The Safe Abortion Project

The other day, Steph Herold (founder of IAmDrTiller.com) released the Safe Abortion Project, a response to the recent Kermit Gosnell case. The message is clear: women deserve better than Gosnell and there are not nearly as many Gosnells in abortion care as antis would like you to think.

Women went to Gosnell's clinic for a reason. Some went to him because he was less expensive. Others went to him because it allowed them to dodge restrictive abortion laws. Some simply did not know about the awful conditions at the clinic. One of the clinic workers in the video makes a great point; had this been any other kind of medical facility, people would know not to go there. Why? Because with (almost) any other type of surgery or treatment, people will freely speak about their experiences. If a person has a bad experience at a clinic, they will tell people. They will go to their friends, their family, and even the internet to get the message out that you should not go to this clinic. This is not true for abortion. Women are shamed into silence. Women do not feel welcome to tell their friends, family, and the internet about their positive or negative abortion experiences if they please. Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures, yet no one speaks of it.


I implore Herold and the other people who are working on this project. Not only will this project raise awareness that most providers are not like Gosnell, but it will also help women find safe clinics to receive abortion care so they do not end up in the same position that Gosnell's patients were. The six principles of the Safe Abortion Project really say it all:

1. Historically, women will do whatever it takes to end a pregnancy they feel they cannot carry to term, including risk their lives.
2. If full insurance coverage for abortion were available, poor women and girls would not have to settle for the least expensive medical care.
3. Until abortion services in the United States are fully accessible to poor women, women will be vulnerable to those who seek to exploit their poverty with unsafe practices.
4. In a nation where more than 1 in 3 women will have an abortion at some point in her life, the culture of silent shame that surrounds the decision to end a pregnancy allows those who would provide poor quality and sometimes dangerous care to thrive.
5. Until abortion services are affordable and accessible to all women who need care, women will continue to be vulnerable to exploitation and harm by those who offer substandard, dangerous care.
6. Strict laws limiting women and girls’ safe access to abortion care does nothing to protect women.

Thank you so much, Steph, for doing this!

Engaging: Is It Really Helpful?

I watched part of the "Open Hearts Open Minds" conference earlier. "Open Hearts Open Minds" is a conference featuring both pro-choicers and anti-choicers, and its goal is to find "common ground" and to "bridge the abortion divide" between the two movements. It got me thinking about different methods of activism, and whether or not engaging with antis is really even worth it.

They way I channel my passion for equal rights has changed drastically in the past few years. I used to spend my time arguing with people who believed that women shouldn't have the right to vote (yes, those people are still around). I eventually moved more towards fighting against gender roles, and after that I really focused on reproductive rights. Throughout all of these "phases", I'd engage with those on the other side. I used to spend a lot of energy doing that. I used to argue with antis pretty much non-stop. You see, I've found that arguing with antis, particularly anti-choice activists, is a lot like arguing with people who don't believe in a woman's right to vote. Their beliefs tend to be extreme and their minds tend to be absolutely dead set on staying the way they are. Their arguments tend to be very focused on sexist beliefs and insults. Whether I'm debating with the person who believes that women shouldn't have the right to vote or with the person who believes that women shouldn't have bodily autonomy, I've found that these discussions usually go absolutely nowhere.


There are exceptions, of course. There is always the possibility that you'll come across a fence sitter, or even an anti-choice activist who is willing to listen and whose heart may be changed. Now, of the anti-choice activists I've spoken with, I've found maybe two who were actually pleasant to speak to, so if I were ever to go back to the "engage with everyone" type of activism, I wouldn't get my hopes up on finding activist antis to engage with. However, I have the utmost respect for my fellow reproductive justice warriors who do have the time and energy to try to reach out to antis, even those who seem too far away to reach out to.


Attempting discussion with people who obviously do not want to discuss takes time and energy which is, to me, better spent trying to help women in more direct ways. I have found that channeling my energy more towards types of activism that don't involve engaging with antis directly gets more work done. However, this is not true for all pro-choice activists. Some of my activist friends choose to engage with seemingly hopeless antis. I say, all the more power to them. We need all types of activism in the pro-choice movement. Each activist has his or her strengths and weaknesses, and we should utilize these individual strengths to the best of our abilities. There are so many different types of activism, and I don't find it helpful to label some types "better" than other types. It's hard for someone like me to imagine, but hey, maybe engaging with antis really is useful, so why not use that to our advantage?

Abortion Gang: Where My Heart Is

For those of you who don't know, the Abortion Gang is a group of young women (and maybe men? I don't know all of them yet ;)) who blog about reproductive justice. We're here to show the world that young women do care about reproductive rights, and that we're not just sitting here idly while our rights are taken away.

If you have time, check out my new post for the Abortion Gang. It's about how my heart is in reproductive rights, and why I'm so dedicated to repro rights. There are a lot of great posts and great bloggers on the Abortion Gang, so you should check out the other posts, too!