Women Who Have Had Abortions Take the Lead

*This was first published in HuffingtonPost Politics*

Years ago, there was a rural clinic in Northern California where women who got abortions one week would bring lasagna to women getting their abortions the next. When I heard about this, I couldn’t help but imagine myself with them. Would I be hungry enough to eat after my abortion, or would cheesy lasagna make me nauseous? Would I want to talk with other women or hang out quietly, feeling cared for?

This room of women swapping stories and plates of food is an image I equate with the ultimate expression of support, connection, and wellbeing after an abortion.

What if we could turn America into a community known for lovingly providing potlucks and supporting friends and family after an abortion?

We may not be as far away from this vision as you think.

Last month, when New York Magazine published “My Abortion,” featuring 26 different women sharing 26 different stories, women and men came together in the comments section and social media, offering support and compassion. We were all able to witness community being formed across a range of diverse abortion experiences.

Openness Shouldn’t Create Partisan Debate

* This was first published in the New York Times, “Room for Debate,” on June 30, 2013, amongst other opinions on the impact of women sharing their abortion stories.* 

When I had an abortion it was safe, legal and covered by health insurance. I had no horror story to tell of a scary back-alley procedure, and I had no heartfelt regrets.

But the facts didn’t begin to describe my experience of having an abortion. My story was one of challenge and triumph, heartache and loss, friendship and family, and so much more. I wished I could have talked about it, without my story being used to promote abortion rights or to help dismantle them. Instead, I wanted to join with others to create a conversation rooted in the diverse, complicated lives of the women and men who’d experienced abortion.

It’s crucial that a range of experiences — from remorse to hope — are heard and understood in all nuances, no matter the political outcome.

That conversation is starting to happen. More women, and some men, are sharing their intimate experiences in private and public ways. One result is that the myths and stereotypes of who has abortions are beginning to crumble in the face of true stories. Another result is that women and men who’ve experienced abortion are now able to find and connect with each other. Feeling supported and comforted after an abortion, instead of isolated and alone, goes a long way toward healing and well-being.

But, sharing abortion stories isn’t all warm and fuzzy. There are real risks for the woman and for this emerging conversation about abortion in our lives.

A woman who shares about an abortion experience with family or friends can put her relationships in jeopardy. And, while social media can connect people by spreading stories quickly, a woman can lose control of her story – and her message – as it moves across the Internet. These risks can be mitigated with community support, but it’s hard to build community without first taking a risk.

My worst fear is that our personal stories will become commodities in the political marketplace, casualties in the conflict over abortion that get repackaged to benefit one side or other of the debate.

That’s why it’s so crucial that the full range of personal experiences women and men have with abortion — from remorse to hope — are able to be heard and understood in all their layers and nuances no matter the political outcome.

 

 

Pro-Voice: Ambiguity is Invitation to Engage

I was honored to be a part of the closing plenary of Netroots Nation 2013 in San Jose, California on June 22, 2013.  The plenary was a series of speakers using the Ignite model: 5 minutes, 20 slides progressing automatically every 15 seconds. I was stoked to be the first woman speaker amongst many of my heroes and role models.  I am particularly grateful to Jenifer Fernandez Ancona for being my champion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tx-T8OkMZhU

Fight the Flat: Open the Floodgates with Emotional Stories

*This was first published on Storycenter, the blog of the Center for Digital Storytelling*

“We are wary of listening to stories that we think are being told to manipulate our emotions or push us to believe a certain way,” said Francesca Polletta, author of It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics in a phone call with me last year. “On the other hand,” she says, “ambivalent stories, stories with no clear moral agenda, invite the listener to imagine themselves in the story. True engagement happens when the listener can see multiple outcomes for a story and is able to come to their own conclusions.” 

Coming Soon: My book on Pro-Voice!

I am excited to announce that I have signed a contract with Berrett Koelher to write a book on pro-voice, scheduled for publication in 2015.

Exhale’s Press Release:

Aspen Baker, Founder and Executive Director of nonprofit organization Exhale, announced that she has signed a contract with San Francisco based Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., to publish her first book. “Pro-Voice” is scheduled for publication in 2015.

Pro-voice, the term coined by Baker’s organization Exhale in 2005, is an alternative approach to discussing abortion and other conflicted issues. In her book, Ms. Baker shows how the model makes the impossible, possible, but it’s not what you expect. Ms. Baker will take us behind the scenes of what it takes to change highly charged issues, like abortion, and inspire readers with true stories and tested methods.

“Berrett-Koehler,” say Neal Maillett, Editorial Director, “has long been an admirer of Exhale and Aspen Baker. Frankly, we’ve been amazed that she can prove that the values central to so many of our books – deep listening, tolerance, and empathy to name a few – can actually bring insight and understanding to the one of the sharpest conflicts we have as human beings. Aspen won’t shy away from conflict, yet she brings peace and support wherever she works. We feel privileged to be able to share her message with the wider world. ”

Baker has earned a wide variety of awards and accolades. She was recently named a “Fun, Fearless Female” in the May 2013 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine; was awarded 2012 Gerbode Professional Development Fellowship; named a “Local Hero” in 2009 by San Francisco’s KQED during Women’s History Month; and “Young Executive Director of the Year” in 2005 by the Bay Area’s Young Non-Profit Professional Network.

