“FTW: Social Networks, Down and Dirty for Change” at Netroots Nation

On Friday, June 17^th, Exhale Executive Director Aspen Baker participated in a panel presentation at Netroots Nation entitled “FTW: Social Networks, Down & Dirty for Change.” Assembled by 16 & Loved architect Deanna Zandt, the panel also included Cheryl Contee from Fission Strategy, Anita Jackson from Moms Rising, and Rachel LaBruyere from Mobile Commons and explored case studied of social media successes. Aspen Baker presented the 16 & Loved campaign to a standing-room only crowd, exploring campaign goals, media reaction, and lessons learned. You can watch the whole panel discussion below [a new browser window will open]:

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Our “16 & Loved” Media RoundUp

Exhale partnered with MTV on their groundbreaking special “No Easy Decision” which gave three young women  – Markai, Natalia and Katie – the opportunity to tell their own story with abortion, in their own words.  Our “16 & Loved” campaign, launched in conjunction with the special, gave everyone the opportunity to express their love to Markai, Natalia and Katie to  let them know they are not alone.  They are loved.

The special and our campaign were covered extensively in the media and the blogosphere, successfully creating new public conversations about the need to support and respect each person’s unique experience with abortion.   Our pivotal role in this television milestone and the challenge of being Pro-Voice in a pro-choice/pro-life world were reported on in The New York Times.

Exhale’s own speakers bureau member, Mayah Frank, wrote about her own experience of abortion and what the special means to her on Care2Causes.  Read her blog post:  “MTV’s 16 and Pregnant Takes on Abortion: One Reason Why.”

Here is a roundup of articles featuring “No Easy Decision,” and our “16 & Loved” Campaign:

Lynn Harris, Salon.com: “MTV’s Shockingly Good Abortion Special.”

Circling the wagons against nasty backlash, nonpartisan post-abortion support talkline Exhale, who partnered with MTV on the show, had already planned an online campaign called “16 and Loved” to act as sort of virtual clinic escorts for the young women outing themselves.

Shelby Knox, ShelbyKnox.com: “MTV’s Abortion Show Was…Actually Good.”

Also exceptional was the online space created by Exhale, a multi-lingual after abortion counseling talkline, called 16 and Loved. The site’s sole purpose is to support Markai, Katie, and Natalia and other young women who’ve chosen abortion. Exhale got ahead of the inevitable anti-choice shenanigans and focused most of the conversation online, especially on Twitter during the special, toward loving and accepting the young women rather than arguing the politics of abortion rights.

Of course, the real sheroes of No Easy Decision are Markai, Katie and Natalia. Because of their courage, young women who saw or see the show who’ve had abortions know that they’re not alone and they don’t have to be ashamed.

Jessica Valenti, JessicaValenti.com: “MTV’s abortion special treats issue with compassion, facts.”

Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Cast (podcast): “Aggressive Women, Rape Myths, And Abortion Realities”

Roxann MtJoy, Change.org: “MTV to Air Special on Teen Abortion Tonight”

MTV is partnering with Exhale, an after-abortion counseling talkline, to make sure that this sensitive subject matter is handled right. Exhale wants to make sure that those brave girls who shared their stories feel loved and supported. To that end, they have launched a major social media campaign called 16 & Loved, and there are plenty of ways for you to get involved.

Linda Lowen, About.com: “MTV’s No Easy Decision Follows Teens Who Choose Abortion”

Knowing that the girls featured on the special will be bombarded with hate after their stories air, the website 16 and Loved is already up and running to provide messages of unconditional love and support to the three girls who are featured in No Easy Decision. The site offers readers a chance to post their own stories about abortion and leave comments for the girls to let them know that going public with their decision is a courageous act.

The driving force behind the site is Exhale, a nonprofit organization that provides a nonjudgmental national, multilingual after-abortion talkline and trained peer counselors.

Sean Daly, NYPost: “MTV Follows ‘Teen Mom’ Who Chose Abortion in Controversial New Show” and “16 & Pregnant Abort Show Furor”

Luchina Fisher, ABCNews.com: “MTV Airing Teen Abortion Special, ‘No Easy Decision’”

To find the young women for the special, MTV partnered with Exhale, an after-abortion counseling hotline …that takes an apolitical or “pro-voice” approach that “honors and respects each person’s unique experience with abortion,” according to volunteer Erika Jackson.

