Interesting how some have tried to put you on the defensive for asking this question. It's one I've considered many times myself. So I'm going to repeat what I said in post #4, that
I think there is an element of shame that requires privacy. The women I've known have generally not discussed having an abortion with anybody but their closest friends of many years.
Paschendale immediately responded to me by saying that we should just stop shaming women then, which is not at all what meant at all. I meant that these women experience shame within themselves.
I realize that not all women experience regrets and understand that women who are regretful can also still believe, sorrowfully, that it seemed the right decision at the time.
You've asked a good question. It's not enough to just keep saying that abortion is a private medical decision. Yes, it is. And nobody has to talk about his or her medical decisions...but people do sometimes talk about their surgeries to coworkers and neighbors and friends.
Women don't really talk about their abortions, I don't think, and I wonder why more women don't speak up and show solidarity. Everybody else is "out and proud," and the more women who share their stories, the more acceptable abortion will become.
So why don't they?
I think the mastectomy example that I gave above is a good example. If you had a mastectomy, would you instantly go out and tell all the people you know and people you are merely acquaintances with or absolute strangers? I wouldn't. It isn't their business. Nonetheless, some women might go public about it because they know that by doing so, they can help other women deal with their feelings about their mastectomies.
And many women do speak up and show solidarity by telling about their abortions on the web - I have already noted one of the key websites where they do this. And in conversations of groups of women over the issue of abortion, I have myself heard women who had abortions say that they had them and discuss the situations in which they made those decisions. Some women have even talked of this in legislatures full of self-righteous anti-choice men trying to pass anti-choice legislation, and it has been in the news. Back in the 1970s, before there was a web, I recall articles in MS magazine with such stories.
I'm guessing that the reason the question comes up is that, though pro-choice people have pro-choice friends and acquaintances, read publications with a liberal, pro-choice slant, and take an interest in pro-choice websites where women might tell their stories, most pro-life people who are sympathetic to anti-choice perspectives on abortion have friends and acquaintances with the same orientation they have, read publications slanted to that orientation, and take an interest in websites where women with that orientation might tell their stories or might not.
And while the pro-choice milieu and people in it are ordinarily not ashamed of abortion and don't regret it, pro-life people in a pro-life AND anti-choice milieu often are ashamed of it - and consequently cover it up or express shame or regret about it.
But I still don't understand why anyone would be proud of having an abortion, just as I don't understand why anyone would be proud of having a mastectomy, a vasectomy, treatment for erectile dysfunction, a colonoscopy, breast reduction, hair plugs, removal of serious birthmarks, removal of a decayed tooth, a root canal, or cosmetic tooth whitening, or indeed ever going to the doctor or dentist. Medical and dental treatment isn't something to be proud of.
If we were all perfect, no one would ever go to the doctor or dentist for any reason and medicine and dentistry would collapse as professions. Because the only reason anyone ever goes to a doctor or dentist is because he or she cannot solve a problem as well alone as he or she can by getting medical or dental treatment. But certainly, no one announces to most other people, "I went to the doctor!" as if it's an accomplishment.
