“Are all your board members this involved?” Deb, a donor in Seattle, asked me as we both waved goodbye to Julie, a board member who had just co-hosted a fundraising party at Deb’s home in November 2009.

“Yep!” I said.  “It’s very impressive,” she replied.

Impressive is a great word to describe the board service of Jennifer Rudy, Julie Davidson-Gómez and Susan Osborne.  Brought onto the board of directors as a cohort in 2005, Jen, Julie and Susan have recently left the board after successful completion of our maximum board term: two, three-year stints of service.  From their board member orientation to their transition celebration, their leadership has shaped what Exhale is today; and what we will become in the future.

Jen, Julie and Susan benefitted from the partnership of other board members (thank you Lisa Lepson, Talia Walsmith, Ellen Wu, Tulin Acikalin, Amy Moy, Cathy Schreiber and Jason Schultz!) throughout their service; yet as a cohort who came onto the board together and left together, their group has played a key role in Exhale’s growth and evolution from an organization primarily known for our direct services to one that is leading successful efforts to change the culture around abortion.

With this blog post, I write to acknowledge their service to Exhale; and to highlight a few of the key contributions that they have made towards solidifying Exhale as an innovative, entrepreneurial organization; and their impact on future board leadership.

Board Roles and Responsibilities

The role of a board member can be as expansive or as a minimal as an organization wants to make it.  Certainly there are laws and ethics guiding the role of the board, and traditional functions, but once the Executive Director has been reviewed; finances overseen; strategic planning facilitated; and fundraising successfully integrated into board roles and responsibilities, what other opportunities for leadership can board members provide to advance a social change mission?

Board performance is one-of-the most talked about and debated issues in nonprofit governance (especially among Executive Directors), and CompassPoint’s recent “Daring to Lead” report shows that Executive Directors have very mixed experiences with their boards.  Yet, CompassPoint’s paper on Next Generation Organizations; Beth Kanter’s book on the Networked Nonprofit; and networked models like the WikiMedia Foundation, for example, point to where board leadership is headed.

But, systems, process, ideas, and strategies don’t add up to a whole lot without leadership.  It doesn’t matter how much evidence there is showing the need for change, or how many expensive consultants tell a board what they should do moving forward, if the leadership isn’t there to endorse, encourage and enable change, then it’s probably not going to happen.

This kind of leadership – the kind that facilitated Exhale’s ability to grow and evolve – is the gift that Jen, Julie and Susan have given Exhale.  They joined the board five years after our founding and they were the right leaders at the right time to provide exactly what Exhale needed over the last six-years: a strong foundation to foster and grow an organizational culture rooted in Mission, Abundance, Excellence, Innovation and Self-Care.

The Practice of Organizational Culture

Putting words down on paper does not a culture make.  Organizational culture is a practice.  It is the values, assumptions, norms and behaviors that are shared and exhibited by people within an organization. Sometimes it is referred to as an organization’s personality, character or core identity.  An organization’s culture is reflected in interpersonal communication, leadership style, systems in place and traditions followed – it is the often-unwritten or unsaid understanding between people that creates the way work is conducted.

Exhale, with the board leadership of Jen, Julie and Susan, encouraged, enabled and endorsed the effort to advance our internal organizational culture.  Throughout their board term, our team of volunteers, staff and board changed our professional behavior with one another, assessed our decisions in a new way, strategized and planned from a different set of considerations, and identified potential team members – from funders to volunteers – with this new, proactive criteria.

We focused on this effort because we wanted to create an organizational culture that was aligned with our values; and mostly, because we need every part of Exhale to be focused on one thing: achieving our mission. The culture in which we operate and do our business has a tremendous impact on our ability to flourish and grow; as an organization with a mission to change the culture around abortion, changing our own gave us first-hand knowledge and experience of what it takes to be successful.

Accepting the Need for Change

What was so bad about our culture that Exhale needed to spend years transforming it?

