Anti-Choice Abortions

Wow. This article, via Jill, isn't new - but it sure is riveting. Of course, I know that lots of anti-choice women have abortions, but it's truly an eye-opener to read some of their rationalizations for why it's ok for them to have an abortion, but not anyone else. Some choice examples:

"In 1990, in the Boston area, Operation Rescue and other groups were regularly blockading the clinics, and many of us went every Saturday morning for months to help women and staff get in. As a result, we knew many of the 'antis' by face. One morning, a woman who had been a regular 'sidewalk counselor' went into the clinic with a young woman who looked like she was 16-17, and obviously her daughter. When the mother came out about an hour later, I had to go up and ask her if her daughter's situation had caused her to change her mind. 'I don't expect you to understand my daughter's situation!' she angrily replied. The following Saturday, she was back, pleading with women entering the clinic not to 'murder their babies.'" (Clinic escort, Massachusetts)

From a clinic director in a mid-western state: "One of the most remarkable cases was a woman who came [from another part of the state] and said she was the Right-to-Life president in her county. 'But,' she said, she 'had become pregnant and had to have an abortion.'"

The medical director at a Dallas abortion clinic told this story: A white woman from an affluent north Dallas neighborhood brought her black maid in for an abortion and paid for it. While the maid was in a counseling session, a commotion was heard in the waiting room outside. The maid's employer was handing out anti-abortion leaflets to other women waiting for abortions.

I find this kind of hypocrisy both infuriating and heartbreaking, and it gets right to the heart of the fundamental issue of abortion: do you trust women to make decisions about their own bodies? I can't imagine the level of cognitive dissonance that would lead you to answer "no" to that query until you're the woman in question.