On Sunday, Glamour published an excerpt of feminist writer Lindy West’s just-released book—and of course, the part deemed most share-worthy is the story of West having an abortion, because pro-aborts just can’t get enough of telling each other how brave they are for telling each other about their abortions.
What the snippet lacks in originality, though, it more than makes up for in inadvertent examples of why abortion shouldn’t be normalized.
So I did what I always did when I needed a common, legal, routine medical procedure—I made an appointment to see my doctor.
Ever notice how common the phrase “common, legal, routine medical procedure” is? It’s like a magic chant, meant to ward off evil spirits by imbuing abortion with unquestionable legitimacy.
[I was] wobbling on the edge of hysteria. Not for all the reasons the fanatics would like you to think: not because I couldn’t stop thinking about my “baby’s” tiny fingernails but because I was alone and it was hard.
Who are the real fanatics? Pro-lifers, or people who put scare quotes around a term that Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, WebMD, and US Department of Health and Human Services all use to describe fetuses? People who reference destroying something that has “tiny fingernails” without batting an eye, or people with the crazy idea that having human characteristics might mean you’re human?
I had to talk to a counselor, I guess to make sure I wasn’t just looking for one of those partybortions that the religious right is always getting their sackcloth in a bunch over.
Yes, let’s keep on pretending it’s all just a religious-motivated fuss and there are no secular reasons to be against abortion. Apparently packaging propaganda as personal experiences or perspectives exempts an author from having to be truthful.
Speaking of the truth, pointing out that most abortions are sought for reasons less dire than health isn’t even close to suggesting women get them for anything resembling parties. But since she brings it up, pro-lifers weren’t the ones who suggested that having to buy new clothes, traveling, being spontaneous, “pushing the boundaries of selfishness,” “drink[ing] as much moscato as I damn well please,” and getting nose jobs were perfectly valid reasons for having abortions.
The doctor told me my embryo was about three weeks old, like a tadpole […]That night, after taking my first pill, as my tadpole detached from the uterine wall […]
Repeatedly calling your live, human son or daughter a “tadpole” doesn’t change what he or she really was. As Micaiah Bilger at LifeNews notes:
[H]er unborn baby’s heart probably was already beating. A baby’s heart begins to beat 18 days from conception, and by 21 days the heart is pumping blood through a closed circulatory system. Her baby already had his or her own unique DNA that made him or her different from any other living creature on the planet. That DNA already determined whether her baby was a girl or boy, what color eyes and hair they would have, and a whole list of other traits.
West continues:
The accompanying pamphlet warned that, after I took the second pill, chunks “the size of lemons” night come out. LEMONS. Imagine if we, as a culture, actually talked frankly about abortion. Imagine if people seeking abortions didn’t have to be blindsided by the possibility of blood lemons falling out of their vaginas via a pink flier. Imagine.
I don’t think that’s what West is really imagining, because frank talk would also entail speaking uncomfortable truths like “your little boy or girl was real, and abortion killed him or her.” Imagine, indeed.
Former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino describes in the video below what actually happens when a woman takes the abortion pill:
West continues:
The truth is that I don’t give a damn why anyone has an abortion. I believe unconditionally in the right of people with uteruses to decide what grows inside their body and feeds on their blood and and reroutes their future. There are no “good” abortions and “bad” abortions, there are only pregnant people who want them and pregnant people who don’t, pregnant people who have access and support and pregnant people who face institutional roadblocks and lies.
Shorter: I don’t care and it’s all about me. Once upon a time, total disregard for how someone’s actions harmed others, up to the point of literally pretending inconvenient people don’t exist, was nothing to brag about; in fact, those would be considered pretty strong indicators of a sociopath.
Today, it makes you a “feminist” and “social justice” icon. Thanks, bodily autonomy theory!
The fact that abortion is still a taboo subject means that opponents of abortion get to define it however suits them best.
Enter the delusional persecution complex. It doesn’t matter how many hooks your extreme ideology has in all three branches of federal government, news and entertainment media, roughly half of the electorate, or education establishment—it doesn’t matter if a popular mainstream women’s magazine is giving you space to say whatever you want—the imaginary “taboo” against your persecuted, underdog stance persists.
Paradoxically, one of the primary reasons I am so determined to tell my abortion story is that my abortion simply wasn’t that interesting. If it weren’t for mangled fetus photos, I would never think of my abortion at all.
Witnessing “mangled fetus photos” and not pausing to consider what they show you suggests you still don’t think about the subject.
It was a medical procedure that made my life better, like the time I had oral surgery because my wisdom tooth went evil-dead and murdered the tooth next it.
Unless you count the wisdom tooth not being alive (and therefore not dying when removed), not being a separate human being, not having its own DNA, not being in the process of growing toward a future as a member of society with hopes and dreams of its own. Other than that, abortion is exactly like oral surgery.
Abortion may not be the “taboo subject” Lindy West imagines, but her callous, dishonest, narcissistic rant perfectly demonstrates why it should be.