It’s nothing you haven’t seen or experienced before. We weren’t that much different from most other nonprofit organizations.  We operated out of scarcity, and the idea that there was “never enough” of what we needed to be successful.  We practiced personal sacrifice, putting the organization over personal wellbeing, and we watched people burn-out. We were afraid to take risks that could lose us the few assets and allies we felt we had.  We accepted other people’s ideas of us, that we weren’t organizers, advocates, or powerful change agents, and we apologized and tried to make what we did more acceptable and comfortable for others.

These practices aren’t unique to Exhale. In fact, professional consultants in the field and leaders with decades of experience gave advice that endorsed and promoted this culture.  This is what we were told was typical, and what we needed to do to raise money.

A-ha!

But Exhale wasn’t started to raise money.  We were started to move a mission.

This “a-ha moment” is when Exhale started the process to change our culture.  Jen, Julie and Susan saw that despite decades of experience, many nonprofit leaders never achieved their social change goals, and in fact, as much as they tried to hold on, they often lost more than they gained. They watched young nonprofit leaders burn-out and leave the field and they didn’t want the same for me. They saw that scarcity-thinking and personal sacrifice were not proving to be effective models of organizational culture, and so they gave Exhale the leadership we needed to try something different.

We began by letting go. We stopped thinking about money and what we needed to do or say to get it.  We refused to let it be our motivator. We accepted that finding funding without compromising would be more challenging, and we understood that our mission could live and grow without money.  Or even staff.  The risk for me was that I might lose my paid job as Executive Director.  This highly-intentional act of letting go was not your typical board response to fundraising obstacles.  What letting go gave us was a sense of freedom and possibility. It opened the doors to our own creativity and innovation, and our power to change the world.

A Culture that Works With Us, Not Against Us

If scarcity-thinking is the death of social change; then Exhale chose to Operate from Abundance.  If trying to fix what’s broken means advocates often lose more than they gain, then Exhale chose to Strengthen What Works.

Here’s what I mean: It’s common for nonprofit boards and staff to lament all the things we don’t have, money, usually being the biggest one, but certainly also time, or prestige. For example, “We can’t do that because we don’t have enough money,” or “we can’t take that risk because our funders might not like it.” This is called “deficit” or “scarcity-thinking” and it’s a focus based on perceptions about what a nonprofit doesn’t have or is afraid to lose.

But, what if instead, nonprofit leaders focused on what we do have?  What if leaders said, “We can do that because we have the smartest staff around,” or “We will take the risk because it will help us identify new risk-taking supporters” or “Let’s earn people’s respect by demonstrating the success of our strategies.”

Notice the difference in where the real power lies? It’s in all of us.  We already have it.

For example, for the vast majority of Exhale’s organizational life, we’ve had what many might say is very few resources – little money and few staff.  But, in reality, we are overflowing with everything we need: great ideas, passionate volunteers, a compelling message and mission, and a robust network of allies. Our organizational culture change from deficit-thinking to operating out of abundance means we always start with our strengths – what we currently have – and we make decisions from there.  When we find something works well, we do more of it, and then we focus on turning what’s good into something great.

Our Real, Measureable Results   

Our organizational cultural practices produce real, tangible results for Exhale.  Look at how we approached the major financial challenges of 2010.  Last year, Exhale was at our lowest capacity with a huge demand on our services.  Yet, when the board and I looked at the problem, the first question we asked ourselves was: “what do we have that’s strong and effective that can help us get through this?”  The answer was our volunteers. Their leadership proved instrumental in getting Exhale through that time.  You can read more about their efforts on VolunteerMatch who featured a blog about Exhale’s volunteer leaders in celebration of 2011 National Volunteer Week.

