Remember, you are only allowed to speak out about your abortion if you say you regret it.
Worldwide, roughly 43 million women have an abortion each year. Yet these same women face stigma, a form of social control used to dehumanize, devalue, and isolate them. Providers are grappling with effective ways to reduce abortion stigma.
We should understand women who have had multiple abortions through their individual life experiences rather than judging them based on their pregnancy history.
We know what we think about the Hyde Amendment. But what do women who are on Medicaid, the very people who are most affected by Hyde, think about the restrictions it places on their insurance coverage?
When we rely on a relief/regret dichotomy to define women’s emotional experiences after their abortions, we leave little room for the complexity inherent in women’s reproductive lives.
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The current buzz within the abortion rights movement seems to be that we need to take a lesson from the gay rights movement – that people need to start “coming out” with their abortion stories. But we should remember with all of the culture change that the LGBTQ community has seen, stigma and violence are still perpetrated every day.
With plenty of life left to live before becoming a mother, Leah Berkenwald finds comfort in her ability to choose abortion if she became pregnant today. Eventually, she’ll have children, but not yet. Not until she’s truly ready.
Abortion stigma worldwide has remained largely undocumented and unaddressed for years. That is changing. A handful of women’s rights and research groups are embarking on what is conceivably the next frontier of global safe abortion efforts – tracking, documenting and studying abortion stigma around the world.
There is absolutely nothing wrong, or necessarily tragic, unfortunate, or sad about a woman choosing to get an abortion. Nothing. And here’s why.