Exhale launched its “16 and Loved”website to support the young women who will tell their stories next week, as well as women who find the stories resonate with them. The group has been posting messages of support to the women on the special and will be live blogging during the program.

“My grand vision is that everyone who has had an abortion or is in the middle of the decision-making process will know that she’s not alone,” Jackson told ABCNews.com.

Bianca Laureno, Latino Sexuality: “No Easy Decision/16 & Loved: MTVs Airing of Teen Stories About Abortion” and “Reflecting On “No Easy Decision”

I’m not a huge fan of the “speak outs” especially when connected to abortion, personally. Part of this stems from seeing people who are not prepared to hear those testimonios respond to them, youth thinking they are expected to share when they are not prepared or ready to do so, and the somewhat voyeuristic space that may be created. However, I have not ever spoken out against these spaces existing, or the importance and need they fill for many people. Any way for such healing and consciousness-raising to occur is essential. There is enough space for all of us to heal and build together.

Vanessa Valenti, Feministing: “MTV’s “16 and Pregnant” to air special on abortion tomorrow”

Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Feministing: “On MTV’s special, “No Easy Decision.”

Beth Saunders, RH Reality Check: “Morning Roundup: Alaska, Wisconsin, and 16 and Loved”

Kelsey Wallace, Bitch: “Love for the Women of MTV’s “No Easy Decision”

Barbara Glickstein, WBAI Healthstyles (MP3)

Jill Fillipovic, Feministe: “16 & Loved”

I’m sure the show will be controversial (and Dr. Drew is the worst, so that part concerns me). I’m also sure that the young women who have abortions will not be warmly received by many members of the “pro-life” community.

Which is why I’m glad that Exhale is doing a “16 & Loved” campaign to support these (and all) women who terminate pregnancies. It’s important for women to know that no matter what their story and what reproductive choices they make, they are supported.

Irin Carmon, Jezebel: “MTV Airing Teen Abortion Special”

LATimes Show Tracker: “How groundbreaking was MTV’s abortion special?”

But Pinsky earned raves from abortion rights advocates, as did MTV’s decision to partner with Exhale, a “pro-voice” counseling service for women who’ve had abortions.

Sarah Seltzer, The Washington Post: “MTV’s ’16 and Pregnant’ exploits teen moms but addresses abortion with dignity”

BostonHerald.com: “MTV Abortion Special: No Easy Decision”

Steph Herold, AbortionGang: “16 and Loved: Supporting Women Who Have Had Abortions”

Jamia Wilson, Womens Media Center: “MTV Abortion Special “No Easy Decision” Addresses Abortion with Compassionate Integrity”

I appreciate MTV’s portrayal of the three women on the show, presenting them authentically without promoting stereotypes as they often do in other reality shows. I loved their positive depiction of an African American/Multiracial family, their engagement with spirituality, and their portrayal of women with families and partners who were loving, supportive, and respectful of each woman’s choice.

We don’t often hear these stories and I am glad they gave air time to Natalia, Markai, and Katie’s realities. When Katie, explained that she made a “parenting decision” by making the choice to end her pregnancy, I regarded the concept of choice with a more enlightened perspective. I am proud of these young women for living their truth.

Jennifer Pozner, Reality Bites Back: “Viewers Guide to MTV Abortion Special: Send young women your love but give Dr. Drew the sideeye” and “Liveblogging ’16 & Pregnant’ Reunion Show and MTV abortion special No Easy Decision”

I’m pleasantly surprised: the framing of Markai’s abortion experience has been respectful, and seemingly true to her authentic reactions during pregnancy, through her decision-making process with her boyfriend, mother and friend, and finally in the aftermath of how she has been coping with the choice she made. She seems resigned to knowing it was the right decision, but feeling doubt and sadness that this choice was necessary — which, of course, is how a great many women feel when they find themselves having to terminate an unexpected pregnancy. I knew it was possible that MTV could produce a reality special that handled abortion with nuance, respect and authenticity. But having documented ten years of reality TV manipulations, misrepresentations and regressive anti-feminist backlash for my book, Reality Bites Back, I was skeptical that they would really want to do so, or know how to do so even if the good intentions were there. So far, at least for this first 1/3 of the special, I’m really glad that my concerns have been misplaced…