Being a strength-based organization is one thing, but it takes real guts for board members to back up this idea with the nitty-gritty of budget decisions.  There is a practice in nonprofit budgeting that ignores the things that are working well and spends money on where the problems are.  I have seen nonprofits spend thousands of dollars on organizational planning process or staff retreats because there is one person who is causing problems and disruption. What if instead of letting the problem of a bad employee take up more space, they spent time and money investing in their top-performers? What if the staff person that shows up every-day on time, comes up with great ideas, and has excellent follow-through is rewarded with a trip to a conference where they get to represent the organization, be its Ambassador and have their leadership be witnessed and seen by the rest of the organization and it’s supporters?

Increased responsibility and more complex duties are rewards for top performance.  Exhale pays close attention to who shows up on time; who does what they say they’re going to do; who offers thoughtful advice and feedback to peers; and who comes up with good ideas that they take responsibility for pursuing.  We reward people with new leadership opportunities, and we give them more opportunities to shine. Check out board member Julie speaking on a panel as a representative of Exhale; and volunteers Claudia and Ijeoma who attended a conference on behalf of Exhale.

Most importantly, changing our organizational culture has made Exhale more effective at achieving our mission.  Within the last 12-months we went from facing one of our organization’s biggest challenges to celebrating in one of our most phenomenal successes.  It has everything to do with organizational leadership and culture.  Today, Exhale’s commitment to mission, innovation and creativity has placed us in the best financial position of our nearly 10-year history.

Exhale transformed our culture from one of deficit to one of abundance, from one that focuses on what’s wrong, to one that invests in what works.  This significant change required board leadership to endorse, encourage, and enable it to take place.   There have been days, months and years when it seemed this choice may have been the wrong one and our resolve was questioned.  It was Jen, Julie and Susan who had the organization’s back and reminded us that social change happens over decades, not in grant cycles.  Their leadership has been a gift; and in the ultimate practice of true abundance-thinking, they have transitioned off the board knowing that the culture they fostered is now one of Exhale’s strengths, a strength that will attract, excite and grow Exhale’s next generation of board leadership.

Thank you Jen, Julie and Susan for your board leadership and your contributions to Exhale’s past and future.

On Friday, June 17^th, Exhale Executive Director Aspen Baker participated in a panel presentation at Netroots Nation entitled “FTW: Social Networks, Down & Dirty for Change.” Assembled by 16 & Loved architect Deanna Zandt, the panel also included Cheryl Contee from Fission Strategy, Anita Jackson from Moms Rising, and Rachel LaBruyere from Mobile Commons and explored case studied of social media successes. Aspen Baker presented the 16 & Loved campaign to a standing-room only crowd, exploring campaign goals, media reaction, and lessons learned. You can watch the whole panel discussion below [a new browser window will open]:

Panel attendees also helped generate quite a bit of buzz on social media about the presentation while it was happening, and you can read some of their Tweets below:

Thank you to all who attended and helped us grow the conversation through social media and beyond! If you’re not already following Exhale on Twitter and Facebook, we hope you’ll join us there in the Pro-Voice

After an abortion, women who want to connect personally with others who share their experience face incredible social and political challenges, such as stigma, judgment and manipulation. They risk losing their job or straining relationships with friends and family.

Yet, the desire to share stories and feel connected to others who understand is so strong that a woman will take great risks with the hope that her voice will be heard and that she will no longer feel alone.

At the recent National Conference on Media Reform, Malkia Cyril of the Center for Media Justice spoke in a workshop on how to use mobile phones for social change. She shared with us that technology is so much more than a tool for organizing or politics.  When a woman living as an inmate in a federal prison pays $7.00 every time she calls home to hear her daughter’s voice; or an African immigrant in New York pays $5 for a phone card he’s promised will give him twenty minutes with his family back home, only to have his time cut short after 5 minutes, technology becomes a matter of human dignity. Malkia reminded all of us attending the workshop that we love technology because “we love to connect.” We call, text, tweet, and email not because we love our gadgets, but because our gadgets help us meet a deep, human need for personal connection.

Exhale, an organization created by and for women who have had abortions, uses technology to facilitate connection and communication between women who have had abortions; and to shape public conversations about our personal experiences with abortion. Our pro-voice programs offer women who have had abortions the opportunity to speak for themselves – to tell their own stories, in their own words and in the forums of their choice – and feel heard with dignity and respect.

