WHEN SECURITY IS YOUR DEFAULT SETTING:

The Loneliness and Shame of the Abortion Patient (Carole Joffe and Kate Cosby, May 26, 2007, AlterNet)

"I think that people should be held accountable for their actions and a lot of times it's the convenience of the situation that makes it easy ... to get an abortion and if I wasn't the person that I was, I mean this would be real easy for me, just real simple. ..."

Jessie is a 23 year old woman, the mother of two children, having her third abortion. Her comments are drawn from a small interview study (16 women interviewed thus far) we are conducting to understand the impact of state-imposed regulations on women having abortions in two highly regulated states. In our talks with Jessie and other women, we uncovered a striking sense of isolation among many abortion patients. Rather than expressing solidarity with others experiencing unwanted pregnancies, nearly all our respondents took pains to distinguish themselves as different from other women getting abortions.

Though there were some expressions of sympathy, we also heard disparaging remarks about women who were too careless about contraception and were obtaining abortions too "easily." "I am a Christian," one woman said, "I am not doing this casually" -- with the clear suggestion that others in the waiting room were not so thoughtful or moral. Perhaps the starkest example of isolation came in one woman's response to the question of whether she would "ever consider being part of a group that supports people who get abortions?" Her answer was an emphatic "no!" As she put it, "I wouldn't support them [other abortion recipients] because ... it [might become] a habit for everyone." The speaker is a 20 year old mother of one, who was about to have her second abortion.

The situation we describe is very different from the one that existed in the United States in the 1970s, around the time of legalization of abortion. Then, many women seeking abortions felt part of a larger movement. "Second wave" feminism was flourishing and women's health issues were a central focus of the movement. People still had fresh memories of when abortion was illegal and thousands of women died and many more were injured from unsafe abortions. Rather than being ashamed, many abortion patients of the pre- Roe v Wade era recall feeling entitled to having this once dangerous procedure done in a professional and women-centered setting.

Once they get past the phase where abortion is the ultimate demonstration of their new power, women are likely to be opponents of abortion.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 12, 2007 12:00 AM