Dr. Drew ended the special encouraging those who have had abortions to visit Exhale’s website if they need support. Unfortunately, the special never mentioned “16 and Loved,” the Exhale-led companion campaign to this special aimed at showering Markai, Katie (and the other teen whose name I didn’t catch) with support and love, which I blogged about earlier. Was this a perfect special? No. Did it cover all the reasons young women have abortions? No. But it was far more honest, and allowed far more authenticity of girls’ experiences, than I expected. And my biggest surprise: Dr. Drew wasn’t the moralizing, judgmental, faux-sincere jerk he has often been on his other MTV shows, Celebrity Rehab, Sex Rehab, and Sober House.

Thank you to every person who participated in conversations about the need to support and respect each woman’s unique experience with abortion, whether she shares her story in private on our talkline or in public on MTV.  Every woman deserves the opportunity to feel heard, understood, supported and respected.  And, most of all, loved.

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ANNOUNCEMENT! Our partnership with MTV and Our “16 & Loved” Campaign

Watch the first Pro-Voice show on MTV

Exhale has partnered with MTV, home of the the popular “16 & Pregnant” series, as it ventures into new territory with a special that features young women telling their abortion stories.  The special will promote the Exhale web site and will encourage viewers to reach out and talk with someone about their abortion.

Watch: “No Easy Decision” on MTV
December 28^th, at 11:30 p.m. East Coast Time, directly after the reunion show of 16 & Pregnant.
(Check local listings)

Announcing Exhale’s  “16 & Loved”! campaign:

Several courageous young women – including a previous “16 & Pregnant” subject, Markai – will be featured on MTV’s special telling their personal story with abortion. They’re doing their part to let other young women know: “you are not alone. I’ve been there too.”

Now, it’s time to do our part.  We need to make sure these brave young women feel our unconditional love and our support.

With your help, we are launching a major social media campaign to send our love to the guests of the special.

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Building Strong Ties to Change Culture by Volunteer Nat Okey

*Guest Blogger*

Nat Okey, Exhale Volunteer:

The recent media attention over the Twitter thread, “#ihadanabortion”, reveals the deep difference between online networking and social change.  I hope that every woman who tweeted about her abortion found the experience to be a positive one, and yet in order to have a lasting effect on the abortion debate, the campaign must be connected to a broader culture change agenda.

Recently, best-selling author and cultural commentator, Malcolm Gladwell, wrote in the New Yorker magazine about the difference between the weak ties of social networking and the strong ties needed for social change. He makes his point that people take on great personal risks, like violence or death, in order to change culture because of strong ties, with examples of the early lunch counter sit-ins and the Freedom Summer campaign. On the other hand, weak social ties, like the kind we have with people on Facebook or Twitter, don’t give us what is really needed to face our own fears and the real risks to our lives or livelihoods.

The problem of weak social ties played out with #ihadanabortion, as it quickly became politicized and was used as another culture war proxy.  The thread digressed to include pleas for people to go sign a Planned Parenthood petition, amongst many other things.   You can’t have a transformative conversation, which is necessary to change the debate, in 140 characters or less with anonymous strangers with constant tangents being introduced.  The multitudes of nuance that the abortion debate contains and which must be respected can not be adequately addressed by tweeting.

Instead of trying to speak to the masses one tweet at a time, we should focus on supporting women who have had abortions, as it is their relationships with their own friends and family that will prove the tipping point to cultural change. When people have strong personal ties to you, they will view an issue differently if it affects you. Where once something was unacceptable, through their prism of you they can see and feel the issue differently.

Sociologists Robert Putnam and David Campbell describe this in their new book, American Grace.  In a recent review in the New York Times, Robert Wright discusses this effect in regards to LGBT people in the U.S. and how our society has become much more accepting with relative quickness:

Putnam and Campbell favor the “bridging” model. The idea is that tolerance is largely a question of getting to know people. If, say, your work brings you in touch with gay people or Muslims — and especially if your relationship with them is collaborative — this can brighten your attitude toward the whole tribe they’re part of. And if this broader tolerance requires ignoring or reinterpreting certain scriptures, so be it; the meaning of scripture is shaped by social relations.

The bridging model explains how attitudes toward gays could have made such rapid progress. A few decades ago, people all over America knew and liked gay people — they just didn’t realize these people were gay. So by the time gays started coming out of the closet, the bridge had already been built.

