Story Telling About Abortions

In anti abortion politics one of the propaganda techniques is "story telling." Story telling is simply telling one's first-person experience about the issue.

Gay parents use story telling when invited to other groups who want to learn about homosexuality. The emotional experience of learning one's child is gay and how that played out in a family's life is gripping almost every time. Anti abortion strategists use it for people who formerly worked in abortion clinics or advocated for abortions and then changed their minds. Years ago I was invited to a religious event where the featured speaker was a doctor who formerly had performed abortions for a living and who told her story.

Story telling by women who have had abortions or who worked in the field have not been as common as have others. We can understand why. That is why the book, The Turnaway Study, is so interesting. It combines standard academic procedures used to study women who had and did not have abortions with story telling of these women. Since the study involved one thousand women only a few stories are included. One of the stories was by the professor and author herself. 

The author notes how few people know someone personally who has had an abortion. Yet, statistically, one in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime. This has to mean we often encounter women who have had an abortion but we don't know about it.

The author had a child in a small daycare facility. Those who ran the facility periodically held a get togethers of the mothers with children there. A new mother was present so there were introductions and during the ensuing chats the author overheard someone across the room say about her to the new woman, "That woman studies abortion." The new mother said loud enough for everyone to hear, "I don't know how anyone could kill their baby."

There was silence. Conversations moved on. The new woman had an appointment and had to leave early. As soon as she left, personal stories about abortions of the remaining women spilled out. One woman had an abortion in high school and was so grateful she had. She had two children later and was happy they could come along at the right time in her life. Another was told if she carried her fetus to birth it would die immediately and there was risk to herself if she did not have an abortion. A third became pregnant as a teenager in a country where abortion is illegal. Her doctor had contacts and she had her abortion in a hospital. The author noted in that room of eight, there had been three abortions. That is close to the national average. The woman who left probably thought everyone there shared her views on abortion and none of them would consider having one--no one had argued with her.  

Knowing why women have abortions is important in understanding why it continues in spite of legal and financial obstacles.