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 Posté le: Mer Sep 04, 2013 3:20 am Sujet du message: Abortion tell-alls are a trap: Timson |
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{Abortion tell-alls are a trap: Timson}
Photos View gallery zoom Featured VideoClose More Video Feast-Cold Corn Soup When I was pregnant, I got a phone call from the doctor who had presided over my amniocentesis. He told me the fetus had tested abnormal — an inverted chromosome. My throat constricted. I asked what that meant, but he sidestepped the question. What he wanted, he said, was for my husband and me to immediately be tested, because if one of us was carrying that inverted chromosome, “this wouldn’t be an issue.” My husband and I told no one about this call — not our parents, not our siblings, not our closest friends. We knew instinctively we wanted complete privacy to make whatever decisions we had to make. It turned out that one of us was carrying the chromosome. So instead of a wrenching scenario involving grave abnormalities or a decision to terminate, we ended up with a healthy baby and a family story with a “whew” ending. I thought about this recently watching the Texas filibuster fracas over limiting abortion after 20 weeks . (Most abortions take place before 20 weeks.) Punitive new laws are being enacted in the United States that make it mandatory for a woman who wants an abortion to undergo an ultrasound. She doesn’t have to look, but the doctor is legally mandated to tell her what it shows. In some states, there’s been a gradual shuttering of abortion clinics. RELATED: Abortion bill filibustered by Wendy Davis is approved on second try in Texas Consequently, there is a renewed effort on the part of pro-choice activists to get women to come forward and tell their abortion stories. In “My Mother’s Abortion,” an op-ed piece published in the New York Times this week , writer Beth Matusoff Merfish detailed how,longchamp le pliage, as a student in 1972, her mother chose to abort her first pregnancy. “What the movement for reproductive rights needs is for the faces of freedom to emerge from the captivity of shame,” Merfish urged. There are several Twitter projects to this effect. On #ihadanabortion you can read: “I’m not sorry. It enabled me to protect the kids I already had. Or: “I am a Muslim woman and I chose to have an abortion.” Or: “build support, break stigma.” As an ardent pro-choicer, I like the boldness and brevity of Twitter exhortations but I’m wary of the premise that women have to “come out of the clinic” to justify their abortions. The right to terminate a pregnancy should be protected by law without women having to give up an essential part of that right — privacy. No matter how moving your story is, many will argue your abortion was unnecessary and evil and you’re a murderer. Abortion stories don’t seem to change the minds of opponents. If anything, they harden their stances. What about applying the argument used in the LGBT rights movement that attitudes change only when people become aware that their neighbour, or friend, or friend’s daughter has had an abortion? Yet abortion isn’t like being gay. It’s about a circumstance, not a biological destiny. That’s the whole point. The women I know who have had abortions are not ashamed of a difficult choice they made, but they don’t revel in it either. I asked a friend whether she would talk about it. “Absolutely not,” she said. “This is a story with a lot of pain and even after all these years, few people know.” Most women who choose an abortion don’t do so because they’ve been raped or because of severe fetal abnormalities, she continued. “They do it for the same reason I did. It just was not the right time or circumstance in which to be pregnant.” Anne Rochon Ford, executive director of the Canadian Women’s Health Network , says that while she “wholeheartedly” agrees about the privacy issue, at a time in which reproductive freedom in some parts is slipping away, “getting women to tell their stories is a way of challenging the misconception that ‘no one we know’ would ever have an abortion.” Well that part is true. You would be amazed at who has had an abortion. You can bet that includes wives, girlfriends, mistresses and daughters of those myriad male legislators who vote to close one more clinic, and who, like Texas Governor Rick Perry, promise he won’t “make it easy” for women to get help. How about impossible? I’ve always liked Hillary Clinton’s stance that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” But let’s continue to enshrine “private” as well. Women and men should fight for reproductive freedom. Of course women can speak out about their abortion if they wish. But they shouldn’t feel obligated to do so. Ain’t nobody’s business but theirs. Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson When I was pregnant, I got a phone call from the doctor who had presided over my amniocentesis. He told me the fetus had tested abnormal — an inverted chromosome. My throat constricted. I asked what that meant, but he sidestepped the question. What he wanted, he said, was for my husband and me to immediately be tested, because if one of us was carrying that inverted chromosome, “this wouldn’t be an issue.”My husband and I told no one about this call — not our parents, not our siblings, not our closest friends. We knew instinctively we wanted complete privacy to make whatever decisions we had to make.It turned out that one of us was carrying the chromosome. So instead of a wrenching scenario involving grave abnormalities or a decision to terminate, we ended up with a healthy baby and a family story with a “whew” ending.I thought about this recently watching the Texas filibuster fracas over limiting abortion after 20 weeks . (Most abortions take place before 20 weeks.) Punitive new laws are being enacted in the United States that make it mandatory for a woman who wants an abortion to undergo an ultrasound. She doesn’t have to look, but the doctor is legally mandated to tell her what it shows. In some states, there’s been a gradual shuttering of abortion clinics.RELATED: Abortion bill filibustered by Wendy Davis is approved on second try in TexasConsequently, there is a renewed effort on the part of pro-choice activists to get women to come forward and tell their abortion stories.In “My Mother’s Abortion,” an op-ed piece published in the New York Times this week , writer Beth Matusoff Merfish detailed how, as a student in 1972, her mother chose to abort her first pregnancy. “What the movement for reproductive rights needs is for the faces of freedom to emerge from the captivity of shame,” Merfish urged.There are several Twitter projects to this effect. On #ihadanabortion you can read: “I’m not sorry. It enabled me to protect the kids I already had. Or: “I am a Muslim woman and I chose to have an abortion.” Or: “build support, break stigma.”As an ardent pro-choicer, I like the boldness and brevity of Twitter exhortations but I’m wary of the premise that women have to “come out of the clinic” to justify their abortions.The right to terminate a pregnancy should be protected by law without women having to give up an essential part of that right — privacy.No matter how moving your story is, many will argue your abortion was unnecessary and evil and you’re a murderer. Abortion stories don’t seem to change the minds of opponents. If anything, they harden their stances.What about applying the argument used in the LGBT rights movement that attitudes change only when people become aware that their neighbour, or friend, or friend’s daughter has had an abortion? Yet abortion isn’t like being gay. It’s about a circumstance, not a biological destiny. That’s the whole point.The women I know who have had abortions are not ashamed of a difficult choice they made, but they don’t revel in it either. I asked a friend whether she would talk about it. “Absolutely not,longchamp sale,” she said. “This is a story with a lot of pain and even after all these years, few people know.”Most women who choose an abortion don’t do so because they’ve been raped or because of severe fetal abnormalities, she continued. “They do it for the same reason I did. It just was not the right time or circumstance in which to be pregnant.”Anne Rochon Ford, executive director of the Canadian Women’s Health Network , says that while she “wholeheartedly” agrees about the privacy issue, at a time in which reproductive freedom in some parts is slipping away, “getting women to tell their stories is a way of challenging the misconception that ‘no one we know’ would ever have an abortion.”Well that part is true. You would be amazed at who has had an abortion. You can bet that includes wives, girlfriends, mistresses and daughters of those myriad male legislators who vote to close one more clinic, and who, like Texas Governor Rick Perry, promise he won’t “make it easy” for women to get help. How about impossible?I’ve always liked Hillary Clinton’s stance that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” But let’s continue to enshrine “private” as well. Women and men should fight for reproductive freedom. Of course women can speak out about their abortion if they wish. But they shouldn’t feel obligated to do so. Ain’t nobody’s business but theirs.Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson |
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