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If you’re unfamiliar with Angie Jackson, it’s probably because you’re not a Twitter addict like a lot of people.
Jackson is the first known woman since the inception of Twitter to thoroughly document her travels through the murky uncertainty of decision-making regarding abortion and its subsequent results. Jackson’s blog, Angie the Anti-Theist, and her Twitter account antitheistangie have both been chronicling her decision to have an abortion and even further, to document her feelings on the subject and reaction to the Planned Parenthood-induced abortion drug, RU486.
Angie sat down today with ABC, a mere week and a half after she decided to publicly announce her decision. Jackson claims that her goals in this endeavor were to take away the stigma attached to abortion and to “demystify” the procedure as well.
Jackson is already mother to a special-needs four year-old and came to the mutual decision with her boyfriend that this particular risk (read: childbearing) was not one that she was interested in taking. Although Jackson had an IUD implanted to prevent pregnancy, it failed.
Jackson states:
“I had made a decision when my son was born to try to not get pregnant again, and if that failed I’d planned that I would get an abortion if I needed one.”
Angie Jackson’s aims, other than educating women on the often-taboo topic of abortion through a first-hand survival guide were much more simple: to seek solace and support through a network of friends to help guide her through this uncertain time. Despite the fact that she claims to have received a myriad of death threats, her Twitter following and blog traffic have almost doubled since she initially reported that she was pregnant back on February 13th.
Naturally people are divided over Jackson’s debut but this should hardly come as a surprise. The hot debate of pro-choice versus pro-life will probably rage on forever.
Well … you know how I feel about abortions. And I’m not looking down upon this woman for doing what she’s doing in her variation of a spotlight; quite the contrary. I think it’s an interesting slant on putting a topic into perspective that often goes under-discussed whether you support it or not. The only advice, should I be asked for any, naturally, would be to consider a tubal ligation after all of this is said and done. If she didn’t want more children after the birth of her last child, she should have taken that factor into consideration. Birth control fails; we all know this. My daughter was conceived while I was on the birth control pill and I had always been steadfast in taking the pill each and every day, without fail. It happens.
So, in short, I guess, if you don’t want to have kids and would rather consider abortion should you get pregnant down the line … maybe a sterilization is for you. Once is understandable … Two, well, two or more just isn’t fair.
Thoughts?
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Angstheists are full of class
Absolutely agree. She knew she didn’t want any more children, why not get a tubal? There are other permanent sterilization methods that work too. An IUD is great for like 5 years, but even my OB said she’s removed her fair share from pregnant women…
There should be a stigma to abortions, it shouldn’t be taken lightly. How sad that someone thinks it’s their duty to have a lunchtime appointment at the ol’ clinic and go along with their merry day 100% guilt free.
I’m pro-choice, just not pro-insensitive asshole.
I agree,she is classless.
“There should be a stigma to abortions, it shouldn’t be taken lightly. How sad that someone thinks it’s their duty to have a lunchtime appointment at the ol’ clinic and go along with their merry day 100% guilt free. ”
My sentiments exactly. An abortion really isn’t something to be proud of.
Nor is it something to be ashamed of.
She should be 100% guilt free. It is her body. She can do whatever she wants to it.
I just read this on ABC a few hours ago. I was wondering if you would pick up on it.
First I am not twitter fan. I just don’t get it. Second, tweeting (?) an abortion? Unfuckingbelievable! Third, she sounds “proud” of the fact that she is tweeting this. Fourth, you don’t EVER WANT children again, get your tubes tied.
I also got pregnant while on the pill, and no, I didn’t goof up. My second one was conceived within 2 weeks of getting off of the pill. My next stop was a tubal, since I knew I only wanted two kids.
And I am pro-choice. This is unfuckingbelievable!
She did a live-tweet of her abortion. Fantastic.
She sounds like her reality isn’t the same as most people’s reality. She considers herself a former cult member and carries a lot of anger toward those who define themselves as Christian.
I’m pro-choice. I think it’s a bit harsh and unrealistic to expect a woman to get sterilized so young after one child just because she might not want more kids at the time. She is only 27. She had an IUD put in and if I understand that, those are supposed to provide 5 years of protection. Hers failed. It’s not like she was running around not using any protection.
All that aside, I think tweeting about it in such detail is gross. But I wonder, is it any more or less gross than mothers who tweet constantly about their dying children? Both seem like incredible ploys for attention and 15 minutes of fame and, in some cases, money. I know I’m going to get shit for saying that and fine. . . but anyone who tweets their tragedies for public consumption has some seriously twisted views about dignity and integrity.
