not letting it go

So Women's Health Care Services is closing for good. Here is a listing of other late-term abortion providers. Note that each clinic listing tells you how late they will perform abortions. Note that there are now two clinics in the nation that provide services to women who need abortions late in pregnancy. One's in LA. I'm wondering if I might have the energy to commute and work as a clinic escort there.

Those of you, like me, who are finding Tiller's murder a wakeup call might be interested in perusing the National Network of Abortion Funds site. I've linked to the "get involved" page just to make things easier.

More hard numbers: Fewer than 2200/year or 0.2% of the 1.3 million abortions performed yearly are past 24 weeks. Based on this abstract, let's say there are 6.7 million pregnancies per year in the U.S. Of those, it isn't difficult at all to imagine that 2200 major health emergencies crop up in the third trimester: stuff that in the face of all the asshole men with no research skills who feel free to opine on their right to make moral decisions for other people.

A moving tribute site to Tiller.

A really creative essay about the impact of anti-abortion terrorism that, among other things, makes a clear case for *why* harassment (and murder) of abortion providers is, in fact, terrorism--of us all. The essay is lyrical rather than argumentative; I highly recommend reading it.

Speaking of moving stories, Amanda Marcotte responds, in an unnecessarily-self-indicting way, to my earlier post asking why the kinds of stories and statistics that we're seeing now haven't been part of the national discussion of (late-term) abortion all along. She's right that "the" preferred narrative has always been to emphasize "average" rather than "exceptional" abortions: even when one talks about late-term abortions now, one will get comments to the effect that such discussions make people "uncomfortable" because they implicitly suggest that some abortions are more justified than others. Douthat, who is always looking for a reason to argue that his profundity is superior to the moral judgment of your average pregnant woman, is making that claim in the piece linked above under (appropriately) "asshole men."

I think that's bullshit, though, because more and more I'm becoming convinced that the distinction between moral judgment and legal compulsion is *the* important one to make clear. Of *course* other people make moral judgments that we disagree with. And of course we, in the process of forming our own moral judgment, will discuss and debate the moral judgments of others. That's all fine and hunky-dory.

What's a problem is when you ::cough::Douthat::cough:: don't trust women to make moral decisions for themselves. (I was proud to find out, in the coverage of Tiller's murder, that he felt the same way about the "trust women" bottom line as I do.) *If* you believe that abortion is a moral issue--which is the entire basis of any argument against it, from criminalization to simply trying to convince an individual to think the way you do--then what you are arguing for, if you support criminalization, is making it illegal for pregnant women to make moral decisions about their own pregnancies. If your argument is that women who have abortions are "victims" of the doctors that perform them (which is a pretty common point of view), then you're arguing (at best) that women are incapable of moral decision-making or (at worst) that they can go ahead and make moral decisions as long as they're willing to die for the privilege.

And I think we need to keep emphasizing that point, which isn't at all incompatible with talking about the reasons individual women choose abortions. On the contrary, the two are mutually self-reinforcing.

Which leads to my own mea culpa. One reason I've talked less about this kind of stuff lately than I used to is that I don't like to repeat myself, and with my best (imho) abortion pieces right over there in the sidebar, I've figured that anyone who wants to know what I think can find out pretty easily. But, sadly, that's not good enough: public opinion is a push medium, really, as much as (or more than) a pull one, and if you want to inform people you need to tell them and tell them and tell them yet again. There are always new readers, and few writers go searching for old links when they're researching a topic.

And, as I said before, research is needed. Late-term abortions *are* rare (and again, illegal unless they're medically indicated), and when most people talk about moral decision-making we tend to talk about it in pretty personal terms. We rely on what we've experienced, what we've seen others experience, what we've imagined, and what we've heard. For most women, what we've experienced, seen, or imagined, abortion-wise, is first-trimester abortions: the unwanted pregnancy. Given that we tend not to talk about our own experiences or imaginings in the course of everyday conversation ("abortion" gets talked about a lot; "my abortion," a lot less), most men are limited to what they can imagine, unless they've had a partner with whom they've made a decision to abort.

If we haven't seen other people's experiences, or heard their stories, our imaginations are pretty damn limited--so people come up with wacked-out ideas like the "aborting to fit into a prom dress" meme or claims that "some people just don't want to live with a child with disabilities" (you know, like "some people" prefer not to own dogs). If we want to be informed--and want others to be informed--about what abortion is really about, we need to seek out other people's stories, not just rely on our own half-assed imaginings.

Some media outlets have started doing that. (I can't help noticing that Sullivan's abortion blogging--which has been very good, don't get me wrong--gets praised as "brave and brilliant." Penis privilege, anyone?) Some people have been doing this sort of thing regularly and steadily for a while now. I'd like to do the same.

So, if you're willing to share, leave a comment. If you're willing to let me post your story on the front page, email me. All posts will be attributed to "a reader," unless you request otherwise.