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The daily beast
Women put their abortions on TikTok – but is it real?
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photos via TikTok The woman in the 10 Second TikTok wears the Gen-Z uniform: matching purple tie-dye shorts and a crop top, chunky white sneakers, bundled crew socks. To the infectious sounds of the song “Photo ID”, she vampires for a selfie, then turns the camera to pan the full length of the doctor’s office she’s sitting in. The video ends with a photo of her in the examination room chair, kicking her legs and giggling. “It’s a good day to have an abortion,” the caption read. The video is an austere, unapologetic depiction of abortion – the lovable movement activists have been trying to break into the mainstream for years, and abortion opponents are deemed “sick and depraved.” It’s fun, transgressive, instant success. It is also completely false. “I just started posting videos of myself at random doctor’s appointments and saying ‘I’m having an abortion’,” video creator, 21 – former student going by the handle @abortionqweenn , told the Daily Beast. “I was in emergency care.” Gen Z’s default clubhouse, TikTok, is also an indicator of teen activism. This summer, as the Black Lives Matter movement skyrocketed, users uploaded videos about victims of police brutality and footage of racial justice protests. (TikTok users were twice as likely as non-users to have recently seen a Black Lives Matter demo, according to one analysis.) In June, TikTokers helped tanks attend a Trump rally by purchasing tickets they didn’t intend to use. Last February, a video of a young woman having an abortion brought to the fore the existence of pro-choice TikTok. The clip, which appears to have been shot and uploaded by her friend, begins with a positive pregnancy test, then moves outside of a Planned Parenthood, then inside an exam room. It takes place on “It Will Rain” by Bruno Mars and features a photo of the woman who fights her fist and laughs. By the time the creator deleted the video, it had been viewed thousands of times and sparked a backlash from conservatives. “When society celebrates abortion, should we be surprised to see this kind of cruelty,” tweeted Lila Rose, president of the anti-abortion group Live Action. “What happened to ‘should be safe, legal and rare’ abortions?” added Charlie Kirk, Founder of Turning Point USA. “Now they are celebrated and broadcast on social media.” Feel Their Faith in 15 Seconds: Meet Christians Conquering TikTok The account that posted the video was eventually deleted, but the genre has proliferated. Last week, Autumn Lindsey, spokesperson for Students for Life, uploaded a video decrying the “trend” for young people to post their abortions on TikTok. “It’s disgusting and heartbreaking and shouldn’t be trending on the internet,” she said in an Instagram Live video. “Videos like this prove that the pro-abortion side celebrates abortion.” “Absolutely unreal!” a commentator wrote. “THANK YOU FOR TELLING YOU ABOUT IT!” In fact, many videos can literally be “unreal”. The Daily Beast found more than a dozen snippets of people claiming to be on abortion dates, which ranged from obvious jokes – a woman swinging her feet off the examination table next to the words “when he text you to have a good abortion ”- just shots of an exam room with the hashtag #abortioncheck. In most of them, the women are smiling, dancing, and lip-syncing to any trending song – essentially, doing what everyone else is doing on TikTok. The Daily Beast has attempted to contact all of the video creators. Only one, @abortionqween, responded. The student and his girlfriend, who goes by the pseudonym @abortioncounselor, both work in reproductive rights and both do content almost exclusively on abortion and contraception. (They actually met on TikTok and recently moved in together.) At one point, @abortionqween said, she realized that filming her doctor’s appointments and passing them off as abortions was a recipe for instant success. “I think a lot of my followers know that I don’t do 50 abortions a month,” she said. “But people will see this and I imagine that is normal. People will also be very angry about it. But it still goes viral. The strategy seems to have worked. The pair garnered a total of 165,000 subscribers and over 20 million views, despite their accounts being repeatedly blocked by TikTok moderators. (TikTok says it does not have a policy prohibiting discussion of abortion. After The Daily Beast contacted, women’s previously blocked accounts were re-established.) Many of their videos contain medical advice on the procedure. abortion or information on how to get one. Others are meant to be irreverently humorous: one of @ avortioncounselor’s first videos shows her dancing to Megan Thee Stallion’s song “Thotiana”, under the text “my fetus dancing just before it is aborted”. Another features a drive-thru and the words “in-n-out after an abortion hits differently”. For those accustomed to the