Inside the Abortion Care Network 2012 Conference
The Abortion Care Network just concluded its annual three-day conference.
ACN is basically a club of all independent abortion clinics other than Planned Parenthood.
Pro-abortion conferences are always hush-hush. ACN didn’t even announce its own on its web page, Facebook page, or Twitter.
I only stumbled on this conference last night while perusing pro-abortion tweets, because Steph Herold, aka @IAmDrTiller, began live-tweeting from the event.
So all I have are tweets, but they’re interesting. I’ve organized the stand-outs by topic….
Abortion providers are old… and unhip
Note, ixnay on “pro-choice”; it’s now “reproductive justice.”
Abortion providers review the movies
Indys don’t like Planned Parenthood
(In response to the lament that abortions at Planned Parenthood are cheaper I reminded Steph in a tweet this is because PP gets taxpayer subsidies, which she supports.)
Abortion’s persistent ick factor
Some old reasons, some new insights, on why abortion remains stigmatized 40 years after it was legalized…
New campaign: “My Abortion, My Life”
Standing up to anti-choice bullies
It would seem counterintuitive for abortion activists to purchase large signs showing graphic photos of aborted babies. And what would the signs say? “Anti-choicers oppose this”?
At any rate, these tweets all add just a little more to the body of knowledge about what is going on in the heads of the opposition. Most interesting to me was the schism between independent mills and the Planned Parenthood abortion monopoly.
Oh, and see their poetry winners here.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
anti – choice bullies PFFT whatever!!!! LOL
Golly, gee, no sessions on patient (mothers) safety? All about marketing? All about promotion? Nothing about “care”? Not suprised.
I look forward to seeing the pictures that abortionists are going to counter with of their own “handiwork.” Brrring it.
Wow, a convention for abortioneers. I wonder what they do for fun like traditional convention goers do?
Would I want gory fetus pictures outside my home and workplace?
Um, I would PUT them there. I want to take any chance I get to educate people on the truth about abortion.
Why is abortion stigmatized?
Are they really dumb enough not to know the answer to that question?
It seems to me that this new “My Abortion, My Life” thing is not new at all, but simply the latest in a long string of attempts to destigmatize abortion by “normalizing” it. You would think that, sooner or later, these folks would figure out that that strategy isn’t working and stop sinking their energy into it. I mean, I’m not going to stop them running themselves in circles, but…well, it’s not like the previous failed attempts have been secrets or anything.
On the other hand, this does have me wondering: is there any other way to destigmatize something? Do abortion proponents keep trying this because they recognize a need (from their POV, anyway) to destigmatize abortion and have no other way to do it? In which case, it won’t matter if the strategy has always failed in the past. They’ll keep trying and failing with the exact same tactic.
*thinks thinky thoughts*
Oh, and see their poetry winners here.
I’m so not clicking on that…
No mention of the human fetus or ultrasounds at all.
I love how in their own minds they become the victims of social stigma and bullying. But they make no connection about why people oppose abortion- and the providers are the ones counting the body parts. Disconnect, anyone?
With every abortion they perform, they see the reason why people oppose it. I just can’t imagine how twisted the human psyche can become. Their livelihood means death for human beings. I have no pity for them at all.
This is so leftist…paint a picture of our sensitive, good guy abortionists (abortionists are people too!!) and how they are horribly maligned by those terrible anti-choicers. A classic propaganda technique.
In the end this whole thing is just another invention by another leftist org. Covering events like this is what makes up so much of the MSM today and is the reason we need to turn off the MSM, ignore them as much as we can, and create our own news media that we can pay attention to without being assualted by ignorance and depravity.
Read the poems: Pathetic / demonic.
“why is abortion stigmatized? Its a marker for sex that was not suppose to have been had”
Weird logic. The baby is the “marker”. Killing the baby is often an attempt to remove the marker, which is in turn a marker of something else entirely.
“anti-choice bullies”
Giggled at use of term bullies. It’s such a buzz word these days. It will become less emotionally effective if people overuse and obviously misuse it. Oh wait, shouldn’t we be called reproductive injustice bullies?
“my abortion, my life”
Did they really opt for the word LIFE in there? As if to say: ‘it’s my life, fetus, not yours. I win.’ Oh yikes. I think the proud of my abortion stories site will read like a support group no matter how they spin it.
1 in 3 pledge. Folks, there ya go. A Challenge.
I am male so I have not had an abortion. When I, bought all of the progressive agenda, before I worked thru the issues, I was pro-choice.
