How (Not) to Talk about Abortion

In this essay, I aim to have a conversation about how we converse- how we talk-about abortion and related issues. In the process, I want to consider how we might come together to discover issues of shared commitment and values and transform the existing abortion debate. I begin with a review of some of the more notable abortion-related rhetoric during the 2012 Virginia General Assembly, and contrast that rhetoric with the discourse in my classroom. I then consider whether and how we might move forward together toward a more meaningful and productive dialogue on these issues.

The Social Construction of Race and Monacan Education in Amherst County, Virginia, 1908–1965: Monacan Perspectives

That's all you heard, everywhere we went, or whatever we done, “oh, he's one of those issues.” We couldn't work with white people, we couldn't be in schools with them, we couldn't associate with them, we couldn't eat [with them]. I think they came up with the slang word “free issue.” They had this hatred; they just had this ungodly hatred. They couldn't accept you as a human.At the prodding of Thomas Jefferson, the Virginia General Assembly in 1782 passed legislation that allowed slave owners to manumit their slaves by issuing slaves a copy of their emancipation papers and making them “free issues.” Nevertheless, in Amherst County, Virginia, the meaning of “free issue” evolved to connote something very different than it did at its inception for a small mountain community.