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07/31/2004: "If you're guiltless and you know it, get the T-shirt"

Well, it's great to be home. I had a terrific time at school this week, but I have to admit that I missed being able to keep up with the craziness. (I even missed Al Sharpton's diatribe in Boston, but I'm hoping to find that somewhere on the Web for the chuckles.) So let's just jump right in, shall we? How about this little item, a must-have T-shirt from Planned Parenthood that is all the rave in Paris and Milan this fashion season:



Why would a responsible medical organization like PP carry such an enticing number? Here's what they say at their Web store:

The T-shirt delivers a message that is intended to confront and subvert the sense of shame surrounding abortion that has been so deliberately created by the anti-choice movement. "I had an abortion" is a statement that breaks a silence, and not a cavalier declaration.

I don't know whether it's a "cavalier declaration" or not, but even some pro-choice folks I know think it's tasteless as all get out. But hey–if you're proud of your choice (and don't miss the never-to-be-born child), flaunt it, right?

One does rather wonder, however: if abortion is just another medical procedure, no different from an appendectomy, why exactly is it necessary to announce it to the world? And don't you think there are more psychologically effective and meaningful ways of dealing with any unnecessary "shame" than to boast about one's actions on T-shirt? And does PP really think that if it weren't for the "anti-choice movement," women would never feel any shame over having killed their children?

UPDATE: This just in from World magazine's blog:

After unveiling the latest addition to its "social fashion" line, Planned Parenthood suffered blowback from an unlikely quarter: Itself. America's biggest abortion collective is selling t-shirts with the slogan "I had an abortion" depicted on the front. But according to LifeNews.com, some local Planned Parenthood affiliates find the t-shirts embarrassing, and are distancing themselves from the mother ship.

"This is going beyond pro-choice. We're offending people," Brian Lewis, director of public policy for Planned Parenthood Health Systems of North Carolina, told the Charlotte Observer.

Idaho pro-aborts also decried the t-shirts. "I think the issue to focus on here is the effort that Planned Parenthood goes to, to prevent unwanted pregnancy," Rebecca Poedy, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Idaho, told KBCI-TV in Boise. "I think this is just a poor decision and we are just not supportive of it."

Pro-life groups also protested the shirts, stoking an uproar loud enough for Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Gloria Feldt to issue a defensive press release on July 28: The t-shirts, she sniffed, are "a way to challenge the silence and shame around an experience many women have shared...anti-choice extremists are doing everything they can to turn that choice into a scarlet letter, and ultimately to criminalize this option. In that effort, some anti-choice activists have publicly disclosed that they had an abortion, only to cast this option in shame."

So women who had an abortion and say so on a t-shirt are noble defenders of truth, and women who speak negatively about their own abortion experiences are extremist political operatives?