“Abortion is simply a medical procedure, and deserves no more scrutiny or moralising than would the extraction of a cyst or tooth”
“Until recently, it was seen as de rigeuer for women to speak about abortions in hushed whispers or trembling voices, if indeed they spoke about them at all. The prevailing archetype was of the tortured woman who wrestled with her choice every day, while the in fact more common scenario – that of the woman who experienced nothing but relief, and proceeded to devote little to no time to pondering the decision in the months and years following it – was shielded from view.”
(…) “I am proud of the life I live and the work that I do, and both of those things were made possible because I was able to twice access a necessary medical procedure that is the business of nobody else but me and my health care provider. I’m not ashamed of rejecting the popular narrative that positions women as the grateful sources of sacrificial love. My life – the lives of all people who have wombs – are more important than the potential lives legislators would see us forced to carry in them and then care for.”“If you’ve had an abortion, you have nothing to apologise for. But just in case anyone tries to make you feel like you do, know this: you have an army of people behind you, and we’re not whispering anymore.”
The article mentions a tweet by Lindy West:
Here are the issues I have with this article and the campaign it supports:
- “Abortion is simply a medical procedure”: in my opinion, it isn’t. A cyst or a tooth is not alive and it only belongs to the person who carries it, whereas a baby is both the mother’s and the father’s.
- “Moralising”: the writer and the campaigners say that we should not moralise abortion, yet they themselves take the moral high ground and use their own feelings of happiness and relief after the abortion are right, whereas they say the feelings of regret that others show are only part of a popular “narrative” and therefore should be dismissed and ignored. Also, “whispering” as opposed to “shouting”, I think they’re two sides of the same coins, but the reasons behind “whispering” are not fully analyzed here. Some people could reasonably decide not to shout it because it’s a very private, personal matter.
- “I was able to twice access a necessary medical procedure”: it was not necessary, because not having an abortion didn’t put you or the baby’s life at risk and accessing it TWICE is ridiculous. The first time could be the consequence of an accident, but the second time, it simply shows how careless and irresponsible you are with your own body, your partner’s health and well being and another being’s life. Just because you have access to a dentist, doesn’t mean you have to stop brushing your teeth every day.
- “a necessary medical procedure that is the business of nobody else but me and my health care provider”: here’s the popular assumption that a baby only belongs to his/her mother, who literally owns it. Even in this article, dads/men are never mentioned. We carry the baby, we don’t own the baby (who is a person of his/her own) and it’s not just our decision to make.
- “you have nothing to apologize for”: here we go back to the argument based on morality. Morality in my view is not a good enough argument, since morality can change. What is moral in the Western world may not be moral in the Eastern world; what is moral in the 21st century may not have been moral in the Middle Ages. What doesn’t change is the idea that if you unexpectedly got pregnant, something went wrong. There is nothing to brag about, nothing to celebrate, it was a mistake that unfortunately has very serious consequences. A person who came into existence only because of your choices and had never asked to, now has to cease to exist, again, because of your choices. You might at least consider learning from your mistake and try to do better next time, maybe take a course in contraception methods??
- you have an army of people behind you: I am not part of this army.
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