Why Do Anti-Abortion Activists Choose To Have Abortions?

Apparently, some anti-abortion advocates are deciding that it is okay for themselves or their family members to have abortions while simultaneously advocating that others should not be able to make the same choice. This is really taking hypocrisy to new heights (from a diary on DailyKos):

Pro-life: their abortions are different, unique.

by ShawnGBR
Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 02:50:28 PM PDT

[...]But like I say, an anti-choice advocate's opinion is set in stone.

Even on the day she's having an abortion.

As one page chronicles:

"I've had several cases over the years in which the anti-abortion patient had rationalized in one way or another that her case was the only exception, but the one that really made an impression was the college senior who was the president of her campus Right-to-Life organization, meaning that she had worked very hard in that organization for several years. As I was completing her procedure, I asked what she planned to do about her high office in the RTL organization. Her response was a wide-eyed, 'You're not going to tell them, are you!?' When assured that I was not, she breathed a sigh of relief, explaining how important that position was to her and how she wouldn't want this to interfere with it." (Physician, Texas)

That's right. For everyone else, it's clear-cut murder. All the hooey about needing the abortion because the child will ruin your life just won't do. Unless it turns out that you need the abortion because the child will ruin your life. Then it's OK.

[...]These aren't the only examples from the link I've provided. Although few studies have been made of this phenomenon, a study done in 1981 (Henshaw, S.K. and G. Martire. 1982. Abortion and the Public Opinion Polls: 1. Morality and Legality. Family Planning Perspectives. 14:2, pp 53-60, March/April.) found that 24% of women who had abortions considered the procedure morally wrong, and 7% of women who'd had abortions disagreed with the statement, "Any woman who wants an abortion should be permitted to obtain it legally."

A 1994/95 survey of nearly 10,000 abortion patients showed 18% of women having abortions are born-again or Evangelical Christians.

And a previous Planned Parenthood handbook on abortion noted that nearly half of all abortions are for women who describe themselves as born-again Christian, Evangelical Christian, or Catholic.

The diary offers a couple other examples of women who actively protest abortion clinics, then go to the same clinic for an abortion, and then go back to protesting the same abortion clinic later. Can someone please try to explain the logic behind this hypocrisy? Or is there no logic at all? How do these women arrive at the idea that it is okay for them to have an abortion, but it is wrong for everyone else?

That is crazy. It is one thing to be against abortions, but if you are against them, then you shouldn't choose to have one for yourself (or your underage daughter). I can understand if an anti-abortion activist needed to get an abortion out of medical necessity, rape, or incest, but that doesn't appear to be the case in the examples from the article.

I read a statement once that sums up how I feel about this. I am paraphrazing, but the statement was basically this:

For any right that you claim for yourself, you must also be willing to allow others to claim that right for themselves.

For example, if straight people are going to claim the right to all the legal benefits of marriage, then they should be willing to allow gay people to have the same right. Christians should willingly offer the same rights that they claim for themselves to other religions. No race should have more rights than any other. We should pass the Equal Rights Amendment.

It all comes down to a matter of equal rights whether the issue is race, sex, religion, creed, sexual orientation, et cetera. If anti-abortion activists are going to exercise their right to choose to have an abortion, then they shouldn't be trying to take away that right from others.