Women and our loved ones call our national, multilingual talkline to express ourselves in private with a counselor; we discuss our experiences after an abortion with other women in our private online community; and we participate in mainstream and social media forums that open supportive, respectful conversations which invite personal story sharing in public spaces.  We use technology every day and it is fundamental to our current and future strategies to create abortion peace.

In the 21^st Century, communication technology is a matter of human dignity.  We need technology to be full participants in family, community, faith and political life; and without it, we lose our ability to feel fully heard.  There are barriers to this participation, including the ability to pay for technology like computers and cell phones, and most importantly, the ability to access a free, neutral internet to make the connections we need to share our stories.

As women who have had abortions we need to ensure that all of our stories – those of women who regret our abortions as well as women who feel resolved, women who have changed their lives after an abortion and those who used it to stay on the same track, and women who can connect freely online and those who cannot – are heard and understood.

Technology matters to women who have had abortions.

We know that feeling heard is critical to our health and wellbeing and that communication technology is fundamental to being heard in the 21^st Century.  Without it, others can control our narratives, spread myths, stereotypes and untruths about who we are, including our values, families and communities.  But, with access to it, we can be the ones to share our own stories and lead a public conversation that reflects our lived experiences with abortion.

Together, with technology, we can promote listening and storytelling to create abortion peace.

Mental illness and disease are not much different than physical illness or disease.  This approach fits squarely in the medical model: there are doctors and hospitals and diagnoses. There are also risk-factors, treatments and morbidity rates.

If you have a problem, most likely, it has a name, whether it’s cancer or diabetes, depression or schizophrenia. “Health” in this model is the absence of illness or disorder, but it is not a measure of the strength, vitality or fitness of your body, mind and spirit.

The medical model is the one most often used when conducting research about abortion and mental health, including the latest study out of Denmark, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine.  This significant project confirms (in great detail and with an impressive pool of data) what many researchers have said before: there is no science that shows an abortion causes mental illness.

While I hope this science is a relief to every woman who worried that, after an abortion, she may wake up one day with a life-threatening illness like bulimia, alcoholism, or obsessive compulsive disorder, it is inadequate for understanding the scope and depth of a woman’s emotional experience when it comes to abortion.

That’s why it is so important to understand the difference between the medical model that’s focused on reducing disease and the well-being model focused on health promotion; what these differences mean for scientific research; and, eventually, what they mean for the development, adoption and promotion of strategies that can effectively enhance the emotional health of women who have had abortions.

Have no doubt: the Danish study answers important scientific questions about cause and effect when it comes to mental health and abortion.  Yet, as long as women have abortions, we are going to have feelings about it. Whether our feelings about our abortions are complicated, ambiguous or clear, having them is a natural, normal part of being human. But, our personal feelings have little to do with the medical diagnosis that is a part of mental health research. As the Danish study points out:

“most studies have failed to distinguish between mental health diagnosis such as depression and psychosis and feelings of sadness, loss, or regret, which, although unpleasant, do not necessarily signify a mental disorder.”

Scientific researchers interested in understanding and promoting the emotional health of women who have had abortions would do well to look outside the medical model and towards the growing body of research in Positive Psychology, including the comprehensive volume published by Oxford University Press called The Science of Wellbeing.

The context surrounding a woman’s personal experience with abortion in the United States is quite different than the context within Denmark. For example, most women who have an abortion in the U.S. are already parents, whereas the study suggests otherwise for Danish women.

Also, in Denmark, all health care, including abortions and mental health services are free, which is not the case here. These social and cultural circumstances are significant factors in how a woman feels about her abortion and in her ability to cope afterward.  Her family may be a source of pain, or one of strength; her faith, a blessing or a constraint.  These are the issues that the science of wellbeing can address, taking us toward a more complete picture of what a woman has and needs to be emotionally well after an abortion.