I agree it is in line with tweeting tragedies- ala Tila Tequila and other attention whores in every day life. In those cases, your silence is understood and respected. It’s not something strangers or acquaintances need to have all the details of. Not in good taste…
“I think it’s a bit harsh and unrealistic to expect a woman to get sterilized so young after one child just because she might not want more kids at the time.”
I agree with you “at the time.” What I read was that she never wanted any more children. I understand that people do change their minds, however, some of us know for a fact that we NEVER want any more children. That’s why I got my tubes tied while my husband didn’t get a vasectomy. I knew that 2 pregnancies and 2 children was it for me.
After thinking about this, yes, maybe it is a bit harsh. I really don’t have a problem with her choice, yes, she was being responsible. My biggest disgust is that she tweeted it live, educational or not.
I think in this case she knew she didn’t want any more children, ie the abortion after failed IUD. I think if she had any wavering certainty about future children, she might not have had the surprise baby cut out of her. I kinda feel like if someone wants to pick and choose for convenience sake, any abortion should be followed up with a tubal. Only 1 person I know regretted her abortion so much she never had another. The rest are repeat offenders and I think that is sick and wrong…
There is another A word for when you don’t want your baby. Adoption is the selfless option IMO…
I hear you Jess, I also feel that abortion should not be considered a form of repeated birth control. Mistakes or accidents happen, but there are so many ways of preventing a pregnancy instead of ending them.
When I got my tubes tied my mother played devil’s advocate, what if one of existing kids die? what if you get divorced and then remarried and he wants kids of his own? what if you decide you want a girl? My answer was always the same. No more for me. I love kids, enjoyed pregnancy and raising my boys, in fact I’m sort of a second Mom to an eleven year old right now. I just knew that I didn’t want any more naturally.
The inability of women to believe that other women might not want to procreate (either at all, or any more) is one of the things I find most frustrating. What happened to supporting choices?
The worst is the “oh, you’ll change your mind” crowd.
I just have to comment on the generalization that women who get abortions become “repeat offenders.” It may be that the “repeat offenders” are simply more open about it. I know for a fact that if I became pregnant right now despite my best efforts to prevent it, I would most likely opt for an abortion and I would not tell anyone. I wouldn’t even tell my mother.
Speaking of, my mother had a single abortion. She was 21 and for six months married to a man who cheated on her habitually. She picked up a drinking habit and was on medication for an infection when she found out she was 7 weeks pregnant. Her doctor advised her that the medication she was on, coupled with the alcohol she’d been consuming, would have greatly increased the risk of birth defects in the child. So she had an abortion followed by an annulment. And then three years later she met and married by father, and six years later I came along. I stand firm in believing that if my mother were denied access to her abortion I would not be here. So I am pro-choice.
That being said, I find it incredibly crass that this woman would tweet her abortion. My mother has told me that she still has dreams about the child she aborted, and regrets it to this day. It’s not something to be taken lightly.
I wonder if she was attempting to follow in the footsteps of Penelope Trunk (the miscarriage tweeter)?
Whatever her motivation, I personally do not find it offensive (although I haven’t read her tweets). She was using reliable protection – or at least protection that we are made to believe is highly effective – and she documented her personal experience via mainstream social media.
Actually, I would go as far as to say that I think this is possibly a good thing in the long run. Maybe fewer women will rely on an IUD and choose tubal ligation. Maybe women will better understand the procedure and make better decisions for themselves based on the information she provides.
[...] Woman Live-Tweets Her Abortion – Zelda Lily [...]
The problem with sterilization is that it is not an option for everyone. As a young woman who has never had a child I have found doctors are unwilling to consider sterilization or an IUD.
Also there is no way that a person’s decisions in this area will ever be completely understandable. If you are pro-life but consider one abortion “understandable,” why not two? I mean, a dead baby is a dead baby, and another dead baby makes two. Is there are real difference?
People calling themselves ‘pro-life’ but say one abortion is understandable are far outside the mainstream of prolife.
These are usually the ‘abortions should absolutely be legal, but we should try to prevent them wherever possible’ sorts.
And one of the ways is better birth control, and more permanent birth control for people who never plan to have children.
If you’re done having kids, or never want them, the suggestion is that you should try to permanently disable yourself from fertility. Therefore, it is understood that something went wrong and a person had an abortion, but that should have been a wake-up call to do something better. Theory is that you should have learned by the second one.
I agree with you though that ‘one is okay but two is not’ sounds illogical.
