If this diary is a duplication of another diary, I apologize up front. I did do a search beforehand.
There's an article in the New York Times today about #shoutyourabortion on Twitter:
It began as a challenge on the Internet: Shout your abortion.
The goal, according to Amelia Bonow, 30, who posted on Facebook on Sept. 19 that she had had an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Seattle last year, was to encourage women who had kept their abortions secret to speak up — in an effort to reframe the debate on the subject.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
The Times takes its usual "balanced" approach and matter-of-factly reports the death threats the women who have tweeted received, as if it's all to be expected and not really a big deal. There's a lot of "he said she said," as though the views on each side are equivalent. Same old, same old from the media.
What truly bothered me were the comments.
Sure, there are the usual pro-forced birth cranks wailing about "the babies" that you expect to accompany these kinds of articles. That's like wallpaper to me as this point. It's just people mindlessly spouting slogans their priest or pastor told them because they're too warped by right-wing religion or too unintelligent or intellectually lazy to think for themselves.
What bothered me more was the "I'm pro-choice, but . . . " or "I support Planned Parenthood, but . . . " comments that then went on to condemn using abortion as birth control or other such nonsense and basically continued the shaming of the women courageous enough to come forward and state that they had had an abortion.
As is my wont, I started to respond to each of these kinds of comments, which I view as comments by people who should know better. When I realized there were enough of them to make that difficult, I stepped back and decided to write a generic comment. Given that the Times bends over backwards to cater to the pro-forced birth side, I'm guessing, despite my highly editing what I really wanted to say, it won't get past the Times approval process. So, I thought I'd publish it here. I look forward to any discussion it may generate.
I applaud the women coming forward at this hashtag. The political discussion on abortion will never evolve into something based on rationality and reality until we acknowledge that the women who have abortions are family, friends and neighbors and not immoral monsters.
And for those of you who don't like abortion? Well, for one thing, don't have one. Hypocrisy is rarely an effective sales pitch. For another, do something that actually works, like supporting comprehensive sex education for children, readily available, effective birth control, and a strong social safety net so women don't have abortions because of finances. Standing outside an abortion clinic shouting and waving a sign, or calling a woman a baby killer on twitter may make you feel morally superior, but reality (oh, that nasty word again) shows it's never stopped a single abortion.
Why are traffic fatalities down over the last few decades? Because we've morally excoriated drivers to be more safe? Nope. It's because of seat belts and air bags. Let's take this discussion out the realm of rampant moralizing and get it grounded in facts. It might actually change something.