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“Destigmatizing” multiple abortions is an exercise in evasion

Jan 14, 2021

By Dave Andrusko

A pro-life friend sent along a post this morning that appeared on something called abortionclinics.com. When I looked it up on Twitter, here is its self-description: “World’s 1st online directory of reputable ABORTION CLINICS.” (All caps in the original.)

“Reputable abortion clinics,” a contradiction in terms, if ever there was one.

The latest post appeared yesterday under this headline: “2plusabortions Destigmatizes Multiple Abortions.”

So you know the objective from the get-go. Most morally sentient human beings would find multiple abortions at a minimum highly problematic, at worse, stomach-turning, but not to our friends at abortionclinics.com.

So, what’s the gist?. Women who have had multiple abortions 

often feel alone, and may worry that they have failed or will face serious health consequences. The website2plusabortions is an exceptional source of information for destigmatizing abortion, accessing quality information about multiple abortions, and using more sensitive language surrounding abortion. 

In other words, let’s use the fact that almost half of abortions are repeat abortions to “destigmatize” abortion in general and to find “more sensitive language around abortion.” After all, “2plusabortions reminds us that we cannot put an asterisk next to our pro-choice stance.”

Before we click on the link to 2plusabortions, would we guess that the same excusatory logic applies whether it be abortion #2 or abortion #5? Of course we would and of course we would be correct, although the site is smart enough not to mention the numbers two, three, four or more abortions. It’s just abortion. 

If you follow the link  to www.2plusabortions.com/sixreasons,what do you find?

The usual, usual. Don’t use the “wrong” language—meaning language the rest of the world employs—because it “stigmatizes” abortion. 

There are no “repeat abortions,” but rather “Each pregnancy and each outcome is a unique experience occurring in a different time and context. Abortions do not repeat.”

In a sense we can agree. Each baby annihilated is unique. Multiple abortions doesn’t mean you kill the same baby twice; you kill a singular baby each and every time.

Note this: “What’s more, research shows that ‘repeat abortion’ sounds dangerously close to ‘repeat offender’ and makes people who have abortions feel they should have ‘learned their lesson’ even though they had been trying to prevent pregnancy.”

What if a woman wasn’t “trying to prevent pregnancy,” what then?

To jump ahead, we told to just say you are “Pro-choice—Full Stop.” If you say you wouldn’t have an abortion (or multiple abortions) but you wouldn’t say no to someone else’s decision to abort, you’re on a slippery slope, according to 2plusabortions. If you get into motivations and behavior, you are “judging.”

And the decision to abort always and forever can never be evaluated in such terms as “right” and “wrong.”

Worse than “repeat abortions” is to say “multiple abortions.”

“Ideally, we should all be able to talk about abortions in the same way. But until the stigma is ended, an alternative is to say ‘more than one abortion.’”

At the end, we’re told to add the letter “s” to the word “abortion.” Why? Because “there is power in the plural”—abortions.

This is one of the oldest desensitizing tools in the anti-life tool box. Don’t think cumulative , whether you are talking about one woman’s second or third abortion, or a nation’s  62.5 million abortions.

Of course, the advice 2plusabortions is offering is not just for the rest of us. It’s most crucial to the woman who may be wrestling with her conscience as she ponders the destruction of (to borrow their term) “more than one abortion.”

That’s not “stigma” talking. It is that still small voice.

Categories: Abortion
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