Image: Archi Banal

SocietyJuly 2, 2022

How an abortion saved my life

Anonymous

Guest writer

Image: Archi Banal

Abortion is not just about the life of a fetus, writes one woman who got an abortion to protect her own life.

This story includes mention of domestic violence and suicide. Please take care.

Once upon a time, I identified with the pro-life movement. After all, this was the only life I knew, coming from a predominantly Catholic upbringing in my schooling and coming from a country whose national sense of pride came from its Catholic identity. On family vacations overseas, highways would be lined with billboards of embryos from pro-life lobby groups decrying abortion, and even contraception, as murder. All around me, people talked about how the process for abortion was the result of reckless people who couldn’t face consequences. It was July 19, 2017 when I would become the so-called “reckless” woman my world branded with their scorn.

I was a high-achieving student all my life living a strict and sheltered lifestyle, which I would later realise as having hallmarks of family violence. I fled at 22.

Life had two main priorities:

1) Do the household chores.

2) Achieve well at university.

In my life, the message was to obey my family, no matter the cost. I was to fall in line or receive physical or verbal violence, which my family saw as necessary to control my rebellious nature. In addition, family shame from teen pregnancies in my extended family saw my immediate one double down on this treatment. For most of my university education, my main social networks were work colleagues and friends from university clubs. Outside of university or work, I required permission to leave the home, which was often denied. I also did not have access to my bank account. For the longest time I put up with this and thought it was normal. That is, until I fell in love.

Anthony* came into my life like a shooting star. On the day of a test, I overslept and was running late to a test thanks to an argument with my father the previous night. With puffy eyes and mismatched shoes, I ran to catch a random train in the hopes of making it to university on time. That’s where I met Anthony. He started a conversation after noticing my books sprawled on the train seats and my panicked self, telling me that whatever happened, it would be alright if I trusted myself. This set the tone for our relationship.

Anthony and I saw each other on a casual basis as I knew for sure that my family would respond badly. He was the first person I met who made me feel like I mattered beyond what people wanted from me. He cared deeply about justice and encouraged me to think about my emotions, my autonomy, always emphasising my self-worth. Anthony encouraged me to tell my parents about our relationship so he could meet them and alleviate their worries. So I did, and the ensuing fall out was like nothing I could have predicted.

My family refused to recognise my relationship with Anthony. They disapproved of me dating outside my ethnicity and because they were convinced that he would distract me from university. On top of this, they were infuriated that I had decided without their vetting. For three hours I was confined to a room while my parents screamed at me for being stupid, a bitch and a whore. They were shocked at the expectation of autonomy. My parents would go the path of full destruction. I faced the possibility of being beaten as punishment. A suicide threat was used to force me to break up with Anthony. I was threatened that if I stayed with him, I would be pulled out of university and made to work. I would be interrogated on a regular basis about my virginity and checked for marks on my body. I closed my teary eyes and started to rock myself in a fetal position, imagining myself underwater. But I was dragged by the undertow. I would lose my only access to the outside world. I was completely shattered as a person.

Signs left by abortion-rights supporters line the security fence surrounding the Supreme Court in Washington on June 28 (Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

My Pākehā friends didn’t quite understand. “Why don’t you just move out and live with him?” “Are you crazy?! I don’t want to get honour killed!”

Waterlogged with tears, I decided that expecting complete obedience was not the same as respecting your children and that I couldn’t live the rest of my life like this. Anthony and I continued to date in secret. He became my confidant and paramour. He personified the freedom, gentleness and patience I never received in my regimented life. I loved him and he loved me. With great love comes great responsibility. With great Metro-magazine-featured Catholic school comes a not-so-great abstinence-only sex education. But I was lucky, wasn’t I? I still made sure I was informed about using protection. But that doesn’t help much with a split condom..

I missed my period. So there I was, 19, running through gynaecology pages on the internet like a headless chicken. I hoped for my period to arrive like the Scarlet Pimpernel to whisk me away from my imminent execution. I had a “period” which was light and spotty and at an unusual time. This could only mean one thing: implantation bleeding.

