A national campaign to depict abortion as a normal and positive
experience has drawn criticism for overlooking the harm that abortion
causes to women and their unborn children.
“This campaign reinforces the political beliefs about the goodness of
abortion without giving women a chance to be honest about how they feel
about their abortion or their lost child,” said Tina Whittington,
executive vice president for Students for Life of America.
The problem with “encouraging women to fit into this mold that says 'I
am okay with my abortion and I feel no regrets,'” she told CNA on Oct.
30, is that “it takes away their rights to feel regret, loss or
sadness.”
“This is part of the reason why it takes women so long to seek help” for
counseling after an abortion, Whittington continued. Rather than
dealing with the pain they experience, women feel pressured to “stand
behind a message point.”
Ultimately, she said, the campaign tells women, “We don't care about
your complicated emotional or psychological health, all we care about is
getting this political agenda moved forward.”
Whittington responded to a nationwide effort to re-energize the abortion
movement in the U.S., led by Advocates for Youth and supported by other
groups including NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood
Federation of America and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive
Choice.
The campaign has involved the coordination of more than 130 events in
some 30 states and 100 college campus in order to promote abortion
access and oppose regulations on abortion.
At the center of the campaign is an effort to “destigmatize abortion and
promote access” by promoting stories showing abortion as a normal and
positive experience for women.
The initiative centers on the findings
from a 2011 survey from the Guttmacher Institute stating that 1 in 3
women in the United States would have an abortion by the age of 45.
However, pro-life advocates noted that the campaign fails to take into
account the stories of women who have had traumatic or negative
experiences from their abortions, nor does it mention the children who
were adopted after their mothers chose life in difficult and challenging
situations.
“Many of these 1 in 3 are deeply wounded and struggle daily with the
decision they made or were coerced into,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser,
president of Susan B. Anthony List.
Overlooking these stories is overlooking the well-being of these women, she said.
“This is just another example of how pro-abortion forces put the
institution of abortion above the wellbeing of individual women.”
Dannenfelser told CNA that “post-abortive women who speak out about
their experiences have been instrumental in encouraging other mothers to
choose life and winning hearts and minds to the pro-life cause.”
One of the rallies, held Oct. 28 in Washington, D.C., featured comments
from Advocates for Youth president Deb Hauser, who explained that “every
good story that mobilizes needs a villain.”
According to rally organizers, one of the purposes of the event was to
fight those who would “shame” women who have had abortions. A poem read
at the rally criticized individuals who pray near abortion clinics,
saying that they express “judgment” and oppose “freedom.”
Dannenfelser explained that the campaign is pushing for abortion to “be normalized in our society.”
But ultimately, she stressed, “the pro-life argument that there are two
unique people – a mother and a child – at the center of every abortion
decision will always win out.”