For The Guardian, Moira Donegan discusses the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and emphasizes that “the real story is the millions of women, and others, who now know that they are less free than men are—less free in the functioning of their own bodies, less free in the paths of their own lives, less free in the formation of their own families.”
A recording of last week’s event on the state of reproductive rights in the US with Lux magazine, Verso Books, and Haymarket Books is available on YouTube now. Speakers Laurie Bertram Roberts, Monica Raye Simpson, Rockie Gonzalez, and Farah Diaz-Tello discuss strategy for expanding the reproductive justice movement with Lux editor Sarah Leonard.
At the Yale Review, Maggie Doherty writes about abortion stories. Considering the women who made their stories public at a Redstockings event in the late sixties, Doherty admires the fact that many didn’t bother to share their reasons for aborting a pregnancy—instead presenting the choice as “rational, normal.” By contrast, the accounts often published today “place the abortion patient in the position of the supplicant, with the narrator pleading their case to the reader,” suggesting that patients ought to be “deserving” of abortions. Regarding her own abortions, Doherty argues that the best and most accurate narrative is simple: “Unintentionally, my partner and I conceived a pregnancy in my body. Because I did not want to be pregnant and because I did not want to carry a pregnancy to term, I terminated the pregnancy, voluntarily and without ambivalence.”
At The Cut, Claire Lampen forecasts the coming health-care crisis in the wake of the Supreme Court decision: “With scarcity compounded by the threat of punishment, few will be unaffected by Roe’s fall—though it’s clear who will suffer most: The typical abortion patient lives at or below the poverty line and tends to cite socioeconomic concerns as the motivating factor behind their decision.”
At the New Yorker, a roundup of articles answering questions about the end of Roe v. Wade, including, “How will people in states where abortion is outlawed seek care?,” “What will conservative activists target next?,” “What are other possible collateral effects of the decision?,” and more.
Lauren Rankin, author of Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America, will discuss her book about being a clinic escort with Susan Campbell on July 5th. The free event will be hosted by the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut.