Shout Your Abortion

by Amelia Bonow

We cannot legislate away regret; all we can do is empower every human being to make informed, sovereign decisions over their own lives.

Those seeking to regulate reproductive freedom have intentionally created a cultural climate where talking openly about having had an abortion is a liability that most people are understandably unwilling to accept.

if nobody will admit they’ve had an abortion, we aren’t able to illustrate the connection between having an abortion and living a better life.

Abortion as a liberal issue is not exactly truth—it’s branding. Abortion as a “debate” is not truth—it’s branding.

It seems counterintuitive, but I believe abortion has the potential to be one of our most unifying issues. It cuts through all of those boundaries: race, class, geography, religion. The key is to drag abortion out of that partisan framework entirely.

Abortion is two incomes instead of one for your struggling family. Abortion is family values. Abortion is fiscal responsibility. Abortion is liberty. Anti-choice legislation is a form of unconstitutional government intervention that undermines personal freedom.

I don’t believe that speaking out is a better or more righteous path, I simply believe that we’d all be better off if conversations about abortion were normalized.

Our bravery is a product of privilege, and having been able to access and afford our abortions is a privilege in and of itself. We hope to weaponize this privilege in a way that makes the world kinder and more just for everyone, and we hope that those who don’t shout may still find healing and solidarity in the stories of others.

As much as you need to rebel against them, when you watch them sacrifice comfort, home, being fully seen and understood—all for your benefit—you want to shelter them too.

Privilege means that those of us who need it the least often get the most help.

I believe unconditionally in the right of people with uteruses to decide what grows inside their bodies and feeds on their blood and reroutes their futures.

I wish I hadn’t felt so guilty for not wanting to have another baby, but I made the decision that was right for me and for my family. And I am so glad that I had the choice.

I do not always feel like shouting my abortions but I stand behind them, alongside others who have done or will do the same. Life, like abortion, is intricate and complex. Instead of justifying an impulse to simplify our options, this complexity allows us the full breadth of joy.

I have never felt ashamed, but rather I was shamed.

I’m a lot of things, but I am not my abortion.

Part of my facade of confidence and being blasé was maintaining an “It’s whatever! I’m fine, I’m having fun!” attitude about most situations, but I felt that narrative wouldn’t fly when speaking about an abortion. So I didn’t tell anyone, flunked out of that college in a blaze of glory that would have made a dying star proud, and came back to Houston with my tail between my legs, utterly defeated.

I remembered that I deserve to exist in the world as an autonomous and liberated entity.

I knew I’d have another chance to nurture in the future, but that at the time it was imperative that I nurture the woman inside of me that was dying to be free.

The moment I realized I deserved a future devoid of shame and judgment and prescribed guilt. The moment I couldn’t continue self-destructing to appease people who despise the freedom, sexuality, and bodily autonomy of women.

Conveniently, men don’t actually have to deal with abortion at all, which is why they shouldn’t have a damn thing to say about what I do with my body.