I don't want you to think I've left you out after my little meltdown with the "Pro-Life Movement", now known by me as the Anti-Abortion Movement. You need a new name too, because your name doesn't fit like a glove any more than theirs.
As the couple wrestles with their personal views on the suffering of their child, a climatic moment occurs in the middle of Episode 10. Jackson and April's mother are arguing in the kitchen while April is trying desperately not to be a part of their argument. Finally, April can't stand it anymore and screams at them,
"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! None of this is helping. You are not helping. Neither of you. I'm standing here listening to you tell me that God only gives me one choice and you telling me that I should forgo God's choice. And the truth is I don't know anything except that I am scared, and sad and I am alone. You're both just standing there yelling at each other and talking at me, but I am alone and and it is terrifying! And the louder you get the more terrified I become so I just need you both to shut up. Can you do that? Can you please both just shut up!"
Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the show, nailed it. This is exactly what's been happening to women who want to have reproductive freedom. They, like April, are in the middle of an escalating fight and the women you chose to help way back at the beginning have been tossed aside, scared out of their minds, while you battle for the win.
Pro-choice movement, is this the way you help women? By defending their rights while avoiding their turmoil? You say your movement is here to help women - but I don't think you're listening very well. Many of us feel pain - physical and/or emotional pain - from our abortions, but you ask us to deny that pain, again and again and again. Your tactics on the battlefield are causing us to lose our minds!
A couple of years ago, a woman named Emily Letts, filmed her abortion to show the public how easy and painless it is to have an abortion. Emily says she is uplifted and positively transformed by her abortion. No regrets. At the end, she is interviewed a month after her abortion and says she still feels great, empowered by her abortion. And while I believe that may have been true for Emily - she feels like she is a warrior for your movement and that she has just beaten the enemy - for many women, that is not the case. The writer, Katy Waldman, states at the end of the piece "And because the anti-choice myths are strong, the resistance fierce, the corrective must be too."
You've gotten sucked into the gamesmanship of the anti-abortionists. You're reacting to them, not acting for a woman's best interest. Just like April, women are suffering on the sidelines while you engage in battle, ignoring the real physical and emotional needs of women who make a decision to terminate a pregnancy.
Make no mistake, the strategies of both sides are about winning - not about a woman's life. Or I might add, that of her unborn child. Many women who've had abortions and who were once pro-choice, now feel abandoned, like Norma McCorvey, and are even choosing to go to the other side and take up the anti-abortion banner.
And there it is. This is where we are now. Arguing. Fighting. At each other like Jackson and April's mom. And there are a million April's out there alone and sad and terrified and confused. I've seen them in support groups all over the internet. They need to know that what they went through was more than just a "right" they deserved. Having an abortion is a multi-faceted experience that can take it's toll on a woman in many ways. To ignore that is to ignore the group of women you say you are serving.
So, pro-choice movement, I don't believe you have a woman's heart and soul in mind any more than the anti-abortion movement does. You may be support a woman's right to choose, but I don't see any evidence that you are acknowledging the humanity of the women you purport to serve. Just like April, we've been left stranded, isolated and alone in the middle of the battlefield. Do you even remember what this battle was about?
When the other side went low, with horrendous photos of fetuses and other vicious maneuvers, you went lower. Videotaping an abortion to "prove" that having an abortion is empowering and uplifting? I gotta hand it to you - there certainly is some shock value with that one.
I don't know what to call you anymore. You may be pro-choice, but you're not pro-woman. The end is more important to you than the means it takes to get there. In th meantime, I will do my best to support women who still feel isolated, stuck, sad or regretful. Because I know there is A Third Way to do this.
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