The pro-aborts that I’ve ever interacted with can never articulate any real reason for being vehemently “pro-choice”, they just scream about “a woman’s right to choose [to kill her baby]”.
The word “regret” would send them into a tizzy. It’s assigning a negative moral connotation to abortion. This would send them into a rage.
Hey, I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m just telling you that the reaction will NOT be sympathetic, because these people do NOT want to be reminded of the evil of the “choice” they made.
They should be.
BTW, there was a thread on FR showing this student “senator” on the UW campus, hissing like a steam engine, ripping the little white crosses out of the ground and saying “you don’t have a right to speak against abortion”. He actually said that women who have had abortion should not be subject to this display.
The thread is gone, as far as I can tell - here’s a link with links to the story and the youtube video.
http://volokh.com/posts/1210270338.shtml
I would expect the immediate reaction would be as you say. On the other hand, to someone afflicted by Liberal Mind Fog Disorder, victims are sacred. If the short said "I regret my abortion. Choose life," then LMFD could direct all the anxiety and hatred toward the last two words. But if the shirt simply says "I regret my abortion" and nothing else, I would expect that the cognitive dissonance would, for many people, not be resolvable without some cracks forming in the LMFD smoke screen.
"How dare that woman suggest that people should regret their abortions. I had my abortion and I don't regret it one bit. How dare she suggest that I should" (some time later, after succumbing mentally exhaustion ) "Why am I getting so worked up? I don't regret my abortion, well, except that I'm feeling pretty miserable. Why is that [bleep]ed woman so cool and collected. Doesn't she know that all this guilt-trip stuff hurts? How can she go through life bright and chipper with a shirt like that to constantly remind her? Why can't things be that easy for me?"
Not sure that would be anyone's actual thought process (probably not that quickly, at any rate), but I would expect that seeing such shirts from time to time would have that effect. Again, very important not to include extraneous messages. Just "I regret my abortion".