‘people who have abortions are our future’: abortion storytelling and the feminist imaginary

prologue Abortion storytelling, rooted in feminist histories of consciousness-raising, has become an important part of reproductive justice activism. The aim is to ‘normalise’ abortion, to keep saying abortion out loud as a challenge to the stigma that underpins it. The promise is a future of greater reproductive freedoms. In this thought piece, I critique whether storytelling can indeed work towards this aim and promise. Drawing on Erica Millar’s (2017) work on the emotional script that has underwritten abortion choice through anti-abortion sentiment, I ask whether abortion storytelling can open space for the emergence of a different script and future—whether it speaks to Lola Olufemi’s (2021) call to imagine otherwise if we are to become/be such a future. Below, I explore these ideas through a self-reflective, provisional-thinking meditation on the limits and possibilities of abortion storytelling by drawing on examples from the US, UK and Ireland and my own abortion experience (via short, italicised fragments). Through autotheoretical engagements and a call for polyvocal storytelling, I invite the reader to (re)think through their own stories and ask whether together we might be able to imagine a reproductive otherwise.