Joanna Alphonso:
As if it were not enough for adults to be bombarded with pro-abortion slogans such as “my body, my choice,” or “abortion is empowering,” and even “abortion is a human right!” now children can be propagandized, too. According to a Rewire News Group article, author Carly Manes came up with the idea for a childrens’ book, What’s an Abortion Anyway?, because “almost 60 per cent of abortion patients are already parents,” and, she said, these parents needed a way to explain to their children why they were no longer pregnant.
According to the author’s Kickstarter pitch – Manes raised more than $23,000 on the Kickstarter website, with many people donating money for a copy to be provided to abortuaries — “What’s an Abortion Anyway?” is “a medically accurate, nonjudgmental, and gender inclusive resource for young folks about abortion care. In this book, little ones will learn what an abortion is, some of the reasons people have abortions and a few of the ways people might feel about their abortions.”
This book was put together by two full-spectrum doulas. A doula is someone who is trained to provide non-medical emotional and physical support to someone who is going through an important healthcare-related experience. Full-spectrum doulas also provide support for abortion. Manes describes herself as “white, queer, and Jewish,” who believes that “young people deserve transparency when it comes to information about their sexual health and bodies.” Illustrator Mar, who goes by that singular name and they/them pronouns, describes herself as a “brown, genderqueer cultural worker.”
Manes tells children in her book that anyone can get pregnant regardless of gender. She begins by erasing women by referring to pregnant mothers as “people who are pregnant.” She continues with telling children about miscarriage – referring to the preborn child as “the pregnancy.” Finally, she gets to the topic of abortion, which she defines banally as “when someone decides to stop growing their pregnancy.”
The horror of abortion is not easy to describe, even for adults. How does Manes describe it to a child?
Manes totally negates that abortion is the gruesome murder of the preborn child. She uses fluffy language to tell innocent children that an abortion is simply “going to the doctor to get the pregnancy removed,” or “taking medicine to stop the pregnancy from growing bigger,” as if that preborn child was a tumour or parasite to be removed by a surgery or by medication.
She normalizes this lethal act by telling children that “abortion is very safe, millions of people have abortions every year globally,” and “everyone should be able to decide what’s best for them.”
The author justifies every reason for a woman to have an abortion, such as people liking their family “exactly as it is,” or that “some people can’t take care of a new baby,” and some doctors say that “women can get sick from pregnancy.” She writes, “no matter the reason, everyone should be able to make this decision for themselves.”
She also talks about the different emotions that women experience when having an abortion, including calmness, happiness, sadness, and loneliness.
Manes concludes her book by reinforcing the idea in the minds of children that no woman should be questioned about her decision to have her preborn child killed because we don’t know what it’s like to be someone else.
