This week, well-known career blogger Penelope Trunk bravely told the story of her two abortions on her blog Brazen Careerist.
Even more interestingly, she connected abortion to career. The entry’s title is “What’s the connection between abortion and careers?”
In today’s emotionally charged climate, it takes a lot of guts to tell a story like Trunk’s. Not surprisingly, she’s gleaned 335 comments as of this writing.
Trunk says she had her abortions to preserve her career. But she also admits she is not sure her life would have turned out differently had she not had them.
I have known near and dear ones whose abortions were at least in part prompted by that same desire to preserve their careers. I also know one young woman with a thriving career who made the courageous choice to give up her baby in an open adoption.
This week I also watched Jon Stewart and Mike Huckabee debate the abortion issue. Stewart admitted that of all the “liberal” positions, his pro-choice stance is the one his feelings are the murkiest on (for the record, I don’t think he used the phrase “liberal positions”).
Stewart pointed out early on that it just doesn’t make a lot of sense for men to debate and make policy on the issue. They are not the ones directly affected.
That’s why it is so important for women on both sides of the issue to speak out — to tell their stories.
I applaud Penelope Trunk for having the courage to tell hers.
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Kathy, one of the best way to speak about the necessity of every woman having the opportunity to access complete reproductive health care is to tell two stories of two seemingly different women, at two different points in their lives, with two different goals (for instance, a 25 year old married woman starting a family and a business who seeks birth control and prenatal care at a Planned Parenthood clinic, and a 45 year old mother of 3 who gets pregnant while on medication and seeks to terminate the pregnancy) -- and then to point out that they are the same woman. This acknowledges the complexity of women’s lives, and invites listeners to imagine what access to comprehensive health care means to them personally.
Women’s lives are divided: when we are on birth control, when we are not; when we continue pregnancies, when we terminate them; when wanted pregnancies are lost, when we seek fertility assistance. It’s not as simple as a division between parenting-and-non-birth-control-using women and birth-control-using-and-abortion-getting women. 61 percent of women who have abortions are already mothers. We need to talk about women at all stages of their lives and the lives of their families.
I agree that this needed to be said publicly. Thanks for these important words, Thaler.
Thanks for the nice post, Katharine.
I couldn't help noticing that Google Ad Sense picked up the abortion topic and ended up putting a pro-life banner ad on your sidebar. Interesting. I'm not sure what I think of this, but it shows how wide the debate spans.
Penelope
Thanks so much for stopping by, Penelope, and thanks for your important post.