DangerTalk: Voices of Abortion Providers

Abortion providers often refrain from speaking openly about their work for various reasons: fear of judgment, alienating family/friends, violence, and harassment.  However, we observed that abortion providers keep their experiences silent for an additional reason – because sharing these stories could endanger the prochoice movement.  Here we explore what happens when public discussion of their experiences are dangerous to a movement they care deeply about.   Are there circumstances in which silence is politically or ethically required?

Using qualitative data collected from 96 abortion providers, we examine the types of stories largely choose to remain silent about because they are dangerous.  Five categories of stories were identified: moral ambiguity, encounters with fetuses, providers cause women pain, judging patients who fit anti-choice stereotypes, and uneasy relationship with prochoice movement, including perceived disconnects with current talking points and frustrations with prochoice rhetoric. 

We propose a conceptual model that analyzes the risks and benefits of engaging in this type of “dangertalk”, that also evaluate the potential impact that engaging in dangertalk could have for social change.  Risks include providing material for further stigmatization and attacks on abortion access.  However, voicing these stories also served a positive function for providers, increasing social support and connections to the work.  We hypothesize that dangertalk could potentially transform public discourse so that abortion providers are viewed as dedicated professionals and compassionate moral actors, who do not need to engage in self-censorship to do their work.