Taking the “sting” out of abortion?
One hundred thousand people have watched Angie Jackson’s abortion. Late last month, Jackson posted a video of herself to YouTube, recorded after she took RU-486, a medication used to end pregnancies. “I found out about a week ago, Saturday, that I was pregnant,” the 27-year-old mom from Florida explains in the two-and-a-half minute clip. “For a variety of reasons, including very high health risks for me, I’m having an abortion. Right now.” Jackson also tweeted her experience, detailing the cramps and bleeding she experienced.
Jackson says in the video that she wants to “demystify abortion,” to show it’s “not that bad, not that scary.” Perhaps her largest accomplishment has been setting off a media frenzy. The story of the woman who is live-tweeting her abortion has traveled as far as the United Kingdom and Australia and has been featured on ABC’s World News, earning Jackson an outpouring of accolades and denunciations—and a few death threats.
via From Town Halls To Twitter: The Long, Rocky Road To Destigmatizing Abortion
Abortion-rights activists complain that it is inappropriate for pro-lifers to display pictures of aborted fetuses, but here’s an interesting turn: a woman blogging about her abortion, as it happened, in order to destigmatize the procedure. There’s something perverse about this behavior, something unsettling. Already, “AngieAntiTheist” (her YouTube screen name) has received death threats for making the video, recorded as she consumed RU486, which she calls an “at-home medical abortion-by-pill.” I won’t begin to justify the actions of those making death threats against her, but neither will I accept that abortion is simply a medical procedure. If she wants to talk about her abortion, well, let’s talk.
The idea that it is OK for a woman to video record her abortion, but it is not OK for a pro-life advocate to talk about what abortion is — that somehow a woman’s right to choose is impinged — is intolerable. So let us see pictures of aborted fetuses, perhaps even a video recording of an abortion procedure.
Angie Jackson’s “abortion-in-progress” video:
“This is nothing to childbirth, compared to labor, compared to, for me and my risks, late-stage pregnancy. This is the best choice, and it’s not that bad.”
Similar Posts:
- When is abortion not a choice?
- Abortion language is latest health hurdle
- It’s not a choice if I have to pay for it
- Amnesty International may endorse ‘right to abortion’
- Tim Tebow tackles abortion in Superbowl ad
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