Cheap shots cause headaches: Black and Brown people are not a punchline in abortion decriminalisation discourse. 

Following our copy in the most recent Choice News, we have reflected on a graphic which is the subject of this blog and we were wrong to refer to it. Our EC member Manna Mostaghim explains it best.

Manna Mostaghim is a PhD Candidate in the Health Policy Department at the LSE. Her PhD thesis is on the provision of publicly subsidised IVF for women with a high BMI in the U.K. Dr. Zaina Mahmoud has reviewed this piece.

I have tried to write this blog for hours. Every sentence that I write out it gets mired in anger. 

The blog is about this infographic:

Every point is knotted in an endless tangent about the missing historical context. It is an image that took (presumably) 7 minutes to design. Why has it made me so angry? 

I write about abortion based on data. I like research that skewers myths on abortion and imagines new futures for sexual and reproductive healthcare access. I tried to write something objective, fortified by facts. I tried to write this blog for hours. I even tried to make it palatable and accessible for a wide audience. 

You attract more flies with honey. But I don’t want flies around me – they’re annoying and they bite.    

Why am I invested in trying to infuse ahistorical drivel with facts? This lazy infographic brushes across three disparate countries – culturally, ethnically, regionally.  The three countries don’t have much in common with each other— let alone the UK. I guess the similarity between the three countries is that their borders were hewn and cultivated by British empire. Is that the point that they were trying to make?  If it was, it certainly wasn’t clear that even these countries, with the UK’s colonial legacy, have managed to get abortion law ‘right’.

Why didn’t they pick regulatory regimes in the United States? There are comparable examples in Alabama, Kentucky, and Idaho. Or Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma. Abortion decriminalisation discourse in the UK has an easy literacy in references like Roe v Wade and, more recently, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Why pick countries filled with brown/ black and Muslim people? Is it the shock value? Not Sharia in our backyard? 

Why do I find it so offensive? Is it because it is so so so so so so so so lazy? 

You’re just imagining things. It’s an extrapolation of what this is about. Why are you interpreting this in bad faith? Focus on abortion decriminalisation! We need to consolidate our efforts against the anti-choicers! We can’t afford to be distracted by these squabbles! Stop making it about race! Stop making it about you and your stuff! 

Do I write about how blatantly it screams that abortion is only meant for white women in the UK? Or rather, the decriminalisation abortion movement in the UK, is only built to protect white women?  A carceral system was meant for some of us but not all of us – after all, some of us are more equal than others.  

Why are you fighting us over an image that took an arduous 7 minutes to make?  

Do I write about how this image is a clear representation of race whistling? Do we as a (kind of) European nation want to be associated with the regressive policies of brown/black/ Muslim countries? 

Do I tell you about how much I despair of tropes that makes our mothers, sisters and grandmothers’ victims while making the men we love brutes? Would you believe me if I told you that my feminism is steeped in the traditions of the Middle East? Do you want to hear about how members of my paternal family were martyred two hundred years ago in the name of gender equality? Would it shock you to know that feminism and decriminalisation were not invented in Europe by Europeans only for Europeans?   

I first saw the image because a friend sent me the infographic unaccompanied by text. She knew that she didn’t need to say anything to me. We didn’t say it out loud but we both know lazy comparisons like this contribute to our dehumanisation. Like fuel for the bombs that have been dropped over the homelands of our parents. Would you be impressed to know that we both have law degrees? She has a PhD and I am getting a PhD. Will you listen to us now? Do you trust us now? Is our anger worth something? 

It’s one Image. Calm down. Calm down. It was meant with ‘good’ intentions. We must fight the anti-choicers! It is the anti-choicers that say regressive and awful things. I support abortion! I support a woman’s right to choose! I am on the right side of history ON EVERYTHING. 

What if I told you I sent this image to an abortion doula and she said “this is why brown and black people come to me traumatised from their abortions”. To be clear, it isn’t abortions that are traumatising, it’s the racism that is traumatising. You are finding it hard to believe me. But don’t worry, you’re still one of the ‘good ones’. I can’t personally delete the black square from your Instagram grid. 

Okay. I am here to listen and learn. What do I do? Do I take the post down? How if I apologise for it? I will write a public apology. Whoops, our bad. 

We had a secret conversation behind closed doors, amongst the same people who made the original infographic. We read your tweets, and comments. Whoops, our bad. 

Why are you still mad at us? What haven’t we done to appease you. We pressed delete! The infographic took us a whole 6.5 minutes to make, next time we will take 15 minutes, we promise!

What could we do next time?

Maybe you could listen to us? Maybe, you could not make lazy assumptions about us? Maybe you could share the microphone with us? Maybe, you could realise when we are not in the room with you, when you are making decisions about us? Maybe, you can realise when we are in the room, but we are not speaking much because you are talking too much. Maybe you shouldn’t use brown and black bodies as a punchline? Maybe you can take ownership of the colonial legacies rather than pointing to them as evidence of these ‘backwards’ brown/black/ Muslim countries.