have interests that stand in opposition to the interests of the woman carrying the fetus.”
Johanna Schoen Abortion after Roe (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University Of North Carolina Press, 2015) 15
Share on FacebookPro-choice writer Lisa M Mitchell complains about how ultrasounds reveal preborn babies:
“Struggles over the meanings of personhood have implications for other persons, and I’m interested in the ramifications of “seeing” into women and “seeing” particular fetuses…
To what extent is [ultrasound] disempowering, subjecting women, fetuses, men, and sonographers to a normalizing gaze?…
What has been the evidentiary status of fetal images in the struggle over abortion rights?”
Lisa M Mitchell Baby’s First Picture: Ultrasound and the Politics of Fetal Subjects (Toronto: University of Toronto Press Inc., 2001) 12
Mitchell is so out of touch that she puts the word “seeing” in quotes, as if she can’t quite accept that we can actually see a preborn baby.
One wonders how many women, going in for an ultrasound and seeing their baby on the screen, feel that the ultrasound was “disempowering.”
Share on FacebookOn February 28, 2021, a doctor who spoke at a conference sponsored by the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists presented the following slide.
The slide presents the obstacles to legalizing abortion worldwide discussed at the pro-abortion Women Deliver Conference in 2007:
On the blog The Abortion Gang, an abortion worker says the following:
“Last week, I got into a conversation (as I often do) on access to abortion. The exchange was pleasant and informative, but in the course of the conversation the other party expressed she did not support free choice if “someone is using abortion as birth control.”
In my experience (and other abortion ganger’s experiences as well), conversations about abortion often come to this same limit, or some version of ‘abortion is not an acceptable if’ statement.
And when the ‘if statements’ start flying I wonder: Why are we so afraid of liberating the use of abortion for whatever means an individual may choose? Why is it that when abortion comes up, some “moral limit” (within the legal limit) must be placed on the procedure? …
Abortion, biologically is birth control, in every case, regardless of if contraception was used during sex or not.
Furthermore, safe, legal abortion is one of the most effective forms of birth control; in the US, abortion procedures only “fail” or need to be re-administered less than .5% of the time. …
However, advocating that using abortion for birth control is totally 100% OK/kosher/great/moral usually terrifies people….if someone wants to use abortion as birth control, let him or her do so.”
Quoted in Sarah Terzo “Pro-abortion blog supports abortion as a method of birth control” Live Action News March 31, 2013
This abortion worker has no problem promoting abortion as just another method of birth control.
Share on FacebookAn abortion clinic escort, whose blog can be found here, wrote the following in a post on March 18, 2013:
“There are times a client and/or companion is so empowered they instantly gain my admiration.”
What is she so impressed by? She goes on to explain:
The companion [of the woman who was having an abortion] got out of the car first. E [the pro-lifer] was hovering right behind me, ready to start shaming.
I was able to explain the vests and offer to escort them before he began his spiel. E handed the companion some literature. When I explained he was a protester, they handed it right back to him.
The companion and I escorted the client down the sidewalk. We were in a line: E, companion, client and me. E started with “Women regret their abortions. Don’t lead her into this place.”
The companion waved dismissively at him and said, “Oh, I know all about abortion. I have had 10 already.”
There was a pause then E leaned over towards the client and said “You don’t have to go into that place.”
The client turned to me and said, “I am not listening to him.” I replied that was best.
It was great to witness these two completely ignoring the words meant to hurt and shame them…I felt privileged to witness this calm confidence.”
Elsewhere in her blog, the clinic escort talks about sidewalk counselors offering to help the women with adoption or other alternatives. Pro-lifers often offer free help to pregnant women outside abortion clinics. To the escort, this is “shaming.”
Share on Facebook