Reply #128: 'zactly

[iverglas]

The experience belongs to the woman whose experience it is, and it is hers to define.

Because of this, women can't talk openly about how glad they were to have one, how it enabled them to go to college, take a job, do some research, get some award, get away from a bad marriage, move out of some town and eventually meet the love of their life, etc. or whatever good might have come out of it

I think the discussion would open up considerably if someone like Barbara Boxer or (insert name of respected female here) could say "I had an abortion and I'm glad. I wouldn't want my life to be any other way."

Absolutely exactly. Or even DUer123, on more personal levels. We can all be one another's role model and source of understanding.

But since we have agreed that abortions are shameful, embarrassing, a last resort, etc., we can't do that.

And a woman who *doesn't* feel that way can't talk about how she does feel, because her experience has already been defined as shameful in the mind of the listener, and her own image will be diminished in that listener's mind no matter how she tries to express her own experience.

This makes it hard for women to speak publicly and privately about their own experience, and even to "speak to" themselves about it.

So yes, as compared to just about any other disadvantaged group, women are at an extra disadvantage in this instance, in talking about their own experience, something that is necessary to do for a number of reasons, both personal and political. Funny how we so often get that dual burden ...

And experience that is common to huge numbers of women -- and if the experience of unwanted pregnancy regardless of outcome is counted in, approaching an overwhelming majority of women -- is not shared and examined, it is hidden away and ignored. And that does no good for any woman, either those who have had unwanted pregnancies and/or abortions or those who will one day (as probably most of us will) have that experience. Our own, women's, experience is still being denied and stigmatized.

It is unacceptable for third parties here, now, to attempt to define the experience of gay men and lesbians as shameful.

It would be nice if women were accorded the same respect, and it would also be politically beneficial both to women and to progressive politics, and to society as a whole, if the real experience of unwanted pregnancy and abortion (and the other choices women make) were acknowledged and treated as normal.

Thanks for that.