It's in poor taste.

After all, we don't wear shirts that say
"I had my gallblatter removed"

Completely tasteless. What the hell are they trying to say with these shirts? "I had an abortion [and you can too]?" is it on a par with Nike's "Just do it?" Personally, I feel abortion is acceptable only if the mother was a victim of rap or incest, is terminally ill, or if it can be determined, without any doubt, that the baby will die shortly after birth or has died before being carried to term. Why anyone would want to advertise that procedure is completely beyond me as I see it as a last resort.

anyone remember this t-shirt???

damn shame. why would any girl wear this? its one thing to say "tee hee, look at me, im CUTE and look at my CUTE tshirt...:grin:" but to display a shirt promoting the prospect of domestic violence and getting an abortion that casually is definitely another thing.

retailers and teenybopers alike, grow up!

p.s. i saw an older woman wearing this shirt. well into her 30s. what was she thinking? not cute at all!

like all those embarassing 50 y/o suntanned women who wore the playboy bunny thirts like they were barely legal. gross!

I think one of my main problems with this shirt is the same women who are going to wear these shirts are going to be the ones who complain when they're wearing them and someone yells "Murderer!" at them. Not defending someone who would yell that, but if you're going to open yourself up like that, you have to expect consequences.

I am proudly indifferent.

Maybe it would be healthy to desensitize the issue?

Maybe it would allow the women that opt for abortions to carry around less sense of social/religious guilt?

Maybe that would lessen the emotional baggage some of them have to carry around so they can live a better life?

I think this shirt would be great to see women wearing at political rallies and stand up for choice rallies. I'd like to see the pro-life protesters actually have to confront a real person rather than just screaming obscenities in general.

om:eek:G i just saw this!!!! wow.

i hear ppl saying "wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a society where ppl don't feel ashamed" and all that.....but you also have to take into consideration that maybe ppl aren't "ashamed" of what they did b/c of how society veiws them, but b/c of what they actually did and how they now possibly view themselves. yeah, sure, society is a b*tch....but the act itself is, too....IMHO.

maybe i should print that up on a shirt: abortion is a b*tch :o

basically, i think to advertise abortion like it was abercrombie is disgusting.

Same here.

If someone decided to have or not have an abortion.. that's their own choice and their own business, and not mine.

If someone decided to wear or not wear this shirt, once again, their choice, and their business :)

'I had an abortion' T-shirts stir up controversy

By Amy Eagle
Special to the Tribune
Published August 4, 2004

On July 12, Planned Parenthood began to offer for sale on its Web site a T-shirt with the simple--yet startling--message, "I had an abortion."

Through Monday, 200 shirts have been purchased and commentators on all sides of the abortion issue have registered opinions about it. Reactions have ranged from gratitude to unease to hostility.

Emily Steinberg, 24, for one, is grateful. A graduate student in deaf cultural studies at Gallaudet University, she saw a number of women wearing the T-shirts at the March for Women's Lives, an abor-tion-rights march in Washington, D.C., this spring.

The T-shirts made a powerful statement to Steinberg, who had not even told the woman she was marching with about her abortion. She ordered a shirt for herself.

Though she has not worn it in public, it is an important symbol for her.

"It allows me to be honest with myself about the life I've had," Steinberg said.

Olivia Gans, director of American Victims of Abortion, an outreach group of the National Right to Life Committee, said her organization was "stunned and appalled" by the shirt. Gans, who speaks openly about her 1981 abortion, which she now regrets, said, "[Planned Parenthood] seems to think that if everyone just wears these shirts, [abortion] will seem more normal. In my experience, whether women are strongly pro-abortion or pro-life, the experience is never normal--it's always profound."

The shirt was designed by Jennifer Baumgardner, 34, a writer and abortion-rights activist in New York.

Baumgardner got the idea for the shirt while working on a documentary about the secrecy surrounding abortion. The film, tentatively titled "I Had an Abortion," is scheduled to be released Jan. 22, the 32nd anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.

Noting that abortion is both legal and common, Baumgardner, who had sold 200 of the shirts via word-of-mouth before Planned Parenthood picked them up, said she wants to destigmatize abortion, not trivialize it.

"My intention isn't to be glib about abortion, but to signal how incredibly common it is and how isolated women are from other women who have had [abortions]. Part of the paralyzing stigma of abortion is reinforced by silence," she said.

Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said her organization decided to sell the shirts because "anti-choice extremists have vilified, harassed and shamed women [who have abortions] for so many years."

The shirt is intended to show that "the women who have abortions are our mothers, daughters, sisters, friends," she said.