And once straight Americans followed the bridge’s logic — once they, having already accepted people who turned out to be gay, accepted gayness itself — more gay people felt comfortable coming out. And the more openly gay people there were, the more straight people there were who realized they had gay friends, and so on: a virtuous circle.

Once people realize that their co-workers, partners, friends and family members have had abortions, we can develop our own Pro-Voice virtuous circle.

This kind of bridge-building work won’t happen through Twitter.  As Gladwell writes, online social networking is

“a form of organizing which favors the weak-tie connections… It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact.”

A Twitter campaign alone will not de-stigmatize abortion.  We need to build more bridges and foster more strong ties.  This approach can give us a world where all the women who’ve had an abortion can speak freely about their experiences, and a world where the rest of us can see abortion less as a political issue to be debated and more about abortion as an experience lived by a woman we love.

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A Special Message from Erika Jackson, Volunteer

My name is Erika Jackson and I have been a volunteer at Exhale for two-and-a-half years. I started as a talkline counselor and I’ve been a moderator in the Online Community since it launched last year.  I know how important Exhale is to the women we serve, which is why I just donated $50 to celebrate our 5th Anniversary of expanded service.

I’m writing to invite you join me by making your own contribution to Exhale today. We are just $2,000 away from reaching our $15,000 goal, and I know that with your donation, we will ge there by Tuesday, August 31st!  Every donation makes a big difference.

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“Pro-Voice High-Five” Awardee for Courage: To every woman who has ever told her abortion story, in public or private, to a counselor or a loved one, online or in-person

Yes, it’s true that abortion is stigmatized and that the voices of those who have had them are often hidden and neglected.  We rarely hear them in public discussion.  But that doesn’t mean that personal abortion stories are never shared. They are.  Lots of them.

To hear personal abortion stories, you have to be willing to listen and show up when, where and how a woman wants to be heard, on each woman’s terms.  You have to literally “meet her where she’s at” including the forums she chooses.

Despite the great risks that can come with sharing a personal story, thousands of women make this choice everyday.  A woman makes the choice – and faces the risk – every time she seeks support from her friends, faith, family or community.  She makes the choice and faces the risk when she picks up the phone and calls the Exhale talkline. Or she joins the online community.  Or she accepts abortion doula services.  Or she answers questions from a researcher.  Or she completes a digital storytelling workshop.   There are many stories to be told and many ways for a woman to tell hers.  However a woman chooses to share her story, she must be recognized and honored for her unique experience.

Exhale honors the Courage of every woman who has ever made the choice to share her story.

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VOTE FOR OUR SXSWI PANEL IDEA: Ethical Storytelling for Social Change

Exhale has learned a lot about storytelling around abortion and we have had the chance to work with some fantastic mentors and experts on the topic of stories.  We’ve all gotten together to offer a panel at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas next March. It’s the place to be!

Our idea is “Ethical Storytelling for Social Change. ” If selected, I will be on a panel moderated by Thaler Pekar, and alongside Amy Hill of the Center for Digital Storytelling and Jeff Simmermon of AndIAmNotLying.com.

We will answer the following questions in our panel:

• What can be learned from successful examples of online story sharing by previously marginalized communities?
• What do organizations need to consider if they advocate open story-sharing online?
• What are the privacy considerations of storytellers?
• How can advocacy organizations ensure a respectful partnership with storytellers?
• What is ethical storytelling practice for advocacy organizations?

Learn more about the panel here.  Most importantly – we need your VOTE!

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Reducing Abortion Stigma through Social Networking: Our Pro-Voice Approach By Kristen Schultz Oliver, Exhale Director of Programs

Kristen Schultz Oliver, Exhale’s Director of Programs

Over the years I have witnessed the profound impact of kind, compassionate conversation that has been taking place on the Exhale After-Abortion Talkline. These are rare and significant moments where Exhale counselors are safe harbors in an otherwise tumultuous sea of judgment and stigma around abortion. And in the time since the talkline started, counselors and staff at Exhale have been in the privileged position to make observations about the “big picture” regarding women’s needs after-abortion.

We hear from thousands of women and men every year across this country, and while individual needs are unique and vary widely, there are some common questions we’ve heard. Some of our most often-repeated comments since we launched the talkline include the following:

“Am I the only one?”

