Abortion-Rights Advocates Have 'Right To Hate' Woman's Decision To Describe Abortion on Twitter, Opinion Piece Says

March 11, 2010 — Abortion-rights supporters "who came from generations where women had no legal abortion choices understand how precious the right to choose is," Mary Ann Sorrentino -- who served as executive director of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England from 1977 to 1987 -- writes in a Salon opinion piece. However, 27-year-old Angie Jackson's decision "to use Twitter as a public stage for her private decision to terminate a pregnancy" through medical abortion, is "[a]t its worst, ... self-serving, exhibitionist and selfish," Sorrentino says. "At best, it has 'bad judgment' written all over it," she adds. Sorrentino notes that Jackson has said she has about 800 Twitter followers and is hoping to publish a book.

Jackson has said she decided not to continue the pregnancy because of the difficult pregnancy she experienced with her now-four-year-old son, who has special needs, Sorrentino writes. "If this is true, and her decision about ending her childbearing is solid and responsible, one has to wonder why she didn't just have a tubal ligation," which would have "sav[ed] the rest of the universe the anguish of assisting at such a personal and difficult moment," according to Sorrentino.

Jackson "ha[s] the right to choose" medical abortion and write about the process, but "many of us who have spent our lives on the front lines of the abortion debate also have the right to hate the fact that she chose to do this," Sorrentino writes. The "right we were fighting so hard for ... was based on what the Supreme Court called 'privacy," she continues. "We wanted a woman to be able to make personal decisions about their pregnancies in the privacy of their most intimate circles, ... if she chose," or "she could decide as a panel of one and discuss it with no one," Sorrentino says (Sorrentino, Salon, 3/9).