What to Expect When You're Aborting &mdash A Must Read

*Cross posted on Choice Words

I just want to say a big “thank you” to Hannah for her post on Choice Words about What to Expect When You’re Aborting, a blog were a 23-year-old woman describes her experience getting an abortion, starting with a picture of the positive pregnancy test and continuing through the morning sickness and doctors appointments.

She makes the process real by describing not only her thoughts but what her body is going through. Somehow it never occurred to me that women who have abortions are still pregnant until they get the abortion &mdash I mean, obviously they’re still pregnant, but I never thought about them experiencing all the symptoms of pregnancy and the body changes that occur up until the day of the abortion.

I also love her discussions of abortion in pop culture and the way the extreme politicization of abortion effects women who get them. She says in one post that she doesn’t want to engage in debate &mdash she just wants to create a blog she thought should exist so other women in her situation can know what to expect and compare their situation to hers.

In another post she mentions that it’s almost impossible to say that she’s having an abortion without it starting a political discussion. With abortion being such a controversial and divisive topic, we argue endlessly about legislation and the right to choose, usually talking about abortion in abstract terms, and forget that for many women abortion is a personal experience, not a political statement. From that point of view it seems odd that we politicize a private event in a woman’s life.

I fully support her search for another word to label the experience of getting an abortion. Let abortion be a word we use in politics, and let’s find another word that fits the real-life experience &mdash nothing clinical like “terminating a pregnancy,” or silly or slang not everyone is cool enough to use, but something casual so that a woman can tell her friend what’s going on without the gasps and looks of horror.

This blog is truly revolutionary. I’d love to see it inspire an online community for women having abortions where they can share their experiences, ask questions, and find support from women in similar situations. Like Hannah said, the story of this one woman puts a face on women who have abortions so we can see that real women &mdash not hypothetical slutty girls &mdash have abortions, and thanks to this blog, those real women can know they’re not alone.