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About one-third of our visitors came from Google searches, having entered phrases such as "depression after abortion", "suicide after abortion", "trouble coping after abortion", and "why does my wife hate me after abortion."
After Abortion is a place where these seekers can get useful information and resources, be with others who’ve gone through the same difficulties, and hope for the future.
Here, they won’t have to wade through a lot of dreck to get the information they want.
It's important that post-abortive individuals aren't embattled or attacked by comments. People who want to do that are, of course, free to start their own sites.
Helplessness and powerlessness can play a significant role in many abortion decisions. Compassion is the only appropriate response, and that compassion shouldn't be conditional on whether or not someone perceives her abortion through the same cognitive and religious eyes as mine.
Not everyone can understand or follow guidelines. When that happens:
I will delete comments, Chat posts-replies, or mute/block/ban posters, pro-life and pro-choice, to save myself the extra work of monitoring.
I may make comments only for paying subscribers, or disable comments/images.
Since blocked reader Notes are still viewable by others and can’t be deleted by me: Notes, when turned on, will be for paid subscribers only, to keep our community here dreck-less.
I do not assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of AfterAbortion.substack or me, Annie Banno.
Compassionate readers, I welcome you to “Report comments” and “Flag” Chats/ media that violate any rules. But if anyone wrongfully “Reports” or “Flags” items that do not violate, you yourself may be banned.
…The Guidelines:
Before you post, ask yourself, "Do I want to be right, or do I want to be generous, kind, charitable... and right?"
Do your best to make it safe for others to be vulnerable.
Use your creative energy to state your opinion in ways respecting folks’ dignity.
If someone offends against the virtue of charity, or against these guidelines, I'll make every effort to address this in a timely way.
In the meantime, nearly everyone who reads comments has the horse-sense to recognize when someone is offending against charity, being provocative, or engaging in verbal behavior that is damaging, foul or destructive.
All Substack Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Content Guidelines and prohibitions apply.
This is not a forum for the politics/legality of abortion. There are other forums where you can engage in that debate.
Don't use "anti-choice", "pro-abort" or worse labels. Don't label individuals at all.
Don't diminish, minimize, or invalidate the pain and grief experienced by an unknown number of men and women after abortion.
Don't imply that if people experience a negative emotional aftermath after abortion, they must have been unstable to begin with. If you really believe that someone is emotionally unstable, why add insult to injury?
By the same token, don't imply that men or women who say that their abortion experience was positive are in denial. If people are in denial, that would be because of an event that is too traumatic for them to process in the light of reality. If you really believe someone is in denial, again, why add insult to injury?
Be curious about the life experiences and emotional reactions of someone who may seem very different from you.
Finally, let us "Seek not so much to be understood as to understand."
1Cor4