The new regulations on medication abortion are definitely bad law and bad medicine. But on a cultural level, how much of a woman's decision re: whether or not to get an abortion -- medication or otherwise -- is influenced by societal shame and stigma surrounding the procedure?
I recently returned from Kenya, where Somali women and families are seeking refuge by the thousands. I met with Hubbie Hussein Al-Haji of MADRE’s sister organization, Womankind Kenya, a grassroots women’s organization of Somali pastoralists. Here is what I learned.
Fundamentalist Christians are convinced that contemporary American society is the World's Most Spectacular Display of hideously mutated, diseased and anomalous freaks. "Step right up folks!" the preacher yells, "and witness a grotesque parade of ho-mo-sex-uals, lesbians, Wiccans, radical feminists, godless liberals, secular humanists, and ... (congregation gasps) Muslim extremists!"
Anti-choicers have taken to claiming that women shouldn't have contraception, because "pregnancy isn't a disease". This makes as much sense as saying women shouldn't have access to exercise, because being out of shape isn't a disease.
