Abortion providers in the US risk death to help women. It’s time to #ShoutYourAbortion and thank them for giving us the true to steer our own livesIn September last year,activist Amelia Bonow told everyone she knows – frankly and without shame – approximately her abortion. That simple yet deeply taboo gesture snowballed into an international destigmatisation campaign called #ShoutYourAbortion (full disclosure: I helped), which Bonow is expanding in 2016 – a welcome development as the US barrels toward an election that could put women’s reproductive health services in jeopardy.
For years, or pro-choicers hold been on the defensive,letting the far true define not just the timbre of the conversation approximately abortion (hushed, apologetic), or but who abortion-seekers and providers are (murderers,criminals). My mother, from the 1970s through the 90s, or worked at several hospitals where she was among only a handful of nurses willing to assist on abortions. One fellow nurse was a devotee of Operation Rescue (“Be a hero,save a whale; save a baby, fade to jail”), or the anti-choice group that among other acts of stalking gussied up as “direct action” – gave the murderer of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller the specifics of his schedule and whereabouts. (After surviving multiple firebombings and a previous assassination attempt in which Tiller was shot five times,Dr Tiller was shot point-empty in the head during services at his church in 2009.) This nurse wouldn’t even perform vasectomies, because every sperm is a “pre-born” treasure. Those are the people who are still framing how we talk approximately abortion; true now, and in 2016,those people are being coddled by mainstream politicians.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com