The wire hanger is considered a symbol of the darkest days, when abortion was illegal and options for ending an unwanted pregnancy were dangerous – even deadly. While it can be effective at causing concern and igniting anger, reproductive rights advocates and abortion providers say it’s time to put the images back in the closet. “Post-roe America is not like pre-roe America,” said Dr. DeShawn Taylor, an obstetrician and gynecologist who owns the Desert Star Family Planning clinic in Phoenix, Ariz. (CBC) Her clinic stopped providing abortions on June 24, immediately after the Supreme Court ruling. Like others, Taylor is waiting to see which state law takes precedence, which could affect the care she can provide. But one thing is clear, he says: The so-called hanger abortion is not making a comeback.
Symbol of a dangerous past – not the future
“The idea that we’re going to have segments of our population harming themselves with instruments and devices to end pregnancy is just not an accurate reflection of the situation now,” Taylor said. “That hanger image is something that is more harmful than helpful, especially for people who have experiences or loved ones or have family histories and stories of people who suffered in those times before abortion was safe,” she said. The “graphic simplicity” of the images is what makes it such a prominent and effective symbol of the pro-choice movement, explained Martha Painter, a registered nurse in Halifax who works in abortion and reproductive health care and the founder and director of the health and justice organization Wellness Within. “[It] refers to this idea that without legal, clinical, hospital abortions… people will take matters into their own hands and use various methods such as [inserting] sharp, penetrating objects through the cervix,” he said. WATCHES | Dr. DeShawn Taylor explains the inadvertent damage of hanger images:
Hanger images ‘disrespectful’, not accurate symbol of abortion care today, doctor says
Dr. DeShawn Taylor, an obstetrician and gynecologist who runs an independent abortion clinic, explains why using a hanger to protest abortion rights can do more harm than good. Before abortion was legalized, such dangerous—and desperate—measures resulted in uterine perforation, bleeding, sepsis, and sometimes death. But the legal options today, where available, are safe: surgical abortions, more accurately known as suction abortions, and medical abortions, which use a combination of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol.
The power of pills
Medical abortion in particular has changed the landscape. it can be self-managed at home, Paynter noted, without having to go to a clinic. The two-pill regimen — which can be prescribed via telemedicine in some jurisdictions — is approved for use in pregnancies up to 10 weeks; it accounts for nearly ninety percent of all abortions in the US. The pill is now used in more than half of abortions in the US, according to the Guttmacher Institute. And since late last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been allowing the drug to be distributed by mail. Advocates say that should help some pregnant women circumvent their state bans and self-administer abortions, although some Republican-led states are trying to outlaw the mail-order pill. Bottles of the drug misoprostol sit on a table at the Women’s Center of West Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on March 15, 2022. The drug is one of two used together in medical abortions. (Allen G. Breed/The Associated Press) At the same time, the number of US clinics performing abortions has also declined, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The number is about 800, down from a peak of 2,000 sites in the early 1990s. That’s all the more reason reproductive rights activists should “put down the hangers and pick up the pills” — to better inform people there are safe options, said Renee Bracey Sherman, founder and executive director of We Testify, a Washington, D.C.-based organization. dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who have abortions. The hanger not only represents a “lack of information” about safe options, he said, but “plays [the] hands’ of the anti-abortion movement. “They want people to think their only option is a dirty hanger,” he said. “Well, something radical, and fighting fire with fire, is pills.”
Countering the ‘powerful’ images of the anti-abortion movement
While pill images may be better from a public health perspective, the anti-abortion movement often has the upper hand when it comes to “powerful” and attention-grabbing images, said Carol Sanger, a Columbia University law professor who specializes in reproductive rights and author of About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in the 21st Century. The visual weapon of choice on that side: the fetus. Sanger said the invention and widespread use of ultrasound ended up transforming abortion policy. “We need a picture of desired pregnancies where people are willing to go for their first [or] fifth ultrasound, and applies it to women with unwanted pregnancy,” he said. A person with his hands painted red holds up metal hangers as protesters march in Denver on June 24. Some reproductive rights advocates suggest it’s time to retire the gruesome symbol, saying it no longer represents the reality of abortion today. (Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images) There are also the most graphic images, purportedly of aborted fetuses, that anti-abortion groups are known to use and even distribute in unsolicited leaflets mailed to people’s homes. “Imagery is used, a lot of times, to really initiate the conversion of the youth and bring the youth into this extremist movement,” he said. “With this heated rhetoric and outright lies about what the images depict, it’s this very aggressive, coercive manipulation.” For Bracey Sherman, there’s something else that stands out about depictions of fetuses on posters and billboards: they’re almost always white. The anti-abortion movement itself is “overwhelmingly white,” he said, even though “the majority of people who have abortions in the United States are people of color.” Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) showed blacks and Hispanics accounted for 59%. of people who had an abortion in 2020 (38 percent and 21 percent, respectively), while 33 percent were white. “Black and brown people are often underinsured, they don’t have access to prenatal care. [The U.S. has] some of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world, especially for black and brown people,” said Bracey Sherman. Activist Renee Bracey Sherman protests outside the US Supreme Court with a sign promoting self-administered medical abortion. (Submitted by Renee Bracey Sherman) In the aftermath of the ruling, Bracey Sherman said some of the anti-abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court shouted racial epithets at her and other pro-choice protesters of color. Ironically, he said, some of those same people carried signs with an image of a heart surrounding a pregnant black woman and the message “love them both.” “I’m the black woman you’re supposed to love … and yet we’re treated with such disdain and contempt,” she said. Bracey Sherman said she objects to proudly wearing an “I had an abortion” T-shirt, which she had at 19. She calls the experience “the best health care” she’s ever received, saying she felt heard on The Hour. She was in a toxic relationship at the time, she said, and knew she didn’t want to get pregnant.
It’s time to ditch other outdated messages, advocates say
Ultimately, being open to experiences and sharing information about safe abortion options is more powerful than swinging a hanger, Bracey Sherman said. That’s why she’d like to see another slogan struck from the reproductive rights debate. “I hate, with a passion, the phrase ‘Safe, Legal and Rare,’” she said, explaining that it stigmatizes those who have had abortions when it’s quite common. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 18 percent of pregnancies ended in abortion in 2017. Taylor said she also finds the term “back alley abortion” like “nails on a chalkboard.” Not only does it create fear, she said, but it diminishes the work that midwives, doctors and others have done — sometimes risking their livelihoods — to help get “necessary abortion care to people who were desperate,” in the pre -Roe. v. Wade era. “I come from this inspiration of people who saw the provision of abortion as very caring,” she said. “Despite the danger, you know, to their freedom.” LISTEN | Investigating the murder of a New York doctor for performing abortions: 32:21S7 E1: Aid, assistance, abortion Access to abortion has become urgent as laws protecting it are under attack in the US. Working with family member Amanda Robb, David investigates the murder of her uncle, an abortion provider in the US, and the conviction of a sniper fanatic. Both discover that this murder may be the end of a series of doctor shootings that actually began in Canada.
