[lbo-talk] i'm sorry as can be

[Stephen Philion]

It also depends what you mean by "have to" get an abortion, or "reasons". My
guess is that most women don't "have to" in the sense that many people would
understand that phrasing: they are not thirteen years old, pregnant by
incest or rape, sleeping on the sidewalk or mentally incapable of raising a
child.  I think by framing it as an unfortunate necessity, something people
"have to" do, we're missing the experience of most people, and making it
sound as if abortion is shameful and requires a "reason," some sort of
extenuating circumstance. I don't think it should. People aren't expected to
have a "reason" for having children, a much more serious undertaking in my
book, and one with a far greater impact on the larger world.

--this is one of the oddities of the pro-choice movement, it hasn't hammered
away into the public consciousness just who has abortions and why, real
people in real life, in response to the anti-choice movement.  I think
especially of the recent go around with the 'late term' abortion ban.  I
would think a huge PR campaign simply introducing woman after woman after
woman who has had a late term abortion and the reasons why would end the
power of the anti-choice lobby to define the issue in purely relgious and
bizarrely moral terms.  one or two examples is probably more than enough for
the average American to realise the issue is a no-brainer.