Family planning is a godsend. The most enduring message for me of my Catholic experience is that of Old Testament prophets and Jesus; to be a person of reassurance and care for someone who feels downtrodden. My experience accessing Family Planning’s resources and healthcare was reassurance that everything was going to be OK. Culturally sensitive and non-judgemental information was available for ethnic minorities like me and my questions were answered with a foundation of science, rather than shame.

We were asked questions about our home lives and our partners, and if the fetus were to develop, would we have a supportive network, and how would we achieve this if it was what we wanted? I initially felt immense shame, like I was carrying around a large scarlet letter. I thought back to what people said in high school. Was I reckless to have not considered contraception failure? But then I thought about the violent environment I was living in. Perhaps that would bring more violence, shame, intergenerational trauma than I ever could with a pill and a healthcare consultation.

After I fled home, I learnt two things. That fleeing is the most dangerous time for a family violence survivor and her associates. And that my honour violence situation is far more common than people realise in Aotearoa. It’s just not talked about. I was pursued and tracked repeatedly by my family and family friends who continued to send violent threats to me online. It was only after I completed my education in family law and connected with family violence awareness organisations that I learnt that all these behaviours are precursors to a survivor being killed.

Domestic violence is a leading reason for seeking abortion. Unwanted pregnancy can be the effect of impregnation as a form of entrapment, sexual abuse and can torpedo the consequences of killing for family honour. If the embryo develops, the child will be forced to enter a cycle of intergenerational violence. For fellow abortion clients the decision was often not reckless or like going to the store; clients were thoughtful and perceptive about the future of unwanted pregnancy.

My access to abortion was key to me to surviving and realising I deserve a life free from violence. With the overturning of Roe v Wade, I worry about what this will mean for people like me. People who wish for a life outside their tower, who are torn apart by family violence, people who are discarded over artificial constructions of shame. I realised that to be truly pro-life is to consider the dignities of the living, instead of the shame and ridicule I found to be so common inside the movement. Bodily autonomy and a life of dignity and safety go hand in hand.

Keep going!

a family has a picnic on the beach. one child is shown with only the back of their head visible; one child has a smiling emoji over their face

What’s in a face? Parents are concerned about sharing images of their child online. (Photo: Getty Images, additional design by Archi Banal)

InternetJuly 1, 2022

Will hiding their face protect your child online?

Shanti Mathias

Contributing writer

What’s in a face? Parents are concerned about sharing images of their child online. (Photo: Getty Images, additional design by Archi Banal)

Information about a child can exist online before they even know what the internet is. Shanti Mathias talks to parents who conceal their children’s faces for privacy reasons.

Usha’s daughter was less than a week old when the requests from friends and family started coming in. She and her partner Sam “were both hounded with people asking ‘have you had your baby’,” the web developer says. While pregnant, the couple had decided not to post any pictures of their child online until she was old enough to make her own decisions about sharing her image. But Sam and Usha didn’t want to be fielding individual messages on top of caring for their new baby: it was more convenient to make a group announcement. They took a picture of themselves holding their daughter, carefully positioning her so only the back of her head was visible, and posted it on social media for their friends and family to see.

Sam and Usha’s daughter is now nine months old, and they’ve only shared a few pictures of her on their Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok accounts, always taking care to make sure her face isn’t visible or concealing it with an emoji. They’ve asked their friends and family to do the same. “It’s important that our daughter gets to make her own decision about posting online, and at nine months, she obviously can’t do that,” says Usha.

They’re not alone: big New Zealand celebrities like Dan and Honor Carter and TJ Perenara don’t post pictures of their kids’ faces. Overseas, celebrities and influencers like Chris Pratt and Kirsten Bell cover their children’s faces with emojis when sharing photos with their millions of followers.

