Roe Day

On this thirty-fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, tens of thousands of people will demonstrate in Washington D.C. and throughout the country. In many places, profoundly opposed groups will face off--to one side, signs with "Keep Your Laws Off My Body" and to the other, "Abortion Kills Children." The majority of people in both groups will be women; many of them have, like over a third of American women of childbearing age (estimates vary from thirty-five to forty-three percent), experienced at least one abortion.

I presume that post-abortive women demonstrating on both sides find it empowering and healing to gather with a supportive community and publicly proclaim the views formed by their own experiences with this intense and personal choice. I am concerned, though, about the effects of these demonstrations on other women who have had difficult or ambivalent abortion experiences. After Abortion had a powerful post yesterday from the perspective of a Catholic, pro-life woman who very much regrets her own abortion. Annie urges pro-life activists to never attack women as baby-killers, and especially to avoid graphic pictures, arguing that they will further traumatize women who feel shame and pain about their abortions, preventing them from speaking of their experience and seeking desired assistance. Some pro-choice signs, analogously, insult and invalidate the experience of the many women who find abortion a desperate and distasteful choice, not an empowering one. (E.g. "Not Every Ejaculation Deserves A Last Name," "Make Love Not Babies," and "Euthanize Christians"--all seen by Annie at a protest, and discussed in an earlier post criticizing hate speech from both sides).

There will also be appropriate signs held today, which I would like to see more of--for instance, "Pro-Choice, Pro-Child" on one side and "Abortion Exploits Women," and "I Regret My Abortion" on the other. That might make it safe for those in the opposing groups, the large ambivalent group caught between them, and above all, women who are seeking to work through their own experiences of abortion to cross the picket lines and start a healing and respectful conversation.