I’ve heard many stories about doctors being unwilling to sterilize young women with no children (which is terribly frustrating!), but I’m surprised you’ve had trouble with an IUD. I was under the impression that they were only really implantable in women after birth, but it seems that was just the earlier ones, and I’ve had the newer ones suggested by doctors. Maybe ask around again?
The difference is intent. An abortion due to birth control failure or some other extreme situation is completely different than someone who is getting an abortion for an “experience” or for “fame” which is what this woman made her abortion seem like. And then there is the real concern that some women will use abortion as a form of birth control, although I find that highly unlikely and more of a sign of a mental illness than having anything to do with abortion itself.
People who believe one abortion is understandable but 2 is not are not really pro-life but pro-choice with provisions.
I would never have an abortion myself unless the baby was severely malformed as to not be able to live after birth or in the event I was raped. Here’s the proviso for that one- were I not married, I might consider keeping the baby. Being that I am married and would never assume my husband would be a great father to my rapists child, I would abort. (or consider adoption if my carrying the child to term were discussed and agreed upon by my husband and I) I would feel just as much sorrow over a life having to be snuffed out as the actual rape occuring though.
I think women who are drug addicts who continue to use, women who are severely mentally handi-capped, teenagers with no support group and prostitutes or women who would be horrible selfish mothers should get abortions and be sterilized.
I think a man should never decide through writing laws, what a woman may do with her reproductive decisions.
I believe life starts at conception and is made real by love.
I would never condemn a woman seeking an abortion for valid reasons, though I might try to talk her out of it (I have done this and the little girl who is alive in part to my pleading and reasoning is beautiful and a true blessing to her mother)
So I am what? Pro life, pro-choice, pro-compassion or sensibility? I don’t know! The grey areas are pretty complex…
I just watched some of her U-tube stuff,I’m not impressed. She’s screaming look at me, I’m so avant garde. She makes me kinda sad.
She had an IUD. It failed.
She chose to have an abortion.
While I can’t say that tweeting this is what I would have done, it is no less offensive than some other tweets that I have heard of.
However, she did nothing illegal.
Go ahead, tweet all the details of having a boil lanced. I’ll question your manners and upbringing there, too.
You can second guess all day long about whether or not sdhe should have had a tubal, but it isn’t YOUR body, your hopes, your dreams – your LIFE.
Maybe she would like to have another child someday. Maybe she has hope – however small – that her circumstances will change and it will become possible.
Please – no broad pronouncements about what another woman should or should not do.
As far as the abortion as birth control thing? You have to have your head up your ass to think that this is common. The cost alone would make anyone think twice, not to mention the other, usual factors.
Personally, I think that it is better that she terminated as early as she did, rather than wait til she needed surgical medical intervention.
I have not read her tweets (other than presented in the article linked above), or watched any of the videos, nor will I.
I could just kiss you I loved this simple, logical speech so much, I mean don’t get me wrong I generally agree with what you have to say but this post in particular made me adore the internet persona known as Blurry.
I love you too :)
Most repeat offenders with abortions can go to the free clinic and pay NOTHING because it’s the poor and under-educated that make up the biggest demographic. My sister in law had 2, courtesy of the state of Texas. I looked around to find my head after that one, but it wasn’t up my ass!
How very odd.
Here, in the state of Pennsylvania, abortion is NOT covered by social welfare – AT ALL.
It says more about your sister in law than it does anyone else, for that matter.
Either she is very, very unlucky, very stupid, or very cold.
The fact remains – there is no “offender” status. Abortion is legal.
It’s legal you’re right, but is is OFFENSive to have such a cavalier attitude towards convenience abortiions.
My SIL is very manipulative and continues (10 years so far) with a babydaddy who is lazy and abusive. Stupid applies absolutely.
Here are some facts about who has abortions and why and these statistics are 10 years old mind you-
•Black women are more than three times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are two-and-a-half times as likely.
•8% of women having abortions have never used a method of birth control; nonuse is greatest among those who are young, unmarried, poor, black, Hispanic, or poorly educated.
•About 14% of all abortions in the United States are paid for with public funds, virtually all of which are state funds. 17 states (Ala., Ariz., Calif., Conn., Hawaii, Ill., Mass., Md., Minn., Mont., N.J., N.M., N.Y., Ore., Vt., Wash., W.Va.) pay for abortions for some poor women.
from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0904509.html
Jess, nothing you said backs up your original assertion.
“About 14% of all abortions in the United States are paid for with public funds, virtually all of which are state funds. 17 states (Ala., Ariz., Calif., Conn., Hawaii, Ill., Mass., Md., Minn., Mont., N.J., N.M., N.Y., Ore., Vt., Wash., W.Va.) pay for abortions for some poor women.”