“Does anyone else feel this way?”

“Do you know what it’s like?”

“I wonder what other women do afterward to feel better.”

Collectively these questions point to a need for women not to feel isolated in their abortion experiences. It’s one thing for a counselor to say, “You’re not the only one! 1 in 3 women by the time they’re 45 will have an abortion – over a million women every year in this country…” etc. It’s another thing entirely for the woman in question to understand this for herself – not just take our word for it – be able compare notes and share ideas with other women, some of whom likely know what she’s going through, because they’ve been through it too. Yet the stigma surrounding abortion often keeps women’s’ voices silent and hidden from one another, and many do not realize that a friend or family member has also had an abortion and might be able to relate to them.

Here’s the conundrum then: if you’ve had an abortion, how do you take that leap of faith and trust someone with your personal, private experience? You don’t need to be a scholar of abortion care or politics in this country to know that it’s not safe to talk openly about personal abortion experiences. It’s a mine field out there! The status quo regarding public dialogue and abortion in this country is such a vile, vitriolic thing that it turns my stomach to think about it. Even people you think you can trust don’t always understand – and it can be devastating to be met with complete incomprehension from friends and family, to say nothing of the name-calling and hate-spewing that happens in more extreme cases.

Exhale has been offering a vital alternative to that on our talkline, and the clearly identified need for women to share freely with each other steadily became a mandate for us over time. As a learning organization, we have always taken our responsibility seriously to not just observe but to adapt to meet the needs of our callers, and last year the time was ripe to put our pro-voice approach to the test in another forum. It was never a question of “if”, only a question of “how” to achieve a new mission-centered goal: to provide women with a trustworthy place and way to connect with each other directly around their shared personal abortion experiences. The technology to make it happen is now easily available, inexpensive and user-friendly, which meant the need, our expertise and the tools all came together in a lucky convergence.

And thus the Exhale Online Community came into being!

But I’m skipping the critically important preparation that took place before it launched in 2009. We did not undertake the creation of the community lightly. Over the course of many months, Exhale learned from experts, conducted research, and consulted with attorneys so that we could provide the most supportive, respectful, private online place possible. We clarified and refined our core values, we articulated our guidelines for interaction with painstaking detail, we developed protocols for moderating the community, and we built the platform and decided on community features. Perhaps most important of all, we decided to offer invitations only to our talkline callers and ensured that admittance to the community was by application only.

Why all this intention, deliberation and caution?

In our experience, a sense of trust and safety is absolutely essential to having honest and candid conversation about abortion. We would be remiss if we did not proceed carefully and thoroughly, given our in-depth knowledge of what people are up against around abortion. We also know that most other online spaces for people to talk about abortion do not foster trust and safety. Elsewhere online the topic of abortion is dominated by political tangents, rude and impolite comments, personal attacks, slurs and offensive comments and all kinds of harassment. For us, we had to take every reasonable precaution against this and instead have participation be rooted in personal stories and a genuine desire to engage with others respectfully.

The result of all this hard work? Unimagined, awe-inspiring success, beyond anything we had dared to hope.

I’ll explain: to begin with, success for us is first measured in the exceptional tenor and tone of interaction between community members. In order to evaluate that, we needed a generous volume of people joining the site at a steady yet manageable pace, with a high percentage of members contributing content. We also knew we were expecting people to interact in a totally different way about abortion, and not only did we call upon members to work with us in making the space as respectful and inviting as possible, we consistently modeled respectful behavior in our moderation.

As we referred callers to the community, they arrived in gradual waves, and from the beginning, community members’ stories and comments demonstrate a willingness to embody pro-voice values and abide by the guidelines we set forth. With long and compelling individual stories being posted, there are many details for other members to read and respond to. Members take risks in sharing intense emotions and vulnerabilities with each other, and many posts ask for advice, input, ideas, and support. Replies are consistently warm, generous, helpful, kind – even affectionate! There are also the most amazing expressions of gratitude from community members to each other, and to Exhale for providing the space.

It feels incomplete to list all of this here and not provide quotes and examples to support my claims, but one of the non-negotiable values on the community is confidentiality. Preserving this is a fundamental priority for us, and it is strictly prohibited to share members’ stories, experiences, photos or videos outside the community.

