Born in a trailer. Literally. Grew up on the beach in So Cal. Home-schooled. Learned to fly airplanes when I was 16. Lived in Alaska. Moved to Berkeley to study peace. Got pregnant. Had an abortion. Decided to create some change in the world. Founded Exhale. Leading the pro-voice movement!
I believe it is possible to bring peace to the abortion war. As a woman who had an abortion (watch me tell my story on video), founded Exhale and has been promoting my vision and leading the organization for over 7 years, I have started this blog to…SEE WHAT CAN HAPPEN. Bringing peace to this long-standing culture war is about building connections and changing the conversation. What better way to create new ways to talk and think and act about abortion than by building a pro-voice community online that values leadership, vision, risk-taking, learning, listening, justice, and most of all, embracing challenge and having fun! Join me.
You can reach me by email at aspenbakersblog [at] gmail [dot] com.
Have you seen Amanda Palmer’s song/video “Oasis?” about a young woman who has an abortion?
http://amandapalmer.net/content/?p=333
Here’s her blog entry about the fallout from the video:
http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/75463717/on-abortion-rape-art-and-humor
P.S. Love the rainbow over the Grand Lake Theater picture.
Thanks Quercki. I had not seen this! Wish I had before we did the Humor issue. I’m going to post the video now.
I am a person of the male persuasion. Your blog entry about the NIH hearing resonated with a lot of my experience.
I spent two intervals each of five years duration at the TALK distress center in Kingston ON Canada which is similar to Exhale. It was started in 1973 as an alternative to a somewhat judgmental, religiously based distress line in the area. Like Exhale, it is confidential, anonymous, non-judgmental and staffed by empathic volunteer peer counselors. We added an 800 number so that we could serve all of Eastern Ontario. Volunteering there was one of the best experiences of my life
Volunteering helped me in my work on one of the original websites, founded in 1995, at http://www.religioustolerance.org. We now have about 5,150 essays online including a section on post-abortion syndrome.
Regards
Bruce Robinson
ocrt@religioustolerance.org
thanks so very much for the work. so inspiring, the courage, in these particular times. i had an illegal abortion in 1966 and am still healing-which is not to say life hasn’t been hugely abundant for me. greetings and thanks, nancy dotlo