NEW YORK — A profane and vulgar art exhibit called “Abortion Is Normal” is on display in New York City, featuring paintings, photographs and other creations from over 60 abortion “rights” advocates, including the groups Shout Your Abortion and Thank God for Abortion. Proceeds from the event will fund advocacy efforts and voter influence via Downtown for Democracy and the Planned Parenthood Political Action Committee (PAC).
“Abortion Is Normal is an exhibition organized by a collective of cultural practitioners as an urgent call-to-action exhibition to raise both awareness and funding in support of accessible, safe, and legal abortion,” an outline of the event reads. “This show comes at a time when legal abortion is under acute attack throughout the United States.”
It says that those who oppose abortion are “creating an atmosphere of fear, shame and stigma,” and that the exhibit consequently aims to “create an acknowledgment for those who may be further traumatized by the strategic agenda of those who continue to police and restrict choice.”
“This title is intended as a statement of camaraderie and caring that in short says: ‘What you choose to do with your body is OK. It is normal. Can it be difficult? Yes. Is it your right? Yes,” the event page states. “‘Normal’ in this instance is equated with ‘OK’ in the same way that a basic human right should be seen as ‘normal’: Freedom is normal, safety is normal, abortion is normal.”
More than 60 “artists” are involved with the exhibit, including organizers Marilyn Minter and Laurie Simmons. The event began on Jan. 9, with phase two launching today at the Arsenal Contemporary art center.
A number of paintings and photographs are crude, profane or vulgar in nature. One series of paintings by Nadine Faraj is of topless women with messages written across their chest, such as “Mi cuerpo, mi decision (my body, my choice),” “Yo aborte (I had an abortion),” and “My [vulgar word for female reproductive organ], my rules.” They are priced at $4,000 each.
Another display by Marilyn Minter, priced at $11,000, likewise uses a vulgar term for a woman’s reproductive organ to decry what it refers to as “control” of a woman’s body.
One piece of “artwork” by Carroll Dunham that was sold (price not known) featured a drawing of a woman’s private parts, and a photograph by Ryan McGinley of a topless woman giving the middle finger is priced at $30,000. Another display, called “Stitch and [Expletive],” features a mock flowery needlepoint kit that reads “Abortion Is Normal.”
“Our hope is that, through the artwork in this exhibition, through the artists’ voices, enough people will feel a resurgence of energy and enthusiasm about this topic and realize that reproductive rights, abortion, and any bodily procedure is, in fact, normal,” co-curator Jasmine Wahi told Bloomberg, wearing an “Abortion Is Normal” t-shirt.
As previously reported, a number of abortion “rights” supporters have made brazen and unrepentant proclamations in recent years surrounding their abortion, and continue to collect and share stories from other unrepentant women.
In 2018, Amelia Bonow, the founder of the “Shout Your Abortion” movement, released a book featuring stories from women who were “not sorry” for their abortion.
“One in four of us have had lives that were determined in monumental ways by our abortions, and the vast majority of us do not regret our decisions,” it states.
Bonow also wrote an article in 2015, published by Salon, entitled “My Abortion Made Me Happy: The Story That Started the #shoutyourabortion Movement.” The piece, which used profanity and crude language, expressed no remorse for the ending of her unborn child’s life after finding herself pregnant out of wedlock, but rather only bold-faced pride.
“I’m telling you my story plainly, proudly, flippantly even, because we have all been brainwashed to believe that the absence of negative emotions around having an abortion is the mark of an emotionally bankrupt person. It’s not,” she wrote. “I have a good heart and my abortion made me happy.”
n 2017, actress Martha Plimpton appeared at a “Shout Your Abortion” event in Seattle, telling the audience — when then broke into cheers and applause — that the city has “particular significance” for her as “I … had my first abortion at the Seattle Planned Parenthood. Yay!”
“Notice I said ‘first.’… I don’t want you guys to feel insecure; it was my best one,” she said, evoking laughter. “Heads and tails above the rest. If I could Yelp review it, I totally would. And if that doctor’s here tonight, I don’t remember you at all; I was 19. I was 19, but I thank you nonetheless.”
In an effort to put faces to women who have had an abortion and aren’t sorry for it, last January, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland launched a #sayabortion campaign that included billboards displayed in Ames, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs and Iowa City, Iowa.
“I had an abortion, and I am not ashamed,” “I had an abortion, and I am not apologizing for it” and “I had an abortion, and it was just health care” the signs read.
Last month, comedienne Michelle Wolf again refused to show remorse for her abortion, but stated during a Netflix comedy special that ending her unborn child’s life made her feel “powerful,” and “like God.”
“You know how my abortion made me feel? Very powerful,” she said. “You know how people say you can’t play God?”
“I walked out of there being like, ‘Move over Morgan Freeman, I am God!’” as a reference to the film “Bruce Almighty.”
“[Many pro-life groups] are against the criminalization of murder by abortion because they are against the prosecution of women for committing such a heinous act,” Danny Steinmeyer of Meridian First Baptist Church in Idaho lamented on Sunday in a message entitled “You Shall Not Murder.” “Listen, friends. This is tough to hear. But the vast majority of women getting abortions are not victims.”
Jeremiah 8:12 sorrows, “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.”
Revelation 9:21 also says that in the last days, “Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”