Next time you go to the clinic....

I was lucky, in that when I decided to become sexually active and needed to go to my local Planned Parenthood, I never had to deal with protesters. My local PP doesn't perform abortions, and thus is skipped over by the prolife leaders.

However, I've heard stories- plenty of horror stories- and they often include prolifers handing out propaganda (termed "literature" by their side). It got me thinking- why don't we hand out literature?

I know there are people who are going to the clinic not for an abortion, but for things like birth control, STD testing, pap smears, etc. Why not next time you're due for an appointment, print out some literature before you go? When an anti comes up to you and offers you what they have, ask to trade. You can easily throw out the pamphlet inside if you don't want to read it/ keep it.

I don't know if it would do any good- the people outside the clinics are probably beyond reasoning with. At the least, maybe they'll get mixed up and hand out OUR material instead of their own. =)

Regret after Abortion: The Prochoice Perspective

Regret. It's an awful feeling. There are a lot of reasons for people to regret doing something. And there are a lot of events, activities, choices and actions that people regret. But what about abortion?

Prolife likes to shout from the roof tops that women regret abortion. Prochoice loves to quickly counter with the idea that most women do not regret their abortion (Phew).

However, this is sort of an unintentional cover up. Even if most women don't regret, that means there are some women who do regret their abortion. As prochoicers, we should be able to address that.

There are many reasons why a woman might regret her abortion, including:
1. She was forced to abort.
2. She thought abortion was murder, but had an abortion anyway.
3. She wanted to keep the pregnancy, but aborted for someone's reasons.
4. She was coerced to abort (by threats from a boyfriend, from her parents, etc).
5. She wasn't fully informed.
6. She made a choice that didn't work out for her.


And many more. Some are simple reasons, some are not. Some are reasons that could have been avoided, some are not. But for whatever reason, the woman regrets her choice.

We must be able to point out that regret is not the end of the world. There are more women who suffer postpartum depression after labor than women who regret after an abortion, but we would never say that we should stop getting pregnant and having babies on a species scale. Just because someone regrets something, does not make that something inherently evil. For example:

Say I have a car, but my job is three blocks away. So I decide to sell the car. Two weeks after the car is sold, I am promoted and moved to district headquarters, which is a half hour drive away. Suddenly, I regret selling my car.

- Was selling my car inherently evil or bad? No.
- Was selling my car the wrong choice at the time? Not necessarily.
- Should I tell everyone else to stop selling their cars, just because I regretting selling mine? Absolutely not!


Now obviously, selling a car and abortion have their differences. But the point is that regret is a legitimate feeling after having an abortion (or a baby, or adoption) and people should be able to find help and healing after any of these experiences without trying to terrorize other people.

So next time prolife says "women regret abortion!" say "Here's an excellent group that can help her find healing: http://www.4exhale.org/