“Coming out”: Pro-choicers want women to talk about abortions
by Kelli
“People influence others with regard to all manner of things. In this situation, people who are supportive [of legal abortion] are hearing one thing, and people who are opposed to abortion are less likely to hear those stories,” Sarah Cowan, an assistant professor in NYU’s Department of Sociology and the study’s author, told The Huffington Post. “Public opinion on abortion has remained remarkably stable, and I’m proposing that one possible explanation for that stability is the way in which individuals talk about it.”
According to Cowan, however, it is not clear that if anti-abortion individuals begin to hear more personal stories from women around them, they will necessarily become more supportive of abortion rights. In fact, at least one woman in the survey said she had become increasingly anti-abortion in recent years, after hearing too many personal stories in which abortion was used as contraception.
“The jury’s still out about what would happen if there was a massive coming out campaign — if the veil was lifted and all of these secrets were revealed… but I anticipate that it would change,” Cowan said. “If someone really wanted to push me to say which direction I thought it would go in, I anticipate that it would swing more positive [toward abortion rights]. But that’s with a thousand grains of salt.”
~ Catherine Pearson, The Huffington Post, December 12
[Photo via mamamia.com.au]
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.
The abortion industry preys on the desire for secrecy. Many women would not be motivated to out themselves, causing speculation and suspicion that the abortion itself was supposed to hide.
Well, I became considerably more broad-minded about marriage after divorce after I… err… got divorced. And I became much more open-minded about, and accepting of, homosexuality after moving to a street in Brixton where we (a married couple) were a minority.
But when it comes to abortion, closer acquaintance with the issues made me MORE conservative. Expecting a child with Down’s Syndrome and having medical professionals offer to kill him on a regular basis brought into focus what a deranged and barbarous act it is.
Plenty of women have come out and talked about their abortions.
Problem is, they’re now pro-life. Pro-choicers want to pretend those women don’t exist, because those women, who were once exercising their free choice, now wish they hadn’t. They regret their abortions.
They hate the women with the “I Regret My Abortion” signs. They want them to shut up and go away. But the women who alter those signs to say “I *Don’t* Regret My Abortion”? Those are the only voices they want to hear.
They don’t really want to hear the stories of the women who now recognize the humanity of their children. They don’t really want to hear the stories of the women who were coerced. They don’t really want to hear the stories of the women who have nightmares about babies crying. And they don’t really want to hear about the women who have died or been harmed by their precious legal abortion.
Callousness toward life has a way of backfiring on people.
It doesn’t matter to me who I know has had an abortion. It doesn’t matter to me what their stories are. Whether they regret the abortion or don’t regret the abortion is inconsequential. The mother’s story or emotion regarding the death of her child does not change the fact that her child DIED. That her abortion killed a living human being.
I think Joshua said it best. Though I’ve seen homosexuality “coming out” go the other way a lot, someone finds out you’re not straight and you are ostracized. I don’t want women to feel ostracized or shamed, I want them to receive support and realize that the abortion wasn’t a good thing.
Abortion thrives in shame and secrecy. It fears the light.
Let us suppose that many post-abortive women come out with their stories to share with the public at large.
– Many women will admit that they regret their abortions.
– Many women will reveal how poorly they were treated by the abortion industry and the people who pressured them into abortion.
– Many stories will shock the public with shallow and selfish reasons for killing their children.
– Many stories of need and extreme circumstances will move the public hearts to ask, “How could we have helped this woman and her child?”
This “1 in 3” effort and similar programs are banking on their hope that the Culture of Death has penetrated deeply into our culture. They hope that many people will be sympathetic in the assumption that killing is a solution to any sort of problem. They imagine that the public will be sympathetic to the woman who solved her problems by killing the child.
It is a desperate gamble. Because the pro-life movement has been calling for this same conversation for a very long time. The abortioneers have finally decided to urge women to step out of the darkness and meet us in the light. I hope they will.
But real women don’t want to reveal themselves to the world. Even Cecile Richards takes care not to reveal much of her own story to Cosmo magazine.
I am afraid what we will get from any “coming out campaign” is nothing but shallow, echoy, pro-abortion spin no matter how massive it might be. And like so many other things they have tried…it too in time would fall by the wayside in failure. They’ll have to dig deeper and do better than the Cecile Richards barely there tidbit of a story to change any hearts on the subject. And that is where this strategy is flawed… Daylight reveals things hidden…
Pro-lifers could turn it round to a gain for the culture of life if we listen and responded in a sensible, sensitive, loving way to the witness of our brothers and sisters (flaws and all).
Personally, I yearn for real dialog on the subject. If they want to talk about genuine abortion experiences I won’t stand in the way. We should prepare by inclining the ear of our heart and be the thousand grains of salt we were meant to be.
And honestly, I find the comparison kinda offensive. Coming out as bisexual destroyed my life, I lost so many friends and people will never look at me as the same man I was. Coming out as having an abortion will change some opinions, but it’s a single part of you that doesn’t have to define you. Sexuality is something you cannot escape and you don’t get to be a normal human who made a mistake that people can forgive. You are something WRONG. It’s just not the same and they shouldn’t use the terminology.
This “coming out” campaign has been tried before. Can’t give you the exact dates but women were telling their “stories” in an effort to win more sympathy for abortion. I don’t know if it changed any minds.
Everything old is new again.
They already have “I Had An Abortion” t-shirts.
If their campaign is successful, those shirts will be flying off the shelves, I’m sure.