How many abortions are too many?
by Jess McCabe // 21 November 2005, 21:13
Is it worse to have two, or four abortions than it is to have one? That is the question Jennifer Baumgardner (co-author of Manifesta) tries to answer on AlterNet today.
She notes that the abortion-positive message behind films such as 'Speak Out: I had an abortion' and the I'm not sorry website tend to falter when a woman has more than one abortion.
Is this because it is more complex? The movement to take the stigma out of abortion has a very important place. But is there a limit, perhaps when abortion 'becomes' birth control?
"'There is something in that moment where you are supposed to smarten up,' agrees Jenny Egan, a twenty-five-year-old ACLU staffer who had an abortion at age sixteen. 'That is your one fuck-up. [After that,] birth control can't fail and a condom can't break.' But, as Jenny points out, the shame is often not the abortion itself -- it's not the idea of killing a second baby when we are only allowed to kill one -- the shame is the shame of getting pregnant. It means that you don't having enough control and power to take care of yourself."
Founder of The F-Word, Catherine Redfern, has co-authored a new book with Kristin Aune. Find out more at the 
