Every single person affiliated with this site has their real name and real picture up. The point being that whether you love or hate our views on abortion, you know we are real people. We want to tell the world that being pro-life is a perfectly reasonable stand for a strong woman to take, so we show you our real lives (to a degree, since I also believe in privacy).
I understand why anonymity is desirable in the abortion debate. You might lose your job. There are security issues. I have been to the police station in Ottawa to report highly disturbing emails sent to my site, for example. Overall, however, if you have chosen to be activist on this issue, you probably, like me, feel you have little to lose by going public. If an employer doesn’t want me because of my pro-life views, would I want to work there? Probably not.
I find many of the pro-choice blogs I follow from time to time do not follow the same ethos. These are people like Pedgehog working in a clinic (fuzzy photo, bare bones bio and I’m assuming she wasn’t christened “Pedgehog”) or ardent defenders of abortion like Fern Hill (clear photo–of a gorgeous German Shepherd, who I am assuming doesn’t do the typing).
Here we have another highly politicized abortion defence that remains unconvincing precisely because of the anonymity.
There are reasons to be anonymous when blogging about abortion. And I have not quantified the number of pro-life anonymous blogs versus pro-choice anonymous blogs. In my experience, however, the pro-life blogs are not (mostly) anonymous and the pro-choice ones (mostly) are. I wonder why, since very often the voices at the pro-choice blogs are testifying to the normalcy and neutrality of abortion.
by 
I don’t have an abortion blog but I have no problem loudly and proudly exclaiming that I am pro choice.
In fairness, Pedgehog is known to be Peggy Cooke.
Thanks, SUZANNE. There’s a reason why the tone of this post is not “guns a blazin'” because I’m not sure whether it’s actually true. Just asking the question.
Indeed, there are excellent reasons to blog under a pseudonym when one is pro-choice: the body-count.
You want to read comments made at my blog that we don’t publish? The threats of violence and rape and whatnot?
And one doesn’t have to be pro-choice to come to the attention of the misogynists. Did you catch this story?
So, don’t call me a coward, sweetie, when your employer pays you to blog on anti-choice issues.
But thanks for the nice comment about my dog.
http://www.xojane.com/issues/exclusive-interview-pro-choice-woman-who-bravely-published-her-abortion-pictures-online
Prochoicers are cowards my ass.
Um, let’s see, because anti-choice folks get do stuff like list names of abortion providers begging for even craziers to try and kill said providers and generally encite violence in the name of protecting life. Kinda makes you think twice about interacting with them on any sane, face to face playing field. Silly question. Even sillier me answering you because we all know YOU know the answer. But I have 5min to be silly before I do the dishes. And maybe go grab an abortion. If I have time.
Simple. Pro-choice people don’t threaten to rape or kill our opponents. Pro-“life” has a pretty good history of not only threatening it, but following through with even massacring people at church.
If ever the anti-abortion side ever becomes civil, we’ll feel more safe to be public.
Gee, I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the threatening comments, harassment and even stalking by so-called “pro-lifers”. I was stalked by one creep for 6 months and he came very close to finding out where I live. Other pro-choice women bloggers report similar experiences.
Considering all that, and the “pro-life” movement’s famously twitchy trigger finger, I think we’ve got good reason to keep a low profile. They don’t load those high-powered sniper rifles with chocolate milk.
Didn’t the woman who published her abortion pictures do so anonymously…?
Gee, 7 answers fairly bristling with anger, hostility, sarcasm, and depictions of anti-choicers as crazy killers who apparently massacre people at church. Do all 7 really believe that every pro-life “anti-choice” fetus-fetishist is a Neanderthal with a shotgun ready to blow them away? It is becoming impossible to have any kind of civil discourse with belief in mutual good will even if one believes the opposition is wrong.
You guys are very unimpressive and really, no pro-lifer has even been harassed, or threatened?
By far, the majority of pro-lifers are anti-violence, that is why they are anti-abortion. I think it is just psychologically easier for those of your ilk to persuade yourselves that we are all drooling inbreds. Yuck.
I am pro-life and I think I earned it. I was raped, became pregnant, and though tempted, had my baby and kept her because I didn’t want to commit another act of violence on myself. I keep my views to myself at work or I would be harassed. It’s a two way street, ladies.