“Aspen Baker has been at the forefront of navigating abortion’s gray areas for over a decade and her unique perspective is inspiring and hopeful for a wide range of conflicted and hard-to-talk about issues, “ believes Exhale’s Board President, Jocelyn Yin. “I have no doubt Aspen’s book will set a new standard for not only how we talk about abortion in this country, but also, how we treat one another.”

Losing Ownership of Ideas in Stanford Social Innovation Review

Lisa Lepson, Executive Director of Joshua Venture Group and founding board president of Exhale, wrote “Losing Ownership of New Ideas: A Mark of Success” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review on April 29, 2013.  In her piece, she writes about how social entrepreneurs, like me, impact social change by radically reframing ideas.

“The terms ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ are alienating,” explained Heather Holdridge, director of digital strategy at Planned Parenthood, before she went on to describe her organization’s new campaign to drop them. I was listening to her speak on a panel at the Jewish Funders Network conference last month, but my mind quickly went elsewhere.

Eleven years ago, I was the founding board president of Exhale, an organization dedicated to providing emotional support to women and their allies after an abortion, and to removing the stigma around abortion. At the time, Exhale’s founder, Aspen Baker, a social entrepreneur, had a radical viewpoint: The political labels of pro-choice and pro-life got in the way of our mission. She put forward a risky approach: to leave the labels behind and make our home in the grey area of personal abortion experiences.

You can imagine the response we got at the time. Established organizations working in the field of abortion rights were dumbfounded, threatened, confused, and angry. We were told to pick a side or “admit” that we were pro-choice. We faced suspicion and outright hostility. It didn’t matter how we tried to explain it. No one got it yet. It was a novel, daring approach, and Exhale’s board, staff, and volunteers spent the next decade advocating our view.

Exhale can list all the people who have used its services or sought its expertise. It knows how many people have called the after-abortion talkline, accessed their online resources, and trained as volunteer counselors. There are personal anecdotes, new financial supporters, and plenty of media articles, Twitter followers, and Facebook Likes.

But, how can Exhale measure progress on its mission of removing stigma and promoting emotional wellbeing after abortion?

Social entrepreneurs such as Aspen inject new values into communal conversations and can measure their success by taking stock of how perceptions around the issues they support have changed. They can track whether and how their novel, daring messages become mainstream.

She continues:

What social entrepreneurs do for social change is unique. They arrive on the scene, bring attention to community needs previously ignored, push the envelope, raise questions, and provide an alternative view and voice. They tackle problems with innovative models and impact large-scale public perceptions. Often, they work in fields dominated by large, established organizations with complicated networks of stakeholders and bureaucratic systems with large budgets. But these established organizations aren’t often nimble, and they struggle to adapt to contemporary needs. So when an organization such as Planned Parenthood or BBYO makes a major change and begins to own progressive messaging and values, it is years in the making.

That’s how a social entrepreneur can measure their impact. Years after their radical idea is rejected by mainstream organizations, the very same organizations will adopt them and promote these ideas as their own. Success for the social entrepreneur happens when their views are no longer feared but embraced.

Fun, Fearless Female in Cosmopolitan Magazine, May 2013

Thanks Cosmo! You know how to make a middle-age lady feel like a winner.

 

The Rewards of Leadership

At 30-years old, I hit a metaphorical wall.  I was exhausted and burned-out.  A social entrepreneur, I had poured my whole self into the venture I began at 24-years old and it seemed there was nothing left of me, for me.  I had a hard time getting to sleep.  I cried a lot.  I was broke.

I looked for role models, for other feminists who had dedicated their lives to changing the world by leading organizations to see how they did it.  I saw just two choices.  Either I could keep going, personal sacrifices be dammed, and find myself an old, bitter lady fighting the same battles year after year, with increasing exasperation and exhaustion. Or, I could quit and find something less taxing and also, less meaningful. I thought this was a false choice. I wanted a third-way, a path where I could be a leader with a joyful heart and a full life.

I set out to make that path. You might say, I leaned in to the challenge.

Pro-Voice on Philosophy Talk

Philosophy Talk just re-aired their program on abortion and made it available for free online.  Exhale and our pro-voice approach are featured in a short 3-minute segment with the Roving Philosophical Report that starts at 8:35.  You can here me discuss how the labels of pro-choice and pro-life are limiting and why its so important that women’s voices and experiences with abortion are heard and understood.

Here I am with the hosts John Perry and Ken Taylor, featured guest Cynthia Gorney, and Roving Reporter Angela.  The show was taped live at The Marsh in San Francisco in October 2010 and aired in January 2011.  Check it out here.

No More “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Choice”

* This was first published on Mother Jones *

Jane Roe never had an abortion. In fact, she is not even pro-choice. Her real name is Norma McCorvey, and it’s been 40 years since she was the anonymous plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that eventually became the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

McCorvey’s legal pseudonym is shorthand for a defining victory of the pro-choice movement, yet she has dedicated most of her life to the pro-life movement. She is a symbol for all that was won and all that has been lost in the decades of culture war—a conflict that has unmoored our nation’s public discourse on abortion.

Norma is like a lot of people who regularly shift their views and allegiances surrounding abortion. These changes show up in opinion polls, and activists on both sides regularly use them to claim that their side is capturing the hearts and souls of Americans. But, the truth is that our hearts and souls have been waiting for the politics to catch up.