If you’re looking for inspiration, best steer clear of the “Inspiration” section in the latest edition of Oprah Winfrey’s “O” magazine. The July 2018 issue is promoting the ‘Shout your Abortion’ campaign.
The online movement encourages women to boast about their abortion experiences without “sadness, shame or regret” for the purpose of “destigmatization, normalization, and putting an end to shame.”
In the article titled, “How One Woman Became an Activist With the Hashtag #ShoutYourAbortions,” Amelia Bonow describes how she broke down in tears in 2015 after hearing news that U.S. House of Representatives had voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
According to Bonow, she opened Facebook and without thinking wrote, “Like a year ago, I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood… and I remember this experience with a nearly inexpressible level of gratitude.”
While Bonow admits she’d been a long time frequenter and supporter of Planned Parenthood, she hadn’t, until now, “actually invoked [her] own experience.”
“On some level, I’d internalized the stigma–though I honestly wasn’t ashamed. Then why hide? It wasn’t out of character for me to disclose something so personal online. What was out of character was my silence,” she went on to say.
Bonow said her post encouraged other women to start unashamedly boasting about their abortions on social media too. And before long the hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion went viral.
One can’t help to remember the words of the prophet Isaiah who said, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20).
Each year, Planned Parenthood receive about $543.7 million in federal funding and perform over 321,000 abortions. That’s 800 abortions per day; one abortion every 98 seconds. As Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action points out, “that’s the equivalent of every inhabitant of St Louis or Pittsburgh wiped out, every year.”
In contrast, every year Planned Parenthood performs less than 2% of the nation’s cancer screenings and less than 2% of the nation’s breast exams.
Last week, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) reportedly filed an amendment to the Senate appropriations package for Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services and Education that would “stop taxpaer dollars from going to Planned Parenthood and other entities that perform abortions.”
In a statement issued last week, Senator Paul said, “One of the top priorities for a Republican Congress that professes pro-life values on the campaign trail should be to stop taxpayer funding for abortion providers. This is our chance to turn our words into action, stand up for the sanctity of life, and speak out for the most innocent among us that have no voice.”
