Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Althouse

Legal Commentary

: Althouse

"For me, 'I had an abortion' should be as morally loaded as 'I had a Pap smear.'"

By Ann Althouse

Amanda Marcotte's morality:

The underpinnings of the moral angst about abortion ? the idea that a woman has no right to pry loose a flag a man has planted in her (even if he agrees with her decision, as most men in this case do), or that she should be punished for having sex ? offend me to the core, and that many women go through anguish over getting abortions depresses me.

Well, it offends me to the core that you think material like this helps preserve abortion rights (which I support).

The subject of the post at the link is actually this "I was raped" T-shirt that was written about on a NYT blog today. Marcotte is saying it makes a lot more sense to wear an "I had an abortion" T-shirt than to wear an "I was raped" T-shirt. Both shirts can be seen as an attempt to conquer shame, but obviously the messages are very different. The "raped" shirt is intended to help rape victims "own the experience," but it advertises the fact that the wearer has been attacked and overcome. Is that the first thing you want everyone to know about you? If it is, you ought to think through why it is.

The "abortion" shirt, on the other hand, admits that you've done something for yourself that involved sacrificing what many people believe is another human being. Why do you want to say that by T-shirt? In Marcotte's view, it's to show that you're proud of "taking care" of yourself "despite all the misogynist messages out there." I thought it was more to normalize abortion ? to make it seem ordinary, widespread, and something that would be done without shame by nice, upstanding women.

Full post as published by Althouse on April 04, 2008 (boomark / email).