The same, but so different

I found out yesterday that a friend's pregnancy has ended sadly. Her first ultrasound revealed cause for concerns, and unfortunately on a repeat procedure, no fetal heart beat was found. Her loss reminds me of my own miscarriage, and how devastatingly sad that time was.

However, having now also had an abortion I cannot help but also refract my response through that lens as well. She will undergo a D and C, the identical procedure to my abortion, although no one refers to as an abortion when the procedure is performed after fetal demise. Why is that? Why is the medical procedure perceived so different under various circumstances?

when a bumper sticker is apparently not enough

so just in case your "ILuvL1F" personalized license plate or bumper sticker "it's not a choice it's a child" is not sufficient to covey your anti abortion beliefs, in eighteen states efforts are underway for you to be able to purchase an anti-abortion license plate. Not surprisingly the idea has caused some controversy and a variety of legal cases are winding their way through the courts, as detailed in this article on Salon.com. I am firm supporter of civil liberties, so I hope that the viewpoint of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court prevails, states can offer anti abortion plates if they offer pro abortion plates as well.

What I find particularly interesting about this issue is not the First Amendment rights at stake, although they are fairly fascinating from an intellectual perspective but rather that pro choice people would probably never want a license plate that announces their beliefs. In my other online connections to abortion rights activists there is a fairly prevalent fear of the anti abortion crazies, the ones who stalk abortion providers and attack, even murder them. There seems something ironic about the other side, which purports to defend life relying ultimately on a rhetoric and reality of fear and intimidation. The disproportionate influence of the violent faction of the anti abortion movement has a deleterious impact on the literally millions of women in the United States who have had abortions and fear for their safety if they speak publicly about them.

Earn money for abortion from Pro-Life sites

So I signed up for ads on this site, planning to donate the money to my local abortion clinic.

I had to laugh when I saw today that the ad on the site is for pro-life products.

How ironic.

It reminds me of the frequent planned parenthood fundraiser where pro choice advocates pledge a certain amount for every abortion clinic protesters who shows up :)

Ask your doctor if ...

the U.K. has decided to allow televised adverts for abortion. The ads might have the affect of de-stigmatizing the procedure and make women aware of their options as the unplanned pregnancy rate is on the rise.

I wonder if it could ever happen in the U.S.? After all if 1 in 3 women have an abortion, then clearly there is a "market." I cannot imagine competitive marketing of abortion services, like hospitals compete for maternity patients, but I would love to see the public acknowledgment of the large number of women who use abortion services.

And hey given the new non surgical abortion methods, perhaps we will see an "ask your doctor if you are a candidate for ..."

forced out of silence

yesterday I faced one of those dreaded moments, when the topic of abortion comes up completely unexpectedly. Normally I would have just let it go, but it was just impossible this time. A good friend, who I knew was anti-abortion, at least for herself, was over for a playdate. As we pushed her baby in the swing, she told me about a friend's unexpected pregnancy. Her incredulity that any well educated woman could find herself in such a situation simply begged for correction. I just sort of blurted it out "That operation I had in January? It was an abortion."

I wish I could have been more composed and pointed out that contraceptive failures or ignorance about efficacy rates crosses educational, class, religious and all divisions among women. Equality it seems has at least been achieved in one area of women's lives.

and the silence is still deafening

As Amy Benfer pointed out in recent Slate column, while half of unplanned pregnancies end in abortion, the stories of those women are seldom included. The latest omission occured in this months's issue of Self. While the article title "Single, pregnant and panicked" may resonate with many women, since half of women by the age of 45 will experience an unwanted pregnancy, only women who chose adoption will find their experiences reflected in this analysis. Abortion is mentioned only twice, once as an option suggested by an insensitive male partner, and the other as a near miss, when in a scenario that I am sure has already been snapped up for a movie pitch, a woman planning an abortion calls it off the night before when her older, infertile sister, offers to adopt the fetus.

"these fights will be every bit as ugly as the preceding fights over abortion."

the quote comes from an article about the efforts of the Georgia state legislature to craft a bill that will preclude embryo research while still allowing for IVF. The difficulty comes in the language of the bill, which right now gives infertile couples the right to IVF, but pretty much no one else, including those people who wish to use IVF for other purposes, such as genetic screening or sex selection.

Maybe all the infertile couples, carriers of genetic disorders, couples desirous of very specific characteristics in their children should band together with the people working to protect the right to legal abortion. The "other side" is the same, the pro-life lobby, and the argument is the same, who has the right to control reproductive choices.