stoicism of the traditional abortion debate, the playfulness of the videos may be surprising. Even some abortion rights advocates dispute some of the couple’s tactics. But for Amelia Bonow, the founder of Shout Your Abortion, the videos are the last step in normalizing a procedure that has always been stigmatized and kept silent. publishes abortion stories because she felt they needed a bigger presence on TikTok. “The idea that abortion is always a serious and sad thing is outdated, does not reflect reality, and it certainly has not done our side any favors,” she told The Daily Beast in a E-mail. TikTok abortion, she says, “is a nail in the coffin of the old way of doing things. We can talk about abortion as we want, it doesn’t always have to be heavy. Sometimes it’s hilarious. Behind all this humor lies a kernel of truth: @abortionqween and @abortioncounselor have aborted in the past six years. When she got hers at 18, @abortionqween said, she only knew one other person who had undergone the procedure. Reading and watching stories about other people’s abortions online comforted her and prompted her to start making her own videos. “We get so many DMs every week from young people like, ‘I’m pregnant, I want an abortion, I do? “, She says. “Obviously I’m not able to answer everyone but I just like, even through my videos, being someone I didn’t have.” “It’s not a question of whether it’s true or not, it’s that they are exposed to the positive messages surrounding abortion,” his girlfriend added. Especially for those living in conservative households , she said, “This may be the first time they’ve seen something positive about abortion, and just planting this seed can really change people’s lives.” The TikTok year took the world – and drove Trump Mad The two aren’t the only abortion provocateurs on TikTok. In Charlotte, North Carolina, a group of Gen Z ‘clinic advocates’ are went viral several times for videos of them taunting anti-abortion protesters outside a local clinic.In one of them, they pull Whitney Houston out of a parked car and ask a protester to come and dance with them. In another, a clinic advocate reads the words of “WAP” to drown a man reading the Bible. Although popular, the tactic is not without controversy: in August, the same day the publication was published. WAP video, four members of the organization’s board resigned, citing “difficult and emotional growing pains.” Under the Facebook ad, a commentator wrote, “I’m just shocked at the leadership I take. see this organization on the media platforms social aces. If this is the way the clinic is run, I have lost so much respect. Videos from abortion clinics are also controversial, even in the space of movement. If the clinics are identifiable in the videos, providers say, it can put them at physical risk. And videos shot in clinic waiting rooms can pose a threat to the privacy of other patients. Even fake videos, like @ avortionqween’s, risk spreading misinformation, according to Mona Walia, owner of All Women’s Health Clinic in Tacoma, Wash. Maybe someone will recognize this urgent care and assume they provide abortions, she said, or maybe compare this fictitious experience to theirs. “As providers, we want to normalize abortion,” she said. “We just need to find a way to make it available, but this information is accurate.” Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States, backed the clinic’s videos, saying in a statement that “No expectation of silence or shame” about the procedure. “Many organizations and individuals have worked for years to end the stigma around abortion, and we are proud to work alongside them,” Erica Sackin, senior communications director, said in a statement. “Eliminating the stigma of abortion and its impact on patients, staff and policies is a significant culture shift that cannot happen quickly enough.” For @abortioncounselor, reviews of his work – whether from well-meaning advocates or opponents of abortion rights “I haven’t joined TikTok to make videos for people who already support abortion” , did she say. “I made them for people who are struggling with their decision. And I also did it to educate young people about their rights. and opti ”She added:“ There are so many things that have changed as a result of our videos that a pro-choice person doesn’t really like them doesn’t bother me, because again our videos are not everything. just not for them. for all of those who say abortion shouldn’t be about laughter, the joke may be on them. The original viral video, in which the teenager goes to Planned Parenthood for an abortion, also doesn’t seem real. According to ScreenRant, the creator posted a second video – also since deleted – claiming that her friend was not having an abortion at all, but was just going to have an ultrasound. Read more from The Daily Beast. ? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get our best stories delivered to your inbox every day. Subscribe now! Learn more.
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