#ShoutYourAbortion Gets Angry Shouts Back
Amelia Bonow and a friend, Lindy West, created the hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion on a Twitter account. “A shout is not a celebration or a value judgment; it’s the opposite of a whisper, of silence,” Ms. Bonow said.
The Seattle women who chose to bring abortion from the shadows this time around are writers and activists: Ms. Bonow has been a writer, psychology graduate student, bartender and publicist for artists. Ms. West is best known as a writer for Jezebel. To jump-start their campaign, they wrote essays for The Guardian and for Salon urging women to speak out without apology.
“One of the final hurdles is getting it into people’s heads that the reason for an abortion doesn’t matter,” Ms. West said in an interview. “Women own their own bodies, and you just can’t force someone to bring a baby into the world.”
On her Facebook page, Ms. Bonow said: “Having an abortion made me happy in a totally unqualified way. Why wouldn’t I be happy that I was not forced to become a mother?”
Not just the creators of the campaign but also many who joined in on Twitter said they had received angry reactions and threats. Ms. West said a fake account had been created for her deceased father, Paul West. One message from that account read, “Why are you so proud of killing my grandchild?”
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