More than 60,000 women
The background on #ShoutYourAbortion, from last week.
Campaigners Lindy West, Amelia Bonow and Kimberly Morrison started the hashtag “#ShoutYourAbortion” on Twitter on Friday [September 18].
The phrase exploded over the weekend around the world, trending across the US, Australia and Europe. More than 60,000 women explained their decision to get an abortion.
Here are a few tweets:
Feminist Wire @thefeministwire 3 hours ago
A Love Note to Women Who’ve Had Voluntary Abortions http://www.thefeministwire.com/2015/09/a-love-note-to-women-whove-had-voluntary-abortions/#.VgmVycz4Q8w.twitter … #ShoutYourAbortionKatha Pollitt @KathaPollitt Sep 25
Abortion haters, pls read this woman’s story of choosing to end catastrophic wanted pregnancy. #shoutyourabortion http://tinyurl.com/nzjke92Victoria Brownworth @VABVOX Sep 22
Men have no voice in a woman’s bodily autonomy.
So all the men tweeting me?
Stay in your lane.
#ShoutYourAbortion
The Independent continues:
The campaigners were motivated to start the campaign after the US House of Representatives controversially voted to remove federal funding for Planned Parenthood (an American medical institution dispensing free contraceptive advice).
The Facebook group has attracted more than 3,000 likes so far but as the hasttag took off, many anti-abortion and pro-life supporters attempted to derail the tag, with many social media users condemning the women for their tweets and posts.
Of course they did. Women don’t matter, it’s only their pregnancies that matter.
Ms Bonow told Buzzfeed she first posted on Facebook about her experience of receiving an abortion “on a whim” but also in order to “vocally align myself with Planned Parenthood”.
It took me a couple of readings to realize she *posted* about her abortion *on a whim” not, she posted about *her abortion “on a whim”*. I was so angry at first, assuming Bonow must be a fake identity used by an anti-choice person trying to spread myths about irresponsible women.
The multiple ways of constructing sentences in English: sometimes our friend, sometimes our foe.
Nobody gets to legislate what might count as a ‘whim’ in someone else’s life. Women are regularly impregnated ‘on a whim.’ But almost never on THEIR ‘whim.’ ‘Whim Prevention’ is the basis of dozens of laws designed to harass and intimidate women who need to end pregnancies.
Still uncomfortable with the notion of abortion used as birth control for women who are denied access to less invasive means, and may not have any control over their own bodies. Also the vast number of women forced to abort girls in places like India and China.
But those reservations have NOTHING to do with the fundamental right to the possession of one’s own body. They should not be dragged in as emotional ‘triggers’ in discussions about, or rants against, Planned Parenthood.
#2 as an example of #1, above. Or am I too reading poorly? ;-)
Ritin’ is soo haard, someone once said. I think, or maybe memory is Palin’.