Over the weekend, the hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion went viral on Twitter.
In response to US Republican efforts to defund abortion provider Planned Parenthood, thousands of women, mostly in the United States, shared their abortion experiences.
The campaign is simple: women ‘come out’, unapologetically, as having had an abortion. In doing so, they refuse to be stigmatised for decisions that were theirs to make.
I have spent the last 12 years heavily involved in reproductive rights campaigning across the world, including as an aid worker.
I have been involved in hundreds of campaigns and lobbying efforts. I think that the #shoutyourabortion campaign breaks new ground. It is powerful, it is necessary, and I believe that, if expanded, it could provide us with a way of talking about the issue of abortion that is no longer rooted in shame, stigma, and control of women’s bodies.
Here are three reasons why this is about so much more than abortion – and why I believe that #shoutyourabortion could be game-changing.
1. When abortion is illegal, EVERY pregnant woman is unsafe.
The criminalisation of abortion relies on a fundamental premise: the belief that a society – in particular, lawmakers – has the right to control a woman’s body.
In America, this has already led to the criminalisation of pregnant women. In the last few years, a flood of laws have been passed in Republican-controlled states which criminalise pregnant women who drink alcohol, take drugs, attempt suicide or do other activities deemed to harm their fetuses. While drug-taking and drinking can certainly damage unborn children significantly, evidence shows that criminalising pregnant women, instead of helping them to manage their addictions, is completely counter-productive.
Top Comments
In 'first world' countries like Australia and America, with near unlimited access (rural can be more difficult) to every type of contraception available, why is our abortion rate so high!? Don't get me wrong, I am pro choice. But I happen to think that education about contraception isn't at the level it shoukd be, with plenty of younger people that I know having the attitude of 'oh, I'll just have an abortion' 'ru486 is just like a period anyway".
Condoms, the pill, mini pill, depo provera, implanon, diaphragms, IUD...the options are there, but it seems just not being utilised. The amount if abortions being performed I are not all 'contraceptive failure' or 'foetal abnormality' or even from sexual assault. I'm not advocation reduced choices, just accessing the options already available and taking adult responsibility for our reproductive health. Abortion is a medical procedure with risks after all.
Australia maybe, america, no women are being shoved back to dark ages cos of religios nuts
But anyway abortion is a medical procedure, taking responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy
Education on contraception needs much improvement, totally agree on that
I don't know about that. If you consider that no contraceptive is 100% effective, a sexually active woman having 1 abortion in a lifetime seems quite reasonable. Even if your chosen method of contraception is 99.9% effective, statistically, 1 out of every 1,000 sexual encounters will result in pregnancy. Say there's 5 fertile days of your 13 cycles annually, 15 years of sex from 18 to 33 should, statistically, result in one pregnancy when using contraceptive that is 99.9% effect, which may well be unwanted and result in an abortion.
As someone who takes my contraceptive religiously and does not want children this is a scary fact but a fact none the less.
That's not how statistical chance (probability) works. If the contraceptive is 99.9% effective, every time you have sex will have a chance of 0.1% of falling pregnant due to contraceptive failure. Whether you have sex once or a million times, the probability remains the same.
After 4 kids and then youngest being only 6 months old and my husband working away from home long term we chose to have an abortion. It was our choice. And the right one for us. But unfortunately because of close family members views we have kept it quiet. Please don't criticize me for keeping it quiet as that is the same as those who would criticize me for having the abortion. Our choice - noone elses business.