Many many years ago, a girlfriend and I decided to break up. I was young, and so believed if you broke up with a woman, things were over. Obviously, I did not understand women well.
A couple weeks later, she happened to want to do lunch. At lunch, she happened to tell me she believed she was pregnant.
I knew relatively little at that time except, God forgive me, to mumble something about ‘we will take care of this.’ I took her seriously and was willing to abort my spawn – largely because in all of my liberal experience, I had never pondered the right-n-wrong of abortion. I accepted what other democrats were saying. Even as I sailed thru high school biology class with great grades.
God has in that way let me know what I am capable of. I am no different from Solomon strategically working to get Uriah in the front of battle. No different. Maybe this seems dramatic to others. maybe not. I am not proud. That is my story.
And you know what? The pregnancy story was a deliberate lie to get me back and rekindle the romance. [Yes, I know you saw that coming – you are wiser than me.]
Possibly before that, a friend came to me and asked to borrow money for his share of his girlfriend’s abortion. I loaned him the money. $250. That child will greet me at the pearly gates. My friend worked as a waiter and was tipped in singles. So, not long after, I was paid back with a lunch bag filled with 250 singles.
The story of Judas has some mystery. But I know what those 30 pieces of silver looked like. They looked like 250 crumpled dollar bills in a lunch bag.
i have never had an abortion. But I have been complicit. If you have not told anyone your story, and asked for forgiveness, trust me – you need to. Life is entirely different when you know how casually you might be drawn into something like this. It happens so easily and swiftly.
The serpent asks Eve about eating from the tree of knowledge. Two sentences later in the conversation, because of persuasion, she has given up on what she directly said.
We each have to know that circumstances can make us forget something we know so clearly that we can utter it without error. In two sentences, we can behave exactly the opposite.
If at least 3 people read this, then I have met that pro-choice goal of sharing my abortion story with at least 3 other people. Great idea. For women who have had abortions, and for men who have had a role in facilitating or encouraging.
You can’t destigmatize abortion, just like you can’t destigmatize being treated for an STD. Abortion represents failure. Abortions are often the product of faults, failures, crises, etc. Consider why women don’t have abortions: not enough money, not “responsible” enough to use contraception, sleeping with the wrong guy, etc. When you have an abortion, it’s like an implicit admission that you’re poor, irresponsible, had a one-night stand, etc. That’s *aside* from the fact that abortion takes a human life.
they left out a word in their ad campaign..it should say
“My Abortion RUINED My life”
maybe we can make a bumper sticker
Of course that was only until the healing forgiveness and mercy of Jesus Christ!
MY abortion MY life. Me Me Me I I I, I created you but I’M tired of you, you must die so I can live MY life in whatever way I want regardless of how it affects YOU! They never seem to think the stigma is based on the fact that YOU’RE TEARING THE ARMS AND LEGS OFF OF A HUMAN BEING, FOR PROFIT NO LESS!
I like their third tag word, “zest.”
Zest for……death?
If they’re all about destigmatizing it why aren’t they more public with it. :/ Why would that one person be glad “most of the folks here don’t know how to use twitter”? “Not sure if we’re allowed to tweet?” Woooooooooow. T.T
First, it is Planned Parenthood’s goal to be the ONLY abortion provider in the U.S. To call Planned Parenthood the Wal-Mart of abortion is not far-fetched.
Second, please DO stand in front of my home holding a picture of a dead preborn child. I will step outside with the same sign, stand with them, and pray. I’ll even provide water for them.
TheLastDemocrat,
Thank you. I appreciate what you have written.
I Regret My Abortion. And the proaborts state that they are “OK” with that??
Yeah right. Then why do complete strangers become absolutely unhinged when I hold my Silent No More sign? They must be sooooooooooo ok with my regret and the fact that abortion hurt me.
They do follow their rules to a t though don’t they?
Never say the word BABY or CHILD. Never focus on the procedure or how it affects the blob. Never discuss what the abortionist does with the fetal parts.
Sigh.
“Goal of My Abortion, My Life is to shift conversation from language of politics to language of real women and men”
So… are they letting men share their thoughts on abortions now, or what? I thought men weren’t allowed to have an opinion on abortion since men don’t get pregnant, and therefore it obviously doesn’t affect men in any way, shape, or form… this constant tactic shift the pro-choice side does every five seconds is exhausting to keep up with.
Men are only allowed to have opinions on abortion if they are PROABORTION!