Oh, and what do pro-lifers have to do with misogynistic video gamers? big jump Fern Hill. Oh I get it: misogynist = pro-lifer = every other misogynist in the world. Deep and complex thinking going on there. Oh, I guess I better stop as I am getting as snippy as you guys. I will go looking for my more elevated side, which is by the way pro-life.
fern hill
When you use your anonymity to smear people, even if you have legitimate reasons to be anonymous, you’re a coward.
You don’t have the guts to say what you have to say to people’s faces or with your own name and then face your clients or whoever it is you deal with on a daily basis.
That’s what courage is: being ready to do what you think you must do, in spite of the consequences.
Most threats are bogus. I’ve had threats too. Big deal. People who are stupid enough to warn you about threats are too cowardly to go through with them anyway.
There are thousands of people involved in defending abortion in Canada. Not one of them was ever hurt for blogging online. If they were, it would be in the headlines.
And yes, I was threatened by Operation Counterstrike, i.e. Theo Shulman. What a joke.
Pro-lifers stand in protests and get assaulted and harassed.
I am not paid by anyone to blog. If only I were.
It’s just as well you don’t have any guts. It’s the people with guts who win causes, not those who don’t.
This is from abortionist Warren Hern.
Considering that more than half of the population in the United States considers themseves to be prolife, it’s no wonder that they are running scared. they actually believe their own propaganda that prolifers are violent troglodytes.
And if you think that, for one minute, that it is the prolifers that are the violent rapists and murderers, while no prochoicer would ever harm a prolifer, you are sorely mistaken.
http://www.prochoiceviolence.com/intro
The difference is that when an act of violence is committed against a prolifer, we simply note it and move on. We don’t use it t o perpetuate untrue stereotypes.
I am pro-choice. I blog about being pro-choice. And I am not anonymous. I use my name, and my email and phone are in the open on facebook.
My blog is http://www.doorbellqueen.com.
When people on your side of the issue stop bombing and shooting people on my side of the issue, there will be fewer anonymous pro-choice bloggers. And it’s not as though there aren’t any anti-choice bloggers writing anonymously.
Well, all you folks are welcome here. (If Fern Hill didn’t feel some level of hospitality at ProWomanProLife, I assume you wouldn’t keep returning on intervals.)
I feel there is a different generation on both the pro-life and the pro-choice side who assume much more violence than there is. I like to assume goodwill (apparently wrongly, as I read these comments here.)
I wholesale, entirely, and completely condemn any violence in the name of being pro-life. Always have, always will. I don’t believe those people are pro-life, but nonetheless, I condemn their actions on the perception that some have that they are.
It’s true, too, that there are pro-life bloggers who write anonymously, hence the *gentle* asking of a question.
I’ll leave it at that and remind myself not to take a day off after blogging on this topic in the future.
Oh, and please let the record stand. I don’t get paid to blog. When I started ProWomanProLife of my own free will, instigation, idea, I specifically told my employer that it would be independent of work, and they didn’t want to be affiliated with it, either. This was important to me, because I did not want to need to confirm, ever, anything, with a higher up.
By the way, Brad Pitt’s mother, Jane Pitt, has been threatened with death and received hate-filled, violent and vulgar messages because of her letter to the editor which revealed her to be anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion.
I don’t get paid to write for PWPL. 🙂
Interesting to note in the famous Lichter-Rothman studies on media bias that, “dead abortionists are headlines news for weeks or months, while women killed by the same abortionists simply do not exist.” If you include the hundreds of women and millions of children killed in abortion since its legalization, the only logical conclusion is that abortion is by far more violent, and violent by its nature. We’ve all suffered persecution on both sides of this issue, but if you want to talk about a body count, Fern Hill, I think you are sadly and hugely outnumbered.
Let’s not forget the many women who have been killed or beaten for refusing to be coerced into abortion. This is pro-abortion violence. Roxanne Fernando is a case in point, and there are many, many more.
Ha! Thats rich, pro-aborts. I was praying outside of a clinic during 40 days for life. Clinic wasn’t even open. And 2 pro-abort males rode by and threatened to rape me. I also had pro-aborts online tell me they hoped my son (I only had 1 child at the time) died.
Lets see, pro-aborts lately have been in the news running over pro-lifers with cars, stabbing us, throwing elderly pro-lifers to the ground breaking hips, ripping up our signs and punching us etc…
Who really should be afraid here? The side that respects human life or the side that sees inconvenient humans as waste to be discarded by any means necessary?