In 2009, I provided written and oral testimony before the National Institutes of Health(NIH), Office of Women’s Health Research, along with Danielle Thomas and Elsa Valmidiano of Exhale, about the need for more research to promote wellbeing after an abortion. I testified:

“Today, more than ever, there is a great need for sound, thorough research into women’s emotional well-being after an abortion: The abortion procedure is so common, the families and communities impacted are so diverse, the debate around abortion is so loud, and the overwhelming stigma – which, according to NIH’s own definition, ‘threatens psychological and physical well-being, and helps to perpetuate health inequalities within societies’ – is so harmful that it is time for the National Institutes of Health to proactively address the emotional needs of women who have abortions, by using its support and resources to undertake and share sound, thorough research into women’s real experiences.”

Scientific research on emotional health gives us, as women who have abortions, the tools and information we need to promote our own well-being.  It can be used to help us better understand the behaviors and practices that build our resilience, strengthen our confidence, and improve our emotional literacy.  It can also help providers, caregivers, family and friends to be important sources of emotional support as we build proactive networks of respect and understanding.

It’s good to know that abortion doesn’t cause mental illness.  It would be even better to know what’s needed to promote emotional health after abortion.

Our idea is “Ethical Storytelling for Social Change. ” If selected, I will be on a panel moderated by Thaler Pekar, and alongside Amy Hill of the Center for Digital Storytelling and Jeff Simmermon of AndIAmNotLying.com.

We will answer the following questions in our panel:

• What can be learned from successful examples of online story sharing by previously marginalized communities?
• What do organizations need to consider if they advocate open story-sharing online?
• What are the privacy considerations of storytellers?
• How can advocacy organizations ensure a respectful partnership with storytellers?
• What is ethical storytelling practice for advocacy organizations?

Learn more about the panel here.  Most importantly – we need your VOTE!

Every donation counts!

Here are some great images and a video from their recent post on the growing Peace movement in Oakland.

I am the Founder and Executive Director of a nonprofit organization called Exhale.  As the leader, I spend the vast majority of my time raising money.  Exhale receives no government funding and we earn our revenue primarily through foundation grants and the generous contributions of individual donors.

Because I am a professional fundraiser and nonprofit leader, you might assume that the idea of America’s most well-known billionaires – Bill Gates and Warren Buffett – hatching a well-marketed plan to get other members of their elite club to give away half of their money to charity would get me excited.  You might think that I should spend all my time trying to figure out how to get my hands on it.

You would be wrong.

The truth is, for those of who have built our entire professional careers in the nonprofit sector, we know some secrets about philanthropy and giving that the rest of the world does not.  We know, for example, that the vast majority of money that is contributed to nonprofit organizations in the United States doesn’t come from the rich.  It comes from the poor.  We also know that foundations are not the primary source of funding to our sector.  People are.  Poor people.

As Stacy Palmer from the Chronicle of Philanthropy said in the AP article by Donna Gordon Blankinship “the bulk of money raised by charities today comes from non-billionaires giving $5, $10 or $50 at a time.” Palmer followed up with a reality check about the giving patterns of rich people: “only 17 people on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest people in America are also on the Chronicle’s list of the most generous American donors.”

The main reason our sector (the great, big diverse sector of organizations that hold the tax-designation of 501(c)3) even exists is because several decades ago, a few wealthy Americans found a way to create tax shelters for their wealth within the domestic United States. They started private, philanthropic foundations.  These foundations allowed the wealthy to keep their money out of the public domain where democratically elected representatives would decide how best to spend it. They found a way – and created the laws and tax codes to protect it – to keep for themselves what was legally owed to the rest of us.

Let’s get specific.  This means, for example, that instead of paying a million dollars in taxes, a wealthy philanthropist puts his million into his own personal foundation, and by the very laws he helped to create, he is legally only required to “give” a very small percentage – about 5%- of his foundation’s assets to charity every year. Meanwhile, within the shelter of this foundation, he is allowed to forever grow his fortune without taxation.