I don’t see Texas there?
And certainly not Pennsylvania!
And they pay for abortions for *SOME* poor women.
I wonder what criteria have to be in place in order to be one of those poor women?
Those stats are 10 years old, like I said. I can imagine many more statYou can check out this planned parenthood website for southeast Texas, it offers financial assistance for those who qualify. I don’t know about your state, but I would guess there is less of a need for state funded financial help as (as of 2008) the median income is almost $51,000 with 85% of the population being white. 12% of the pop. lives below poverty level.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/setexas-abortion/fees-29034.htm
It just occurred to me.
“Most repeat offenders with abortions can go to the free clinic and pay NOTHING because it’s the poor and under-educated that make up the biggest demographic.”
Are you suggesting that they would make better parents because they are poor and/or under educated?
Or that they are the biggest “abusers” of abortion? Let’s face it.
In this world, as long as you have money, very little is closed to you.
If what you say is true, my hat goes off to the state of Texas for making abortions equally available to all – regardless of social or economic status.
“As far as the abortion as birth control thing? You have to have your head up your ass to think that this is common. The cost alone would make anyone think twice, not to mention the other, usual factors.”
I am suggesting that casual abortion (as a contraceptive) is more common than you think. Also that the majority of abortion users qualify for free or reduced rates in many states. There are not many factors to make these people think twice. No, these people would not make better parents being uneducated and poor.
Nobody who is selfish enough to have an abortion just because “this year” isn’t a good time for another baby, probably isn’t the best caring individual a good parent should be. A loving, compassionate person would “make it work” and accept the consequences of that decision.
My sister in law still talks about having one more in a few years. Add that to her 3 live children and the 2 who were not convenient at the time. If she had her last abortion and got her tubes tied, I would feel a whole lot better about her decision. But she WANTS ANOTHER BABY she can’t afford to give a great life to. Her and others like her boggle my mind, and kinda just disgust me. That said, I support her reproductive rights to decide what to do with her own body. But the things she has decided are not something I respect on a personal level.
Well said, Jess.
There is nothing wrong with being repulsed by decisions made by someone that you personally know is an asshole.
You just have to be careful in applying them to the population as a whole.
Me? I’d want to bitch slap her.
In a nice way, of course.
“Nobody who is selfish enough to have an abortion just because “this year” isn’t a good time for another baby, probably isn’t the best caring individual a good parent should be.”
My husband had a vasectomy after my son was born, because I didn’t want to have another baby ever again. I didn’t mean to get pregnant with my son as it was.
If I’d gotten pregnant within a few months of him being born I would’ve had an abortion. “That year” would’ve been the worst time ever to have a baby. I was frazzled beyond belief with the baby I’d just had. I would’ve been a terrible mother to both of the babies if I’d had another then. It wouldn’t have gotten better, because that’s not how stress works for me. It doesn’t go away eventually, it builds until I snap. I would’ve remained a bad mother to both of them.
If I ended up pregnant now I would definitely keep the baby, because this year things are much better and it wouldn’t push me over the edge the way it would have two, or even one, year ago.
“I support her reproductive rights to decide what to do with her own body. But the things she has decided are not something I respect on a personal level.” Very well said. I was trying to think of the correct words to convey my sentiment and you hit it completely.
After my second son was born, I had a scare. I was breastfeeding and had a husband who would put up quite a fuss about using a condom. If I would have become pregnant at that time, I would have had an abortion. We divorced 6 years later and to this day I still hold a small resentment regarding this episode. (and also wish I would have made a better decision to avoid being in that place)
I have known women who have had 2 -3 abortions in their lifetime. On one hand I want to say I’m glad they didn’t bring a child into the world. Who knows how the poor child would be raised or even survived. On the other hand, I just wish that they would choose better forms of birth control or consider adoption.
^ If you think that’s sad, Google “Irene Vilar”. Reading about her thoroughly depresses me and makes me lose a great deal of faith in humanity.
[...] Nope, it’s not a typo – “Woman live tweets her abortion!” [...]
Hi Zelda – I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told everyone who says I “should” get a tubal ligation. 1) They are not 100% effective *either*. They’re not. I’ve had dozens of woman who got pregnant post-tubal contact me over the past few weeks. 2) I’ll still happily get one, if you wanna come up with the money. Being a single mom to a special needs child is expensive. I simply don’t have either medical insurance or $2-6 grand sitting around. But I have no objection to having the procedure done. :)