Pro-“choice” is a lie, anyway. What “choice” are they advocating? ABORTION. They don’t want women to have CHOICES, they want women to have ABORTIONS. As women in Western society, we already HAVE choices:
1. You get to choose whether or not to HAVE sex.
2. You get to choose WHOM to have sex with.
3. You get to choose WHERE to have sex
4. You get to choose what kind of Birth Control to use.
5. You get to choose whether to USE Birth Control at all.
6 You get to choose to have your tubes tied if you don’t want to become pregnant at all.
Not to mention, you have a myriad of OTHER choices in life: education, career, housing, food, clothing, make-up, hobbies, etc.
Killing your child once he/she has been conceived is not a “choice”. if you are FOR ending a life of a completely SEPARATE HUMAN BEING. One that is IN your body, but not OF your body (a baby is NOT a bodily organ) – you are FOR ABORTION, not “choice”.
This may also relate to a basic reason for abortion: It can be kept private. Many people say all pregnant women should carry to term and give birth and then, if they still don’t feel like raising the baby or believe they can adequately raise the baby, they can place for adoption. However, the big belly means that — unlike an early abortion — this choice can’t be kept private.
I asked a friend, “Do you ever wish you had carried to term and placed for adoption?”
She answered, “No, because I wouldn’t have wanted people to see me pregnant.”
If pro-lifers felt that violence was a solution to the problem, there’d be more dead abortionists, as there is no lack of passion, commitment, courage, and self-sacrifice on the side of love and logic that is the pro-life movement. We know that getting rid of abortion advocates is no more of an effective or morally defensible way of getting rid of abortion than getting rid of unborn babies is an effective or morally defensible way of getting rid of women’s problems.
I’m pro-life and I use my real name, both in blogging and commenting on others blogs. However, the more recent events with Ted Schulman & the upswing in pro-choice crimes (assault & battery & vandalism), has made me weary & so I’m purposely vague when mentioning-in-passing where I live, as well as I’ve taken steps to ensure my address and phone number are not easily publicly avaialbe, nor am I listed in the phone book.
Listen, any time there’s a contraversial issue, there are going to be extremists in fringe groups and they are usually the minority, although often the loudest, although wrong with their actions and behaviors. With that said, it doesn’t mean everyone of a particular viewpoint are members of the extremist fringe or even have violent tendencies, that’s called stereotyping, and that goes for both sides of this debate.
I’m pro-choice and I do not blog anonymously (as pointed out, my name is Peggy Cooke and this is not something I hide). However, I can understand why people do. Especially when I worked in clinics, it is more difficult to walk the fine line between sharing stories and violating confidentiality when your name is known; moreso if people know what clinic or even what city you are in (both facts I have always been open about as well).
Here’s some things that have happened to pro-choice activists and abortion providers I know: being forced to leave their job/practice; death threats; rape threats; harassment like tying up their phone lines so actual clients couldn’t get through; being followed; etc. I’m not saying these things don’t happen to anti-abortion folks; I don’t know your life. But I do know that when you are a known pro-choice activist or abortion provider, you are at risk. So that’s why people remain anonymous. You or I might be willing to face those dangers, but others are not, and that’s their choice.
Also when pro-choice folks here say they remain anonymous because they don’t want to get shot, they’re not saying all pro-lifers are vicious murderous psychopaths. They’re saying when you look at this issue, while there is always danger in speaking out about abortion on either side of the issue, I have never heard of someone getting shot in the head for being pro-life.
Thank you, Pedgehog, yours was by far the most even-handed pro-choice comment so far.
My aunt, Martha Kostuch, was a semi-prominent environmentalist. I didn’t realize how much a toll that kind of work took on her, until I was 15 or 16, and over at her house when she received a nasty phone call. After she hung up, she was visibly shaking (this was a woman who did not shake easily) and we had a very frank conversation about the death, rape, and other threats she had received. She felt her cause was important enought that she was willing to take these threats (and she realized that most of them were actually smoke and hot air). But she and my mom had had a longstanding emergency response plan set out, and she kept her affairs in meticulous order, just in case.
Such is life when you vocally speak out about controversial issues.
But if you actually want to make a change, you need to put a name to your words.