A Challenge for the Pro-Choice Movement
Charlotte Taft and Shelley Oram
As former abortion providers, we are fascinated by the field of abortion. We have worked in a clinic, have consulted with and trained staffs in other clinics, and counseled with many women both before and after their abortions. We have spoken our minds and have often said things that were unpopular--always in the pursuit of emotional as well as political honesty. We have been privileged to be part of the transformational process that can occur when a woman is willing to look deeply into the heart of choice. Today we counsel with women from around the country over the telephone.

These are some thoughts about the pro-choice movement. They are directed primarily to abortion providers, but the ideas apply to all of us.

We start from the hypothesis, based on our own experience, that 5-10% of women who seek abortions have unresolved emotional issues significant enough to create difficulties in their lives. For a variety of reasons, few of these women work through their issues before they have an abortion. In addition, it appears that most abortion clinic patients leave our facilities with secrets and shame powerful enough to keep them silent and prevent them from being Advocates for Choice (defined as people who can speaky to others about their experience and how important choice is in their lives). They do not currently have language that makes it easy and comfortable for them to talk about their experiences, and it seems that many do not have positive experiences to share.

There are several reasons we need to talk about this as a pro-choice movement.

1. Women are hurting and that's not what we are working so hard to create. Addressing these issues effectively is the right thing to do.

2. When women are traumatized after their abortions it affects their ability to have good lives, to be happy, to connect with their families and their community, and the entire society pays a price.

3. When our patients (and the people who know about their abortions and even sometimes accompany them to our facilities) are traumatized, they are silent and do not advocate for their right to legal abortion. Hence, providers are left holding the bag and being the targets of the "antis" (opponents of choice). They can't attack millions of women, but they can easily attack us. We are the stand-ins for the patients.

Because the patients (probably around 40 million of them since 1973) are silent, politicians only hear pressure from those who are not silent, those who are the antis. Our hypothesis is that the silence is largely due to unresolved shame and that we as providers have contributed to (if not created) this silence in many ways. This is not an issue of blaming us, it is an issue of looking at our policies and approaches and seeing the natural result of those policies.

Stephen Covey has a wonderful story about being in a hotel room while he was preparing to give a presentation. He was enjoying the weather and had the window He had piles of papers all around the room. Suddenly a breeze blew and the papers started to scatter. He ran around frantically trying to keep the papers on the piles, until he realized that he could simply close the window.

We are suggesting that abortion providers and the pro-choice movement have been running around instead of exploring the various actions that could represent "closing the window."

One conversation we could have sounds like this:

1. How many women come through abortion clinics every year as patients?

2. How many actual "advocates for choice" would we have to have in order to shift the conversation away from abortion being a political football? 500,000? 1,000,000? 10,000,000? (Advocates for Choice could include people who will work politically as well as people who will talk about their experiences in positive ways with a network of people in their lives.)

3. What are the causes of our patients (and maybe even our staff) not being Advocates?

4. What would it take for us as an "industry" to transform those patients/staff/significant others into actual advocates for the choice of abortion, and for that being a personal and private matter? (Not necessarily the same as how to register patients to vote, etc.)

5. What are the pros and cons and interesting elements of doing these things?

6. Where would we be if we had done this 20 years ago? 15 years ago? 2 years ago? Where would we like to be 2, 15, 20 years from now?

7. Is there an effective way to reach and transform any of the millions of past abortion patients and their friends and family into Advocates for Choice?

Obviously #3 is the hardest question. If we are willing to give up what we think we know and search for something new, we can take charge of our fates rather than being at the mercy of what someone else decides to do. After all, if we are doing this effectively, then why are we still struggling with so many of the same old things?

Visit Charlotte and Shelley's website at www.imaginecounseling.com

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