Steve Trombley, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Chicago, said women who have had abortions have been "nameless and faceless and used as political footballs. ... The T-shirt puts a name and a face to the issue."

Baumgardner said the shirts are not meant to be offensive. "They don't say, `I love abortion,'" she said.

However, that is the message many people seem to be taking from the shirts.

Jim Sedlak, executive director STOPP (Stop Planned Parenthood) International, part of the Stafford, Va.-based anti-abortion group American Life League, said, "I don't believe any woman who wasn't proud of her abortion would wear this shirt." He called the shirts "reprehensible."

Newspaper columnists and Internet chat room participants have been outspoken about the shirts. Some have criticized the message--"My version of it is, `I'm a baby-murdering slut!'" reads one post on the Web site RightNation.US. Others have criticized the shirts for making public what should be a private matter.

And in North Carolina and Idaho, Planned Parenthood officials have expressed concern that the shirts will offend people in their communities and distract attention from the group's efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Rebecca Poedy, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Idaho, told her local CBS affiliate, KCBI Boise, that the shirts distract from the organization's efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

"Very disappointed," she told KCBI. "I think the issue to focus on here is the effort that Planned Parenthood goes to to prevent unwanted pregnancy. I think this is just a poor decision and we are just not supportive of it."

Baumgardner said she is "of course ... concerned that the medium hurts the message." But, she added, the shirt has been effective in "opening up debate."

"This T-shirt is powerful, whether or not it's the most `appropriate' venue for discussing abortion," she said.

In response to those who say abortion should be a private matter, Baumgardner said, "I think there are no `shoulds'--coming out or owning up to one's abortion is for individual women to decide. I wouldn't impose the shirt on anyone."

However, she sees a connection between a woman's decision to keep quiet and threats to legalized abortion. If people had to consider the issue alongside "the millions of voices and faces of our loved ones who have had abortions," she said, "I believe the right would be much more firmly protected."

Baumgardner has worried that those wearing the shirts might be harassed. Those worries have not been realized.

Rosalyn Baxandall, 59, a professor at State University of New York in Old Westbury, had an illegal abortion in 1962. While participating several years ago in a rally at which women shared their personal abortion stories, she learned the younger women felt guiltier about the procedure than the older women.

"The [religious] right has kept up such a campaign [of shame] for so long," said Baxandall; she bought a shirt to counter that message.

People in Baxandall's Greenwich Village neighborhood were conspicuously silent in reaction to her shirt. "It was like I was invisible," she said.

A'yen Tran, 23, a recent graduate of Barnard College at Columbia University in New York City, has had a mixed reaction while wearing the shirt on campus and elsewhere in the city.

"I got looks of shock and occasional disgust," she said, "But mostly people said, `Wow, that's great. That's very brave of you.'"
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune


After reading this I now understand the context of the message.
Perhaps Planned Parenthood should have explained it on the website.

What if some lanky man wears this "T shirt"???

I mean--can everyone have an abortion, too???

"I'm aborted, she's aborted, he's aborted, we're aborted--wouldn't you like to be aborted too..."

I can think of better things to sell rather than T-shirts that say things...

Like better women's health care...

I agree...if we're going to put our business in everyone's face, why not shirts that say "I use condoms" or "Depo-Provera is the shiznit!"

I think the point of the campaign ultimately was to make money. From what I can tell, it's doing that.

I don't think the "average" American woman who's had an abortion would wear this. It seems to be targeted to the outspoken feminists--like those quoted in the article. I can tell you that very few of the women I've escorted into PP wouldn't be rocking this shirt.

On another board I frequent, the take on this is much different. Most are familiar with PP's agenda and support it wholeheartedly.

But this shirt, and the confusion around it, is yet another reason I feel that feminism--and I say this as one!--alienates poor women, uneducated women, and women who may not have the time or self-awareness to accept their decisions as anything other than necessity.

I'm waiting for the "I Had a Colonoscopy" shirt to come out. :D

<slight hijak>
The wait may not be that long. A lot of colon cancer awareness groups have been mulling over that kind of approach to encourage routine checkups. One recent campaign was "Don't Die of Embarassment." The point being, it's in your best interest to get over the discomfort of an anal-rectal exam than find out the hard way that cancer got out of control.

Rosie O'Donnell did something similar with her "I Got Squished" T-shirts that she promoted on her show, encouraging routine mammography.

Then of course, there's the guy who was all over MTV (I think it was Tom Green, but someone correct me if not) who coined the pithy phrase, "Don't be a yutz--check your nuts!" for testicular cancer awareness.

I'm going to end the hijak before a discussion begins on abortion vs cancer awareness.
;)
</slight hijak>

--add