Less than a week ago, images of a first trimester abortion were posted anonymously online at thisismyabortion.com. The photos and the photographer’s abortion story were published as acomment piece in The Guardian. As abortion services in many countries face increasing threat, the graphic propaganda photos of anti-abortion campaigners continue to dominate the entrances to clinics that perform terminations. Many women are responding to the increasingly sensationalised portrayal of abortion with their own personal stories of safe, non-traumatising experiences of terminating a pregnancy. Why have these much less sensational pictures grabbed so much attention? What can this latest act of self-proclaimed civil disobedience tell us about the nature of abortion?
On the days I work as a therapist, I get off the train near a great sporting landmark and make my way down the street past a sexual health clinic that performs abortions. Each morning there are a small group of grey men and women praying and holding plastic models of foetuses that look as if they’ve been stolen from my grade nine biology class circa 1980.
Sometimes I simply pass by. Occasionally I’ve asked them what they think they might be achieving. Once I told a man I thought Jesus would be ashamed of him. Because whatever views you have on Jesus, or about abortion for that matter, it would be pretty hard to argue that he would have spent his time on earth protesting outside an abortion clinic. This is definitely Old Testament behaviour.
Until recently, the pro-life movement held a monopoly on the imagery of abortion. The plastic foetuses, ultrasound prints, pictures of dismembered foetal corpses and photos of tiny feet have been their domain. Pro-choice campaigners have preferred to focus on the experiences and the context of women facing unwanted pregnancies. The anonymous author of thisismyabortion.com understandably wanted to respond to the barrage of this imagery with some more realistic pictures of early abortion.
zoekrupka.com 
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