The ethics of consent are tricky when it comes to sharing information about children, says Sean Lyons, the chief online safety officer at Netsafe. Major social media companies’ privacy policies are developed in response to laws in the US – although by conducting business in New Zealand, they’re still subject to the 2020 Privacy Act. These platforms have age limits set in the terms of service, delineating the age at which a child is expected to be able to make an informed decision about sharing personal information with the world’s biggest companies – usually around age 13. “You’re asking users to abide by an arbitrary number,” Lyons says. “You don’t turn 13 and get a degree in privacy.”

But regardless of a child’s ability to make an informed decision about their digital footprint, many parents want to share information and pictures of their children, before and after they’ve turned 13. “Parents make decisions on behalf of their kids all the time,” says Lyons. “But young people grow up, and the information we share when they’re young doesn’t disappear.”

The kids are online, but are they alright? Photo: Getty Images

But why does the pressure to share photos of children online exist at all? “Sharing is natural,” notes Lyons, pointing out that in earlier generations photo albums might be kept in the living room to be shared with guests, filled with pictures of kids taking their first bath or winning cross country, all shown without the express permission or sometimes even presence of the child. Social media often feels like an extension of that living room, a place where social relationships are conducted through messages, calls and yes, sharing pictures. People are interested in each other, and interested in images of each other – thousands of years of art history demonstrates that as effectively as the urge to friend request an acquaintance on Facebook so you can look at pictures of them in other contexts.

But compared to a photo album, where only one or two copies of a photo might exist, platforms like Facebook and Instagram change the mechanics of distribution. A photo of a child is held on remote servers, replicated onto the screens of anyone who scrolls past the post. There’s a difference, too, in the permanency: a new friend you meet at a festival would most likely never see the crinkled photo of your younger self that your dad keeps in his wallet, but it would be a matter of a few clicks to find that image if it was posted on a public profile.

To Facebook and its ilk, it doesn’t matter what kind of content a user shares, just that the content is there – they profit from making their platforms an extension of users’ social lives, and encourage personal posts to build engagement. “The way that algorithms work, people are ‘rewarded’ when they post things that other people like,” says Lyons. Sam agrees. “I think people are seduced by the validation these platforms are designed to provide,” he says. Likes and comments appreciating the child you already love to pieces are especially validating, even if the child can’t understand how their image is being used for other people’s advantage. Sam has to consciously resist using his child’s image to seek this validation.

You might be OK with sharing your selfie with your friends, but who else is seeing it? (Photo: Getty Images)

There are broader implications of megacorporations profiting from reams of data about children, usually posted in good faith by people who love their kids and want to share that with their communities. For many parents, though, it’s the risk to their individual children that is concerning. “I’ve read a lot of horror stories about how people’s photos are used, copied and pasted onto someone else’s phone, screenshotted and misappropriated,” says Sela Jane Hopgood, Pacific communities editor at The Spinoff, who has been active on social media since her early teens. Since her accounts are public, she doesn’t know who may hold images of her child – but she can at least conceal his face.

While these concerns are valid, and Netsafe is working to help parents and caregivers mitigate the risk of people individually targeting children with predatory intent, Lyons points out that the harms can be broader. Images which create social embarrassment or lead to bullying from a child’s peers, even if the intent of the adult sharing the image is positive, can hurt too.

Individuals like Hopgood, Sam and Usha choosing to hide their children’s faces are in the minority. Social media isn’t designed to make individuals thoughtful about their own privacy – it’s not even set up to encourage us to read the terms and conditions. Changes to the mechanics of the platforms could help; Hopgood suggests a “are you sure you want to post a picture of a minor” prompt when facial recognition detects a child, similar to the Twitter function that asks people to read an article before they retweet it.

But large tech platforms profiting from the norms around posting pictures will likely be slow to instate these functions unless regulation asks them too. In the meantime, Lyons says that in the inevitably digital world the best thing parents can do is model thoughtful behaviour to their own children. If you’re thinking about sharing a photo online “don’t just ask your kids – be seen to be asking your friends or your partner if they’re OK with it,” he says. “That’s such an important part of developing healthy boundaries in online life for our children.”

* Sam and Usha asked not to include their last names to protect their privacy

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