Such was my dilemma when I presented our findings at sex::tech 2010 in a panel on Innovation.  I wanted to be able to share what we’ve learned about the community without violating the confidentiality we’ve worked so hard to maintain.  Instead, I gave them, what I hope is, a sense of what it’s like to participate in the community:

The best way I can describe it is like a “trust fall”. This is an exercise in which one person stands in an elevated position and falls backward into a group of people who are expected to catch her. The falling person takes a risk and trusts that the group behind her will extend their arms and work collectively to keep her from crashing into the ground and hurting herself. One person alone could not bear the weight of the falling person – but when joined together, many people can catch her and remain strong.

The Exhale Online Community is like a trust fall to me. No one is dropped, and members are buoyed, held above the fray, embraced.

Moving beyond the analogy, Exhale is measuring our success in concrete terms, including this snapshot:

• 102 members in first 6 months (July 2009 through Jan. 2010)
• An average of 3-5 new members joined per week
• 64% of members contributed content
• Over 700 written posts (including blogs and comments)
• An average of 11 posts per contributing member

It was a fantastic opportunity for me to share about the community at sex::tech, especially given that this was the very first time Exhale was speaking publicly about it, and only on the first six months of operation. One big take-away: many of the questions I received were concerned with expansion and increasing access to the community:

“What are your plans for growth?”

“Can health care providers refer patients to the community?”

“When will you be opening up the community to significant others?”

“With only about a hundred members so far, you’re barely scratching the surface. How do you intend to reach the over a million women each year who have an abortion?”

While the desire to have this kind of after-abortion support available to the masses is understandable, it’s not our aim to make this relatively small community available to everyone who has had an abortion. We know that each woman’s needs after an abortion are unique: some women will not need any special support after-abortion, others will find the support they need within their established network of friends and family, some will reach out and call our talkline for one-on-one support, and others will seek an online way to connect with other women. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

For those seeking to create community around their abortion experiences, Exhale believes that the quality of conversation that takes place about abortion is paramount and must be well-established before we tackle quantity. That is where our focus has been, and that is where we have found success. Going forward we will take the lessons learned here – clarify positive values, establish guidelines for interaction, invite people intentionally, conscientiously moderate the space, start small, grow deliberately and purposefully – and continue to meet people’s after-abortion needs as we understand them. This will always be based in people’s real lives and individual experiences, with women’s voices front and center.

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What Other’s are Saying About Exhale @ Sex:Tech 2010

Kristen Schultz Oliver, Exhale’s Director of Programs, presented at Sex:Tech 2010 on the “beta-phase”  of our private online community space for women post-abortion.  It was the first time we reported on our experiences and findings publicly and Kristen will have a blog post up about it soon here.  In the meantime, you can now download her presentation at the Sex:Tech website.

Ivory King of L’Atelier reported:

Kristen Schultz Oliver created Exhale, a site for women to support each other after abortions. The site runs on the Ning social network platform after extensive customization. Since removing all the public sharing features and external linking to Facebook and Twitter, it has become an anonymous sanctuary. Strict criteria is employed to create a completely supportive environment where only women who have had an abortion can join. No politics, rudeness or personal attacks are allowed, and personal stories, mutual support and gratitude proliferate.

And co-panelist Nancy from Where is Your Line? reported:

Using the Twitter back channel following my second panel “Reducing Stigma Through Social Networking” I was able to track the points and themes that stood out the most for people. This panel highlighted Whereisyourline.org alongside the work of Exhale a private and secure online space for women to discuss abortion, and the St. James Infirmary Clinic a for sex workers by sex workers health clinic. This was a space to talk about stigma and how peers talk and support each other. Some thoughts that floated around (sorry @mkeagle, they’re mostly yours!):

Yesterday we talked about the challenges of accessing closed online communities; Exhale is pointing out some real positives. (@mkeagle)

Expect to hear more from Exhale in the months ahead about our ongoing work to use social networking to reduce stigma.

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UPCOMING EVENT: Exhale at Sex:Tech

Exhale has been testing a private, online community space for women who have had abortions.  We created it in direct response to what we hear from women who call our post-abortion talkline.  They want connection and support from other women who share their experience with abortion.  Kristen Schultz Oliver, Exhale’s Director of Programs, will be presenting information on how social networking can reduce abortion stigma at the upcoming Sex:Tech conference in San Francsico, in February 2010.

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