Yes. Or…she shops at Hot Topic a lot.

I still don’t like “message” t-shirts for the reasons I gave here — but I withdraw my own words about being “absolutely certain” of the motives of any given woman who would wear the “I Had An Abortion” shirt. Sometimes my rhetoric trumps my humility, and it certainly did in this post.

I wear the “I had an abortion” t-shirt because I often have the experience of being in a discussion about abortion and folks forget to remember in their dialogue that perhaps someone in the discussion might have had an abortion. Wearing the t-shirt brings a real live woman to the way people think about abortion - they can’t just theorize. It is also a great discussion opener - I live in a really conservative state and I have opened up many minds about how abortion actually can play out in a woman’s life. The shirt makes abortion more real. I definitely don’t wear it to be affirmed. I wear it to educate folks — to let them know that abortion is close to their community — that women they know and care about and respect have abortions, etc,..Your conclusion is based on an assumption and it is really demeaning. How can you compare young college students to all women who would wear this very political shirt? How is it that you know where all women are coming from who wear this shirt? Perhaps young women look for affirmation from men because men like you write like you have us all figured out!

I have noticed on my college campus that many guys wear T-shirts like this as well. I’d like to hear anyone’s comments about this.

Also, does anyone know if A&F and Urban Outfitters were the first to market these kinds of T-shirts?

I think the people who will wear it are people who are spoiling for a fight. When I was younger, I would have been delighted to wear this shirt even though I had not had an abortion, simply because I enjoyed challenging people’s views and prejudices. (I grew up in East Texas–I had my own form of “backlash”.)

I don’t at all equate this shirt with the others such as “I slept with your boyfriend”. No one would take that particular t-shirt seriously.

BTW, I recently heard “juicy” as a term for “fat”. I like it. I now describe myself as “juicy”. I wonder if those t-shirts only come in XL? Of course, I’m not so naive that I can’t figure out an alternate meaning..

It’s not just the shame factor….there is this idea that women who have abortions are somehow different from women who don’t. And that’s not true. If every woman who had a abortion actually wore one of those t-shirts, you’d get a view of a huge cross-section of the American female public. One of the maddening things about the pro-lifers to me, is that they push a certain image of the woman who has an abortion (of course, they also push a certain image of those of us who “choose life”, if we’re not married…one of those “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” moments all women are familiar with).

But there is no “type” of woman who has an abortion. If they were to all wear the shirts, some of the smug set would be forced to face the fact that, “gosh, she looks like one of us.“…and that’s because she is.

Planned Parenthood has always mentioned the fact that women who have abortions are our mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, cousins and friends, but few listen to that…it’s uncomfortable to hear. This t-shirt is just a more provocative way of bringing that out. Before legal abortion, those were the women who were sterilized, maimed or killed by illegal abortion. Not just “those seedy women” or “bad women”. Mothers. Daughters. Aunts. Friends. Neighbors. All our sisters.

But I doubt you’ll see any of the shirts anywhere but the website.

While I understand your link between those and the other “girl power” ala Spice Girls corporate tripe, I see them as more of a reactionary effort to combat the “I feel guilty about my abortion” pro-life groups.

I have a feeling PPFA was trying to begin a reactionary movement as opposed to jumping on the false-girl power bandwagon, which is too bad, in my opinion. PPFA has enough support without this kind of promotion.

Sorry, Weezie, just one more bit of politics: One. Hugo wrote about the famous t-shirt and it’s a must-read. As in, GO READ IT NOW. Two. Karol points us to a New York Times article about how liberal The New…