Can You Be a Feminist and Anti-Abortion?

Abortion is, in many ways, a played-out topic in the women's movement, but activist and writer Jennifer Baumgardner (author of Look Both Ways, Manifesta and Grassroots) continues to breathe new life into this contentious issue. In 2004, she created the "I Had an Abortion" speak-out campaign, which both shocked and awed feminists and non-feminists alike through the dissemination of shirts with the controversial "coming out" statement emblazoned across the front. Today, Baumgardner continues to carve out a space for women's narratives and take an unabashed look at issues that have a tendency to be swept under the rug by the abortion rights movement in her new book, Abortion & Life (Akashic Books, 2008). An excerpt follows.

Mandy Van Deven: Why are abortion narratives important, personally and politically, and what makes this moment in history the right time for them to re-surface?

Jennifer Baumgardner: The history of women's gains in reproductive freedom is tied to women speaking out and telling the truth about their lives. The early days of the women's liberation movement saw women shedding shame and guilt by coming out about their illegal abortions; this lent momentum and urgency to the abortion law reform movement. In fact, it was women speaking out that took the movement from one of doctors, legislators and clergymen advising reform to a much more radical repeal movement. This is the right moment for abortion narratives because the movement needs to evolve again. It's no longer 1973. We know much more about fetal development, women who have unplanned pregnancies nowadays don't face as much societal scorn if they have a baby outside of marriage, and abortions have been legal for nearly four decades. Times have changed, and we need new politics to go with these new times. Thus, we should return to women's (and men's) lives to see where the movement needs to go.

MV: Some might say Abortion & Life gives the anti-abortion movement fuel to add to an already raging fire by criticizing the abortion rights movement. How do you respond to what you call "knee-jerk naivete"?

JB: I used to be resistant to hearing that a woman had a bad experience with her doctor or that she was extremely sad or had regrets about her abortion. I chalked it all up to right-wing propaganda. I see it differently now. These stories aren't necessarily the most common abortion experience (the best guess I have is that they account for less than 10 percent), but to suppress them or not want to hear them is a position of weakness. I don't think the abortion rights movement has to be as defensive as we've been. As a movement, we need to turn away from our commitment to arguing with the protesters and listen to the women again. To not do so gives fuel to the anti-abortion movement because then it is only those who oppose abortion who are willing to hear its complicated stories.

MV: In the book, you alternate the use of words like "fetus" and "child". With language being so controversial, why did you vary yours?

JB: I think there is legal truth around this issue, and then there is personal or emotional truth. In terms of the law, there is a difference between a potential child -- a fetus -- who is totally dependent upon its maternal host to survive and an already born baby who is dependent, but not exclusively on its biological mother. I understand the need for that language, but it is limiting and even alienating for many women who have had abortions. I have met women who think of the child -- their word -- every year on the day it was due to be born. I have read journals in abortion clinics in which women write prayers to their unborn babies, asking them to be guardian angels. I don't think "fetus" fits the bill in describing who they are talking about.