If men are prolife they are told they have no uterus. No uterus=no opinion.
So simple. So straightforward. LOL
Anti-choice. I am not anti-choice! I am a woman. Choice is my middle name! Why do you think I love shopping so much? I love making choices and shopping is all about that.
But I AM the morality police. I am also going to tell you its wrong to rape someone and beat your spouse and children. SHOCKING. How dare I, amirite? Hey, and robbing a bank is wrong too!
I was thinking how 40 years ago being gay was a shameful thing and it was kept very hush hush. But today gay people are not ashamed and are “out and proud”. Yet 40 years after Roe v. Wade abortion is STILL shameful. No one wants to buy their “I had an abortion” t-shirts. Why are some things de-stigmatized and others just never will be despite the persistent PR campaigns and trendy slogans?
this is like a convention of slave owners…..
They don’t care about the women…especially the ones who need LOVE AND SUPPORT and NOT ABORTION AS THE ANSWER…its all about the $$$$…they don’t care about the scared women!
I’m so not clicking on that…
There was an article on the Daily Mail, my favorite tabloid, about a lion that was slowly starving to death in Tanzania because it had a snare around its neck that was meant for another animal. I love animals and I knew looking at the pics would bother me but I did anyway. I was so upset I felt like crying. I prayed that God would end the suffering of one of his creatures. Maybe it’s silly, but yes, I pray for animals. So I’m not going to look at the poems, either!
@The Last Democrat — I guess you’re up from liberalism?
MY abortion MY life. Me Me Me I I I, I created you but I’M tired of you, you must die so I can live MY life in whatever way I want regardless of how it affects YOU!
I agree, Chris, I bet the stories portrayed will focus on the hard cases, but we all know that most abortions are done for social reasons. I wonder if this campaign will backfire.
Fascinating stuff, Jill! You’re a regular bloodhound when it comes to these types of things! Thanks for your efforts.
Uggh. The poetry contest winner teaches English at Cuyahoga Community College…where I went to school for awhile. It makes me sick to think that I walked the same halls as someone who advocates for the murder of children in the womb! BTW I was going there for their ultrasound program so that I can use the degree to show women that they aren’t aborting “a clump of cells”. Does she know that there is an ultrasound program there? Because ultrasound is going to whoop abortions a** by exposing it for what it is.
Hey Sarah I went there too. Which campus? I went to Parma
Preterm is one of the clinics I protest!!!!
Chris I agree with you! I am at a divide. Younger women and girls…or even older can be easily tricked into the “blob of tissue” lie. On the other hand if a woman is in her later 30s and having multiple abortions then I’d have to hold her accountable. However we must realize that satan has come to rob kill and destroy and this includes destruction of ALL MEN WOMEN and BABIES through abortion. In an abortion a baby always has to be dead. That is the service that is paid for. But grandparents moms and dads can ache a lifetime for that dead baby. I hope the tide will turn. What more can we do? And sad to say that after abortion women beat themselves up for a lifetime. My friend was 39 when she had hers. She was a nurse. She knew it was wrong the minute the abortion began and cried ” Can I see it?” The staff showed her the carnage perhaps hoping to ease her mind. She wasnt too far along but she cannot take it back. She aborted in 99 and I can tell you she is tormented about it. She felt she was too old. Abortion is forever.
my friend would give anything to have her aborted daughter back. She says ” I know i was a girl. I’ve had dreams and when I reach out to touch her shes gone.” She had 3 other kids …the youngest just moved out. She’d give back everything to have that kid back. I gave her the book “I’LL HOLD YOU IN HEAVEN” and she told me she has kept the ultrasound picture. She lamented “I’m comforted knowing she’s in heaven with my dad and grandparents.” What an awful way to live.
@Heather I went to the western campus in Parma also. That’s where the ultrasound program is located, but I am now going to Sanford Brown because there isn’t a 2 year wait list to get started in the core program! I just finished all my general requirements & start my core classes tomorrow. I can’t wait to start saving babies!
Sarah good for you!! I know a few people going to SB…I also went to the downtown campus.
Why is abortion stigmatised? Because it’s killing a baby! I don’t much care if the baby was conceived out of wedlock or whether the clinic is ‘free-standing’ or that abortion used to be illegal or that the mother is not living up to some ideal of womanhood that I don’t subscribe to and is none of my business to police anyway… I care about there is a tiny helpless person who shouldn’t be killed. That’s a darn sight more than an ick factor.