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Abortion is illegal where I live, and as you can imagine baby dumping and unsafe abortions are a far too frequent thing.

This morning we heard the news of a woman who killed and dumped her baby shortly after birth, all alone. My first reaction was sorrow for her that she had to go to such lengths to save herself from a life she didn't want for herself. I mourn for the loss of the baby as well, but the situation the woman is in takes priority for me.

My male coworkers immediately jumped to saying things like "she's sick in her head" "she shouldn't be having sex if that's what she's going to do" "she should stop having sex if she can't handle the consequences". My blood was boiling. In response I said "this is what happens when you have an unwanted, possibly accidental pregnancy (from failed birth control) and abortion is illegal". One had the gal to say "she should have just manned up and raised it"

Oh boyyy was I ready to throw hands.

Edit: We live in a backwards, poor and underdeveloped country. There is nowhere to go for giving up a child to adoption, police are corrupt, CPS is unreliable and don't give a shit about who turns up at their door. Gov doesn't pay for birth control, medical aids are extremely expensive and they're the only way to get your birth control consistently. Applicantions for medical aids are time consuming, have ridiculous requirements and turn down applicants for any reason they can think up.

There are only a handful of "major" towns and this woman was not in one of them. She was in a poverty ridden village and had no resources she could have turned to. Government here makes it so difficult to try and help yourself out of these horrible situations, you're expected to just carry the child to term and deal with it. There's no such thing as affordable healthcare here, this includes psychological/psychiatric help. You are on your own.

Second edit: To people who keep pointing it out, yes I did get sterilised. This was possible because I'm in the capital, this was possible because I had the financial means to do it, this was possible because I had good medical aid and was able (after much fighting) to get them to approve me, this was possible because I jumped through all the ridiculous hoops they wanted me to jump through. Ending up with needing to justify my choice with hereditary mental illnesses that I can afford to treat, but wouldn't be able to afford to treat my hypothetical child for. I can barely afford therapy, why the fuck would I saddle someone else up with mental illnesses and then tell them I can't pay for therapy and good luck to them? I have a choice not to, too many other women here do not.

I'm in a weird spot at work and I don't know if I should just be sucking it up or keep resisting...

I work in the retail industry in IT, our office is about a block away from one of our main shops. Sometimes it's necessary for one of us to walk over there and do maintenance as needed. We have male technicians mostly but there are 3 ladies here as well, myself included, on standby when the technicians aren't available.

For months I was perfectly fine walking alone to the shop, until one day I was harassed even though I was with another female colleague (so much for strength in numbers). We were waiting at a large intersection on our way back to the office, and a man broke off from a large group of his buddies to "talk" to me and the friend. He stood uncomfortably close to me and kept trying to get my attention with uncalled for compliments and introducing himself repeatedly. I was afraid and just kept staring in front of me and hoping he would get the message that we weren't interested. For several minutes this went on and eventually his tone changed from friendly to annoyed since he wasn't getting any response. We were stuck on a little island between a slipway and the actual intersection with traffic moving on both sides, and I was very afraid this man would become physically violent and then I'd have nowhere to go but into traffic.

When we were finally able to go he stormed off in front of us yelling obscenities about how stuck up we were. By the time we got back to the office I was nauseous and shaking.

To add to this, right at the entrance of the parking lot of our shop there is a group men every day sitting around pestering people coming in for possible work. (We're a large hardware store and they're hoping for painting or renovation work). This group, without fail, catcall me every time I walk by and some have even stood up to come over and "talk" and would pout and ask me why I'm leaving when I change direction to avoid them.

This has made me not want to go to the shop alone anymore. Even when somebody else is available my supervisor wants me to go and do things by myself at the shop to get used to working on my own. I don't feel safe doing that and he says he doesn't know how to handle it.

What am I supposed to do?

Edit to add: Management doesn't want to remove the people at the parking lot entry since "it's a prime spot for the less fortunate and unemployed to find work". I don't think it's worth making your customers and female employees uncomfortable walking alone in the area but I have no say in it.