“Stink, Stank, Stunk”

Written By: Mark Crutcher

President of Life Dynamics

When this war began, the abortion lobby was certain that the legalization of abortion would eventually eradicate the stigma that has always been associated with it.

But as we now know, this “mainstreaming” never took place – either in the general population or in the medical community. In fact, I would argue that, since the legalization of abortion, its stigma has actually increased and become more widespread.

This happened because the pro-life movement forced the abortion issue into the American consciousness and then never allowed it to go away. From the beginning, our working principle has been that if the public is going to tolerate abortion, we are going to rub their noses in it. This means that, today, the American people know more about what abortion is and what it does than they ever have. In effect, we have not allowed the abortion lobby to put a “happy face” on the wholesale extermination of unborn children.

The result is that many in the pro-abortion camp are now openly stating that their most devastating failure has been their inability to remove the stigma associated with abortion. This is why so many pro- abortion organizations have changed their names to one that does not contain the word abortion.

What these people understand is that stigma not only
impacts the legality of abortion, it has a direct bearing
on who has abortions and who does them.

One of the abortion lobby’s campaigns to remove the stigma of abortion was seen a few years ago, when they began marketing t-shirts with “I had an abortion” printed on the front. Of course it failed, but they keep trying. One of their latest strategies is to push the concept that there is no moral distinction between one woman’s decision to have an abortion and another woman’s decision to give birth. Some of them are even trying to sell the idea that there are situations in which having an abortion is morally superior to giving birth.

What these people realize is that, if there was no stigma on abortion, the pro-life movement would be finished. In fact, it would have collapsed decades ago. Their problem is, every campaign they launch to get rid of this stigma goes down in flames.

And the reason why is simple.

These efforts are doomed because abortion shares a fundamental and unchangeable characteristic with both pornography and prostitution. The stench coming from all three is indelible and cannot be either erased or reduced by simply making them legal. That’s why no mentally stable woman was ever proud of having an abortion regardless of her political position on the issue. And no mentally stable woman ever climbed off an abortionist’s table feeling better about herself than she did when she climbed on it.

The stigma of abortion is so powerful it even effects
those who work inside the abortion industry.

We’ve interviewed abortion clinic employees who told us that they never tell anyone that they work at an abortion clinic, and that they take extra precautions to keep their friends and family from finding out. Some have told us that they insist their paycheck not have anything printed on it to indicate that it came from an abortion clinic.

“Abortion has failed to escape its back-alley associations… [it is the] dark side of medicine… Even when abortion became legal, it was still considered dirty.”

Morrris Wortman (Abortionist)
Democrat And Chronicle, July 5, 1992

In recent years, some abortion advocates have begun to openly question whether the stigma of abortion is so deep-rooted, even among women who actually have abortions, that it cannot be removed and is something they will just have to live with. The good news is, that’s up to us. The battle over stigma is ours to win, and as long as our rhetoric constantly reinforces that stigma, our enemies will have no defense against it.