The Washington Post is reading like an online dating profile these days. For proof, look no farther than its latest story by one abortionist who is “ready for someone to love me because I provide abortions” and even reassures readers that “dating an abortion provider can be cool.”
On Monday, the Post published a piece with the headline, “I used to be quiet about the fact that I perform abortions. Now I’m upfront.” The story, by gynecologist Colleen Krajewski, outlined the “stigma” abortion providers face in the dating world.
But Krajewski didn’t start her story there. Instead she took readers back to a tattoo parlor following President Donald Trump’s election.
“For the first time in decades, the fate of Roe v. Wade seemed to be in real doubt,” she lamented the election, which left her in a “mix of anxiety, sadness and resolve.” Her response was a new tattoo: of a “rather large coat hanger,” representing women who died before legalized abortion, together with the words “Never again.”
According to her, it was like wearing her heart on her sleeve: “From now on … everyone I met would see my tattoo the moment we shook hands — at the office, at parties, in the supermarket, on first dates.”
Not that that mattered, because already, she complained, “to many people, the only thing worth knowing about me is that I am a doctor who performs abortions.” From women whispering with her about their own abortions to her “career” emerging as a talking point at parties, Krajewski wanted to know “How could I expect the men I date to be any different?”
She couldn’t. When her dates find out, she stressed, “there’s always a reaction.”
“Every man I have ever dated — no matter how liberal or open-minded he professes to be — has flinched, looked away, or gone silent when I first tell him what I do,” she criticized. “I watch myself transform from potential girlfriend into political symbol.”
“The majority of American adults support a woman’s right to an abortion,” she protested, “but it’s another matter to date someone who performs them.”
Speaking of the "majority," support for abortion varies greatly. A majority of Americans want limitations on abortion and oppose taxpayer funding.
But to Krajewski’s main point, can she really be surprised? Abortion is a charged issue in today’s culture (and politics), and there’s a reason why: the pro-life movement recognizes abortion as the violent destruction of the life and dignity of the unborn human person.
But she didn't address that. Instead, with her tattoo as armor, she got to the point of her story: the decision of “embracing the symbol of the coat hanger,” and, in turn, finally “accepting myself as a symbol.”
“[A]s I shed the stigma of being an abortion provider, I felt free,” she gushed. Free in the dating world, she meant.
“[F]or the first time in my life, I was ready for someone to love me because I provide abortions, not in spite of it,” she praised. “With that tattoo, I made some other changes: No more batting my eyelashes on dates, feigning innocence or acting apologetic about who I am. No more waiting the requisite three days to call back, or counting down three dates to have sex if I wanted to.”
(An odd definition of freedom. As former Pope St. John Paul II once said, “Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”)
And now, Krajewski pressed, she was in good company.
“An unexpected side effect of the 2016 election is that many people have become vocal about their support for reproductive rights,” she hyped. “Suddenly, dating an abortion provider can be cool, a way to proclaim one’s liberal street cred.”
She pointed to an investment banker, roughly ten years younger than she: “For him, my profession seemed to add to the edginess of dating an older woman,” she boasted.
And then “there was the hard-partying Alaskan fisherman” who called her “commitment to reproductive justice” “hot.” She was just thrilled. “So, abortion providers are ‘hot’ now?” she continued, before giving yet another example.
“Once, I wore long sleeves before becoming intimate with a fascinating biomedical engineer,” she kept going, “and, when he first saw the tattoo, he burst out laughing, apparently delighted by my commitment to the cause.”
But even then, not “everything” changed, she admitted. Like that “entrepreneur with political aspirations who sent mixed messages and ultimately drifted away.” Plus, there were the “ongoing threats to reproductive health care” that “have left me with little extra energy to deal with disapproval or embarrassment from men.”
Besides sharing her personal story, Krajewski also took the opportunity to bemoan the “increasing restrictions” of state “abortion access.” She worried about a new bill in Pennsylvania, where she performs abortion, that “seeks to ban surgical abortions in the second trimester.”
“If this bill passes, my patients’ lives could be endangered,” she reacted, “and if I follow the standard protocols to save them, I could be prosecuted under the law as a felon.” Never mind that there are two patients with every pregnancy – and one always dies in an abortion.
Last, but not least, Krajewski surmised that a happily-ever-after ending might be in her future.
“Recently, an online dating match messaged me and, without knowing my specialty, began lamenting the threat of [the PA bill],” she revealed. While he serves as an attorney in North Dakota, their “conversation about social justice led to such a strong connection” that they met “despite the distance.”
“Whatever happens, I will no longer be silent or fearful when a new love interest — or anyone — makes me feel exposed and vulnerable,” she concluded. “As my tattoo says: Never again.”
No, perhaps Krajewski shouldn’t feel “exposed and vulnerable” – but, whether she realizes it nor not, she’s the very person who preys on society’s most exposed and vulnerable: the child in the womb.
An assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Krajewski has written for other media outlets like the Huffington Post, has appeared in women’s magazines like Cosmopolitan and has even been cited by The Washington Post (surprise, surprise) as an expert on the pill.
In the past (see below) she has represented birth-control organization Bedsider, which partners with America’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.
For similar Post content on abortion, check out its recent review of the new D.C. “feel-good” abortion play.
