A Call to Action

For women to freely make their own decisions about pregnancy and abortion, they must have information about options ... their options must be safe, accessible, and affordable ... and women must have an emotionally safe space in which to make their decision.

Only with knowledge and freedom of choice, can women be truly free.

Let's look at what happens when the public thinks abortion is not acceptable:

Clinic violence.

In 1997, an Atlanta, Georgia clinic was destroyed by a bomb made of dynamite. A Tulsa, Oklahoma clinic was torched several times. In 1996, a Louisiana physician was stabbed 16 times (he lived). All because the antiabortion movement just won't let women make their own decisions.

When Operation Rescue blockades clinics, women don't change their minds. They make it to the interior of the clinic or they reschedule their appointments, but they get abortions.

Shortage of physicians.

Today, even though nearly one-third of all pregnancies end in abortion, 84% of counties in the U.S. have no abortion provider.

Because of a bias against abortion doctors within the medical community and the very real threats to their safety, there is a severe shortage of trained physicians who offer abortion services.

Older physicians who remember how women died when abortion was illegal have retired. Younger physicians, thankfully, have never seen the ravages of illegal abortion and do not feel the same urgency about becoming an abortion provider.

 

Restrictions on who can get abortions.

Even though the majority of Americans support legalized abortion, the anti-choice minority has succeeded in making Americans uncomfortable with abortion. The impact of all the unnecessary abortion restrictions is most severe on those with the fewest resources: teens, women in poverty, and women in rural areas.

Women are desperate.

In 1996, a young couple in Delaware hid their pregnancy, delivered their baby in a motel room, then, allegedly, dumped the newborn in the trash. They seemed to have everything going for them, including good schools, family support, bright futures. But, apparently, in their lives, it was not acceptable to talk about sexuality, birth control, pregnancy, or abortion. Everyone wonders what they would have done if they felt they had other choices. But instead, this young couple used the only tools taught them: hide and deny everything.

This is not the first "trash can" baby, nor will it be the last as long as Americans don't demand larger more extensive birth control programs and truthful medically-accurate sex education.

Women feel isolated.

Though more than a million women have abortions annually, many women don't seek comfort and empathy from family and friends for fear of ostracism and stigma.

FWHC seeks to turn this around -- but we cannot do it without you.

Women choose abortion because their very survival as the person they are at the time depends on getting an abortion. In their own words, they say, "I can't have this baby." They understand exactly what having an abortion means. To deny abortion to a woman who wants one is downright disrespectful of her decision-making authority over her own life.

Abortion is a personal decision. It is a decision in which women consider their responsibilities to themselves and their existing families. Once the woman has made her decision, society must respect it and accept it.

Be a voice for choice.

If you have had an abortion, please break the walls of silence around the experience. Reach out to women friends, family, or coworkers. We all need to know we are not alone. [To read others stories, or share yours with this website, see Personal Stories.]

If someone tells with you about their abortion, listen and be supportive. Tell them you're glad they trusted you enough to share with you.

Call a radio talk show. Speak out against clinic violence. Defend a woman's right to choose. Don't let anti-choice views be the only ones. Think what difference your words could make to a woman who needs the information or ideas you have!

Write letters to Congress, state legislators, and the President urging them to "do all in their power to protect reproductive freedom for ALL women."

For more ideas of actions to take, see Get Involved!

We hope you share the vision ... of a world where all women can fulfill their own unique potential and live healthy whole lives, because they have reproductive freedom.

Abortion gives women the power to control their reproduction -- and that is a wonderful thing!

We would like to know thoughts. Send us your ideas.

updated: November 2, 2005

"Abortion is about freedom - women's personal freedom.
Abortion is about respect - respect for women's morality.
Abortion is about responsibility - responsibility for self and family.
Abortion is about trust - trusting women's judgment."

Feminist Women's Health Center