The consequence of this is that what was supposed to be a million dollars contributed to the public domain through taxes is now just $50,000 only available through charitable contributions. What could have been a million dollars spent towards elementary education is now just $50,000 for a park bench at his alma-mater. What could have been a million dollars to help take care of our elderly is now $50,000 to sponsor a cocktail party at his favorite museum.

Just because wealthy philanthropists have starved the government of revenue doesn’t mean that the things governments have always paid for have gotten cheaper or are no longer needed.  Like all of us, we need more than ever to be healthy, educated, and safe, and everything we need costs more than it did before.  Except now the government has less money to fulfill its obligations.

And so the nonprofit sector grows in response.

But – surprise! – nonprofit organizations are not here to pick up the slack of governments or corporations.  Despite what you may think, nonprofits are not a tool designed to meet the massive human and civil needs that don’t go away just because our government can no longer afford to pay for them.  No amount of car washes, bake sales, Facebook Causes or charitable gifts from the rich can address the government’s revenue gap fueled by the wealthiest Americans sheltering their billions.

Nonprofits, as advocates for the public good (this is not flowery, self-congratulatory language, this is our actual tax status), we have a history of stepping in, filling the void and upholding the responsibility that was once the governments.  Even worse, we compete with each other over the $50,000 chump change, wear our sacrifice like a badge-of-honor and accept that the public good is only worth the spare change others are willing to contribute when they feel like it.

We all pay the costs of a system which privileges billionaire elites.  We pay the cost when parents and communities have to not only pay their own taxes, they also have to start their own nonprofits, donate their own money and spend their time raising money from others in order to fund their children’s schools. Or pay for their cousin’s cancer treatment.  Or maintain a local park.

As leaders of nonprofit organizations we should not settle for a role as the stop-gap.  Instead, we must lead our organizations to band together and demand the true costs of what we need to fulfill our missions and hold the government – and the wealthy – accountable to their responsibilities for the public good.

Through charitable giving, wealthy philanthropists starve the government of revenue.  And then they expect us – nonprofit organizations – to beg and compete for their pennies.  We must all say no.

Instead of a Giving-Pledge, I encourage Gates and Buffett to use their leadership and their wealth to start a Tax-Pledge. They should ask their fellow billionaires to pay their fair share.

I officially launched myself into the process of learning and experiencing everything I could about social media, so I could figure out how to leverage it for Exhale’s mission in July 2008.  Yep, pretty recently.  Nope, not on the leading edge of the technology movement.

As an Executive Director making choices about social media for a nonprofit organization, a few people, books and tools have been really instrumental in helping me narrow down what’s most important and opening my mind to what’s possible.

Here is what I suggest to anyone in the nonprofit field that wants to learn more:

• Read Beth Kanter’s blog every day.

• Sign up on Twitter and start following 100 people that are doing something you find interesting, like talking about racial justice, or debating Obama, or tracking the Oil Spill. Use the “search” function on twitter to find out who is talking (tweeting, I’m sorry).  See how people are using it.  Find out who is talking to each other.

• Check out Deanna Zandt’s blog and buy her book, “Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking.” Follow her on Twitter.  Invite her to speak to your organization. Now!

• Read Clay Shirky’s book “Here Comes Everybody.“

• Join NTEN and attend a webinar or two.

• Buy an iphone (assuming you haven’t already). 

And, if you’re thinking about Privacy, Social Change and Social Networking, read my two posts on Beth Kanter’s blog: on the legal landscape and private networking for social change.

HAVE FUN!

This is not your typical common-ground discussion. There are no tables to sit around, no opponents to fear, no issues to sacrifice. And no one has to stop advocating for their cause.

I write today with a call to action to every woman who, like me, has had an abortion. I invite each and every one of you to join me in growing a movement that spreads support and respect for one another. The action I invite you to take with me is to listen to each other – to listen to all women who have had abortions.

