Can A Comic Book About Abortion Reduce Fear?

Abortion is a difficult topic for everyone. Now, writer and artist Leah Hayes hopes to make the notion a tad more manageable with her comic book Not Funny Ha-Ha: A Handbook for Something Hard. The book seeks to be judgment-free, but is still witty and brutally honest enough to demystify the topic. 

"The aim of this book was to offer a calming 'voice' (a visual one) for women as they move through a difficult passage," said Hayes in an interview with Huffington Post. "Having an abortion can be a confusing, scary, and sometimes lonely process. Writing this book was not intended to lighten the subject, define the 'right or wrong' of the subject, or make it trivial in any way. I hope to offer a work that could make someone who had an experience with abortion feel less alone.”

Within the clever book, Hayes goes through the terminology of medical and surgical abortions (yup, there’s a difference) and the thought processes of two women experiencing an abortion. 

"I'd like people to see [the book] as one illustrator's interpretation/expression of something pretty huge and complicated," Hayes continued. "[I want to] express an illustrated version of this thing that many women choose to do. My intention was to say, 'Here it is, it's hard  . . . and I'm working out what it all means, too. And maybe in the process you will be comforted by reading this.'"

We hope so too. 

If you like this article, please share it! Your clicks keep us alive!