Imagine an Abortion Pride Day parade in which women march while pushing empty strollers and baby carriages. That’s not far off from what Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum recommended in a Wednesday post.
Drum suggested that women who’ve had an abortion and believe they made the right choice ought to say so publicly, and that they should view out gays and lesbians as role models in that regard: “As long as gays stayed largely closeted, it was easy for most people to think there weren't very many of them…[but] as more and more gays came out, that view was forced to fade away…The same is true of abortion…When it turns out your next-door neighbor had an abortion? Or the waitress at the diner you go to for lunch? Or your doctor? Then it gets a little harder to think of it as something unusual and sort of icky. It's just something people do.”
“Everyone needs to know,” concluded Drum, that “aborting a fetus isn't murder. It's not something to be ashamed of. It's something to do if you get pregnant and don't want a child at the moment. That's it. And more people need to know it.”
From Drum’s post, headlined “Abortion Supporters Need to Start Fighting Back” (bolding added):
As long as gays stayed largely closeted, it was easy for most people to think there weren't very many of them…[but] as more and more gays came out, that view was forced to fade away. The guy you chat with at the gas station is gay? The woman who's been checking you out at the grocery store for the past ten years? Huh. They seem pretty unthreatening.
The same is true of abortion. It's easy to assume that most abortions are provided not to your kind of people, but to others who can be easily ignored or stigmatized. Inner city welfare recipients. Irresponsible teenage girls. Careless slackers who can't be bothered to refill their prescriptions. But when it turns out your next-door neighbor had an abortion? Or the waitress at the diner you go to for lunch? Or your doctor? Then it gets a little harder to think of it as something unusual and sort of icky. It's just something people do.
The difference, of course, is that having an abortion isn't a permanent lifestyle. Gays had a lot of incentive to come out: it meant they didn't have to live a lie every day. But abortion rarely comes up in casual conversation. Keeping it private isn't really much of a burden. So why bother telling everyone?
Because [Katha] Pollitt is right: everyone needs to know. Aborting a fetus isn't murder. It's not something to be ashamed of. It's something to do if you get pregnant and don't want a child at the moment. That's it. And more people need to know it.