Listening to women who have had abortions can contribute to peace in the Abortion Wars, according to Eyal Rabinovitch, an expert on conflict transformation. Conflict transformation, as he describes in a paper published today by my organization, works best when the process gives voice to those the conflict has hidden and neglected. And transforming conflict requires that we “cultivate authentic and meaningful relationships” with others who hold a stake in its outcome.

We – women who have had abortions – are the ones who must lead the way. We must lead with empathy, understanding, and acceptance. We lead by practicing our values and treating each other as we would like to be treated.

We must lead because we know all too well how it feels to be judged. We know what it’s like to hope for respect and understanding and get condemnation or suspicion instead. We have wondered when we will ever see a story like ours in the media or meet another woman whose story we can relate to. We are tired of so many people talking about us and getting it wrong, getting us wrong, every time. This feeling – of not being seen and heard for our unique experience – is what we have in common.

Too often, we blame each other for this problem. But blaming each other perpetuates the conflict and adds to the stigma. And the divisive impact of the conflict and stigma is all around us.

It shows up when an anonymous woman writes in Salon after her abortion:

“I woke up feeling damaged, empty, scared, guilty and in pain. The terms ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ were emanating from the TV screen. They sounded reductive, glaringly inadequate. The word ‘abortion,’ fraught with shame and accusation, was being bandied about for pieces of political theater. The words ‘baby killer’ were omnipresent, too. Although I didn’t feel like a baby killer, like I’d killed my baby, I did feel partially dead.”

….and another woman, Serai1, who has also had an abortion, responds in the comments:

“Are we ever – and I mean EVER – going to see an article written by a woman for whom abortion was NOT ‘the hardest decision of my life’? Because I can assure you, there are thousands of women for whom this is not a hard decision, not at all. I was one of them … In fact, in all my life, I’ve never known any woman who had an abortion who wrung her hands or agonized about it. They all considered their options and decided for abortion in a calm, reasonable manner.”

It’s revealed when Angie Jackson tweets her abortion and gets this response from Nelle-Yecats, a woman who has had an abortion, too:

“I cannot agree w/Angie & her sharing on-line w/the world about her decision to abort. I do not talk about my abortion & miscarriages much to anyone. It is painful. I carry it all close to my soul.”

We perpetuate our own separation as women who have had abortions when some of us make websites like I’mNotSorry and establish it as an exclusive site only for women to share “their positive experiences with abortion,” while others of us launch Silent No More as a private club only for those who regret their abortions.

As women who have had abortions, we add to the conflict when we pick and choose the elements we believe should make up an abortion story. When the group Abortion Changes You, founded by a woman who has had abortions, decided to highlight some of the negative changes that can result from abortion and ignore the rest, others protested her efforts, pointing out that the site forgets women who don’t experience negative results — but in turn, those protestors had nothing to say about the woman who regrets her abortion. She, too, was forgotten.

Instead of fighting each other, and perpetuating the abortion wars, we must listen to each other and stand together. We do this when we strive for connection amongst the polarizing force of conflict. We challenge the status quo when we are nonjudgmental despite the climate of shame. We practice nonviolence when we listen to one another and cultivate our relationships.

We are the ones we need, and we must lead as role models.

It should not be a surprise that women with personal experiences of abortion have had to find a way to fit their story into the existing political frames. We are all faced with the same choice after abortion: invisibility or validation. For good reason, most of us prefer validation.

It “can be hard,” @abortioneers tweeted to me on April 22, to “hear someone describe an experience you think of as ‘yours’ in a not-yours way.” She continued, “After so long thinking yours was the ONLY story (or only one available), finding others and their stories is both a blessing and a challenge!” (I expanded the 140-character tweet limit to make it more readable.)

She is right. And we must do our part to open the door to more stories, more listening, more voices, more women, and men.

Our charge – our call to action – as women who have had abortions is to seek to listen and serve as a witness to one another. Together, we can grow a movement that spreads support and respect for all of us, all women who have had abortions.

We can all be visible and validated.