This Is the First Book About Abortion Care for Children

When Carly Manes first began working in reproductive health and started having conversations with clients about their needs, she immediately noticed something: many of them wished there were more resources for parents who wanted to explain what abortions were to their children.

“Before COVID, a lot of folks brought their kids to the clinic because finding child care is really hard,” Manes told the FBomb, noting that studies have shown that 59 percent of people who have abortions in the United States have children. “So they wanted to talk to their young ones about their abortions and would ask me if I had any advice or if I had any resources. But I did not, so I thought, ‘I guess I'll just try to make one.’”

That’s how the idea for What's an Abortion, Anyway?, the new children’s book Manes co-created with her colleague Mar, was born. Mar, who creates art under the name Emulsify, first began working as an abortion doula in 2015 and immediately connected with the concept of a children’s book about abortion care. “This felt like a really beautiful opportunity to merge those things together,” they said of their love of illustration and their work in reproductive health.

Manes and Mar are currently raising funds to self-publish the book on Kickstarter and are encouraged by the fact that the project has already surpassed its first fundraising goal. The FBomb had the chance to talk to the pair about their debut children’s book, the importance of families talking about reproductive health care together, and how they hope projects like this one will help lessen the stigma around abortion.

Carly, you mentioned that your clients would often ask you for child-friendly resources about abortion. What kinds of conversations were they hoping to have with their kids?

Carly Manes: So many people who have abortions already have children and, as we know, in the United States, we don't have universal child care, so lots of folks would bring their child with them to their appointments like they would to any other doctor's appointment.

Folks who are having abortions often ask me, ‘How do I explain this to my child?’ or they’d say, ‘I want to tell my kid later on about my abortion when they are older.’ Or if the child was a little older, they’d say, ‘My child is old enough to know that I was pregnant and I'm not anymore. How do I talk about this?’

We are really lucky that the book has already been fully funded, which is great and means we are going to start printing shortly. We are also going to send a free copy of the book to every abortion clinic in the United States so that there will be a copy in every waiting room. So if there are kids hanging out waiting for their parent, they can take a look at that book.

For readers who may not be familiar with the term, what is an abortion doula?

Mar: In general, an abortion doula is a support person. They’re somebody who is there with you while you get your abortion and then maybe before and sometimes afterwards to see how you are feeling. They are basically just there to hold space for you and your feelings and to help you advocate for yourself so that you know that someone is there to support you in whatever way makes you feel good. That can be someone who is holding your hand or talking about what you're having for dinner or someone who is helping you process your emotions and what you're feeling. They are just being present with you.

What made you decide to go the self-publishing route for What’s An Abortion, Anyway??

Carly: I started writing this book in 2018, and my initial intention was to try to get it published by a formal publisher or have an agent represent the book, but I've been working in abortion access and advocacy for about 10 years and so publishing a book was not something I was familiar with.

I emailed probably 300 to 400 book agents and 15 to 20 presses and no one wanted to take the book. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, and probably the biggest reason is stigma. No one wanted to be attached to a children's book about abortion. That’s why, after two years of really trying to get someone to pick it up, I decided that I was going to self-publish. I knew that if I was going to do that, I would need a partner and a collaborator to illustrate the book because I am not an illustrator.

Mar: It's extremely hard to self-publish, but I think that the biggest positive about it is that we get full control of the content and how we advertise it and how we talk about the subject and who it's for. Abortion is a polarizing subject, even though it shouldn't be. So having that control was really, really important for this book.

The illustrations in this book represent a diversity of families and gender identities. How did you develop the ideas for these illustrations?

Mar: When we were planning the book and I was coming up with sketches … we decided that it was important to us to have a wide representation of identities — while obviously acknowledging that there isn't a checklist when it comes to representation and that we're never going to be able to represent everyone. But we wanted to make sure that we are representing folks who don't usually get to see their stories reflected. We were really lucky to be able to work We Testify, a program of the National Network of Abortion Funds, so we were able to reference images of folks who have actually have had an abortion, and who find power in sharing their stories.

Then the second biggest consideration when it came to this book was putting in an effort to minimize the stigma around abortion. We thought it was really important to hold space for these feelings in a way that didn't feel taboo or secretive or dark, but rather [in a] safe and an open way that explored the wide range of circumstances and feelings and just places that folks are in when they get abortions. I was feeling really drawn to illustrating folks doing their everyday stuff, you know, so we have folks sitting in a field, or painting, or hanging out with their family. Their whole being isn't defined necessarily by an abortion, although that can be a very big moment in their lives. But I think something that is often removed from the narrative of an abortion is the fact that folks are living their lives and this is experience is just part of their lives.

Can you tell us a little bit more about We Testify and why you wanted to work with them?

Carly: We Testify is a organization of abortion storytellers that was started by the activist Renee Bracey Sherman. It's an organization of folks who've all had abortions and they share their abortions in really public ways.

We reached out to We Testify and asked, ‘Would some of your folks be interested in having their images in our children's book?’ We’re really, really lucky that over 15 of their storytellers said yes. Even the abortion provider in our book is an abortion provider in the D.C. area. Most of our images are based on real people who either have had abortions or are really involved in abortion work.

What has the response to your Kickstarter and the concept for this book been like?

Carly: Folks have been overwhelmingly and incredibly supportive. We've definitely received some hesitancy when we've approached bookstores about having the book on their shelves. Abortion is inherently political because the world has politicized it, but this book is not a tool for political advocacy. The book doesn't use words like “pro-choice” or “rights.”

The book is really about just explaining a medical procedure that some people have in their lives, so we want to see it in libraries and in bookstores in the same section where you’d find children's books about pregnancy, children's books about sex and reproduction, and children's books about miscarriage. This book belongs in that section because abortion is another outcome of pregnancy. We have books about birth, so of course we have a book about abortion, because it's just another continuation and outcome of a pregnancy. That’s really how we're framing it.