Y’all, I need to talk about abortion.
Wait. Not just I. We. We need to talk about abortion.
Because it’s important.
Because people’s lives depend on abortion access.
Because things are rull bad right now and about to get a whole lot worse.
Friends, I went to SUNY-Binghamton in the early 90s.
Binghamton was the home of Randall Terry, founder of leader of the extremist anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.
Defending abortion clinics from Operation Rescue was my entree into the world of activism and direct action.
Whoof. Along with college classes, I’ll tell you what.
Four years in Binghamton was an intense education in strategy, tactics, resistance, coalition-building, community. That’s what.
In 1992, the spring of my freshman year, I drove to Buffalo to help defend its clinics from the Operation Rescue “Spring of Life” campaign. My friend and I were next to these folks, pictured above, in Life magazine.
See the man in the photo? Sneering and looking superior and judgmental?
That’s Pastor Rob Schenck. We’ll come back to him.
Motivated by … love?
Y’all. Defending clinics in Buffalo was scary.
Defending clinics in Binghamton was scary.
There have been (thankfully) few times in my life when I have been the target of a fierce and fiery, yet deeply cold, hatred.
In Buffalo, and other Operation Rescue actions, I was on the receiving end of that hatred.
My experiences of Operation Rescue rallies and clinic blockades, without exception, were experiences of being the target of bone-chilling, deeply scary, HATE.
Rev. Schenck and his Operation Rescue (O.R. is now called “Operation Save America”) folks said they were motivated by love. They said they were “saving babies.”
My experience told me the opposite. This was about judgment, condemnation, hatred.
My “side”? We weren’t angels. We got up to some shenanigans.
But we were nonviolent, always.
And we were showing up to support women. To speak up for queer folk and queer love. To make sure clinic staff was safe. To keep abortion legal.
We linked arms and surrounded clinics. We taught each other nonviolent tactics.
We kept the clinics open.
At least for awhile.
Back to Rev. Schenck.
Well.
What do you know.
Rev. Schenck got a little shook when his followers started murdering doctors and clinic staff who provide abortions.
This includes the murder of Buffalo abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian, 52, who was killed by a militant anti-abortionist single shot fired through a window as he stood in the kitchen of his home.
That shot was fired by James Kopp, nicknamed Atomic Dog in anti-abortion circles, for his persistent belief in violence to prevent abortions.
(Word to the wise: If you tell your followers that abortion is murder, if you teach them to target and harass abortion providers, if you instruct your followers to treat abortion as murder? You should not then be surprised when your followers use your instructions as rationale to murder abortion providers.)
Rev. Schenck eventually took enough of a pause from shouting at women to actually start to “patiently listen” to people who had abortions. To the reasons why they had their abortions.
And listening? It changed him.
He is now staunchly pro-choice.
We set up [the fiction of] what we thought abortion and its consequences looked like … For example, that women make these choices impulsively, often for very selfish reasons, or because certain groups within society pressure them or tell them carrying a pregnancy at this stage in your life is going to cost them opportunities. This is what we convinced ourselves leads women to abortion.
Well, that is just patently untrue. When you start patiently listening to women across the board, they have a myriad of different reasons for choosing abortion. We imagine that whenever a woman decides to give birth, that all the necessary support systems will be there for them: if not family then the government, if not government then the church. We imagine that there’ll be free healthcare, there’ll be a job. We tell ourselves it’s all there, just for the asking. We convinced ourselves of that because, I’ll speak for myself, it helped justify my absolutist position on abortion.
Rev. Schenck says he lives with regret over what he helped enact: the overturning Roe v. Wade and eroding abortion rights.
To his credit, Rev. Schenck is now engaged in what he calls “reparative, restorative work” to try to help evangelicals and anti-choice folks understand the importance of safe, legal abortion. The importance of actually LISTENING to pregnant people. He says he profoundly regrets the harm he has caused, and is deeply troubled by the current abortion landscape.
He’s a day late and a dollar short.
Abortion is well on its way to becoming completely illegal.
If you think this is an exaggeration, you are living in a fantasy world.
The next president and congress is likely to make sweeping bans.
And I am willing to bet that IUDs, the morning-after pill, and many widely used forms of birth control will be next.
Why does this matter?
Everyone loves someone who’s had an abortion. (Including ourselves.)
If you think you don’t know someone who’s had an abortion, you are wrong. You do know someone who’s had an abortion. They just haven’t told you. And I bet I know why they haven’t told you. It’s you. You’re why.
If you think you don’t love someone who’s had an abortion, well then I invite you to widen your circles of care, compassion, and love.
People have good reasons for having abortions.
Also, and I mean this deeply: their/our reasons are none of your business.
Also also, and I mean this deeply: keeping —or making— abortion safe, legal, and accessible is our business.
Please, stand up and speak out about the importance of safe, legal, and easily accessible abortion, in whatever ways work for you.
XOXO
Resources:
Shout Your Abortion (cool downloadable art and materials here)
National Network of Abortion Funds (donate here)