WE HAD ABORTIONS

Ms. magazine calls it a "campaign for honesty and freedom."

Honesty and freedom.

As a woman, I can't relate to their brand of "honesty and freedom."

When Ms. magazine hits the newsstands on October 10, thousands of women will publicly and proudly announce that they've had abortions.

What a celebration of honesty and freedom!

NEW YORK (AP) -- As the abortion debate rages, Ms. magazine is releasing its fall issue next week with a cover story titled "We Had Abortions" that lists names of thousands of women who signed a petition making that declaration.

The publication coincides with what the abortion-rights movement considers a watershed moment.

Abortion access in many states is being curtailed, activists are uncertain about the stance of the U.S. Supreme Court, and South Dakotans vote Nov. 7 on whether to ban virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.

"All this seems very dire," said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Ms.-publishing Feminist Majority Foundation. "We have to get away from what the politicians are saying and get women's lives back in the picture."

Yes, Smeal, let's get women's lives back in the picture.

Let's consider the hundreds of thousands of female lives aborted every year.

Let's remember all of those aborted women. Let's be honest about all of those lives.

Even before the issue reaches newsstands Oct. 10, anti-abortion activists have been decrying it. Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, wrote in a commentary that when she saw a Ms. announcement of the project, "the evil practically jumped right off the page."

I have an idea.

These women who are so proud to have aborted their babies and are willing to have their names publicized should be asked to submit another name.

In addition to signing the petition, they should supply the names that they would have given their children if they had allowed them to be born.

They should include the ages of the children they aborted.

How old would they be today?

I wonder what they would be doing. How would they have enriched our world? Whose lives would they have touched?

Ms. executive editor Katherine Spillar said more than 5,000 women have signed the petition so far -- heeding its appeal to declare they are unashamed of the choice they made. The magazine itself had room for only 1,016 names, she said Tuesday, but all of them will be viewable online as Ms. encourages other women to continue adding their signatures.

Ms. says it will send the petition to Congress, the White House and state legislators.

Why?

We all know the numbers. We already know that millions of women have chosen to abort millions and millions of babies.

Moreover, doesn't this public airing of names run counter to the notion that abortion is a very private matter, a matter between a woman and her doctor and no one else?

Roe v. Wade rests on the right to privacy.

Clearly, this petition is incongruous with the traditional pro-abortion talking points.

The signatories include Ms. founder Gloria Steinem, comedian Carol Leifer, and actresses Kathy Najimy and Amy Brenneman, but most are not famous names.

These women have my sympathy.

They have to carry the burden that they chose to kill their unborn babies.

If they don't consider that to be a burden, then they deserve even more sympathy for being so morally lost and indifferent to the preciousness of life.

Tyffine Jones, 27, of Jackson, Miss., said she had no hesitation about signing -- although she lives in a state where restrictions on abortion are tough and all but one abortion clinic has been closed.

Jones said she got an abortion 10 years ago -- enduring harassment from protesters when she entered the clinic -- in order to finish high school. She went on to become the first member of her family to graduate from college, and hopes at some point to attend law school.

"I wanted to do something bigger with myself -- I didn't want to be stopped by anything," she said in a telephone interview.

Poor Jones had to endure harassment from protesters when entering the clinic to abort her child.

But hey, look at all that Jones accomplished because she was so "courageous." She finished high school and is a college grad. Allowing her child to live would have screwed that up.

Her quote, "I wanted to do something bigger with myself -- I didn't want to be stopped by anything," reveals a selfishness and a lack of personal responsibility that is shocking.

Jones preferred to sacrifice her child's life so she could accomplish her own goals.

Yeah, you go girl!

Another signatory, Debbie Findling of San Francisco, described her difficult decision last year to have an abortion after tests showed that she would bear a son with Down syndrome.

"I felt it was my right to make the decision, but having that right doesn't make the decision any easier," she said. "It was the hardest decision I've ever made."

If I had been in Findling's position, it would have been easy for me. Killing my child because he wasn't perfect would never have crossed my mind. NEVER.

I'm sure Findling struggled and I do feel compassion for her.

I just do not agree that genetically imperfect human beings don't have a right to life.

In fact, I'm sickened by the thought that women "opt out" of such pregnancies.

Findling, 42, is married, with a 5-year-old daughter, and has been trying to get pregnant again while pursuing her career as a philanthropic foundation executive.

She says too many of her allies in the abortion-rights movement tend to minimize, at least publicly, the psychological impact of abortion.

"It's emotionally devastating," she said in a phone interview. "I don't regret my decision -- but I regret having been put in the position to have to make that choice. It's something I'll live with for the rest of my life."

Do you know what being put in that position is?

It's life. Moral dilemmas are a part of living. Life is not easy. Mine certainly hasn't been.

We all have challenges. We all have our crosses to bear. Some of us bear them as best we can. Some of us don't try.

Findling strongly supports the Ms. petition, and believes women who have had abortions need to be more open about their decisions. She has written an essay about her own experience, and plans to include it in an anthology she hopes to publish next year.

Is Findling looking for forgiveness?

I don't think so. She says she doesn't regret her decision to abort her son with Down syndrome.

We know that she's pursuing her career as a philanthropic foundation executive, is working on publishing an anthology, and is trying to get pregnant again at age 42.

(The risk of Down syndrome increases with age, from about 1 in 1,250 for a woman at age 25, to 1 in 1,000 at age 30, 1 in 400 at age 35, and 1 in 100 at age 40.)

Given the risk that Findling is taking, I wonder if she will be confronted with another "emotionally devastating decision." I hope not, for her sake and her child.

If she does become pregnant, hopefully the baby will meet her standards in terms of being worthy to live.

Findling is a very busy woman. I wonder if she has any spare time to volunteer with Special Olympics.

I'd be interested in reading her experiences of working with the kids. That would make for a very interesting essay to include in her anthology.

Ms. mounted this kind of petition drive when it was first published. Its debut issue in 1972 included a manifesto signed by 53 women -- many of them well-known -- declaring that they had undergone abortions despite state laws outlawing the procedure.

...Smeal said Ms. staffers called the women who signed the petition to verify their information and be sure they were willing to have their names in print.

"The women thanked us for doing this," Smeal said. "They wanted to tell their stories."

I wish the women would think of all the thank-yous that their aborted children never had the chance to say.

"Thank you, Mommy."

"Thank you for always being there for me."

"Thank you for loving me."

"Thank you, God."

What would their stories be?

I think being open is a good thing. There is something freeing about owning up to something haunting.

But that's not what the Ms. petition is about.

It's an attempt to desensitize people to abortion.

"We're loud. We're proud. We aborted our babies."

It's an attempt to wipe all shame from abortion.

It's an effort to promote abortion as an acceptable option. It's a campaign to convince women that they shouldn't hide their abortion history.

The message this Ms. magazine campaign is sending to women:

If you had an abortion, do not be ashamed. You did nothing wrong. It's okay. Be honest. Be free.



I strongly disagree with that message. I strongly believe in compassion and forgiveness.