Q&A: Renee Bracey Sherman on the history of abortion coverage

OCTOBER 11, 2023
By FEVEN MERID

In 2016, Renee Bracey Sherman founded We Testify, an organization that centers the stories of people who have abortions—particularly those from communities of color and those who face significant barriers to reproductive health resources—in the hopes of transforming the public discussion around the procedure. “Abortion is probably one of the most lied-about, misunderstood, misrepresented medical, political, personal, familial issues there is,” she told me recently.

Since she founded We Testify, Bracey Sherman has produced a documentary with Planned Parenthood and is now working on a book, Countering Abortionsplaining, with Regina Mahone, an editor at The Nation.

Continued: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/qa_renee_bracey_sherman_abortion_archives.php

11.10.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

abortion stories

Alicia Gutierrez-Romine

Bronze Thrills magazine

Countering Abortionsplaining

women's abortion stories

United States

Activism

Human Rights

Kenya – Poverty, ignorance led us to unsafe abortions

By Sharon Wanga
Oct. 2, 2023

Susan Wairimu can’t hide the joy of having her 3-year-old daughter playing her around despite her past mistakes in life. The 23-year-old mother recounts how different her childhood life was when she lived with her father and siblings in Mathare slums.

“Being raised by a single parent, my father always locked us up in the house and isolated us from neighbours. He used to warn me that he never wanted to see me playing with boys. I was too young to understand the reasons,” Wairimu says.

Continued: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/health/reproductive-health/article/2001482541/poverty-ignorance-led-us-to-unsafe-abortions

02.10.2023

Network for Adolescents and Youth of Africa

Susan Wairimu

women's abortion stories

I’m Ready to Talk About My Abortion

BY KERRY WASHINGTON
SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

In my late 20s, I made the difficult and very private decision to have an abortion. About a decade later, I played a character that was the first woman to be shown undergoing an abortion procedure on network television. As women, it is our right to choose what happens to our bodies, our lives, and our futures. It is also up to us to decide when, how, and with whom we share our stories.

While, as an actor, I was proud to portray a woman exercising her right to choose, in real life I never talked about my own abortion publicly. My shame and embarrassment inspired a private silence that hid my personal truth and made me complicit in a culture of secrecy that shames women, our bodies, our choices, and our power. As I was writing my memoir, however, I realized how important it is to speak openly about experiences that have been kept in the dark, because when we do so we liberate ourselves and each other.

Continued: https://time.com/collection/time100-voices/6316450/kerry-washington-abortion-story-book/

26.09.2023

Opinion

abortion story

celebrity abortions

celebrity support for abortion rights

Kerry Washington

women's abortion stories

United States

Activism

Human Rights

Our Abortion Stories: ‘I Didn’t Have the Support I Needed to Be the Parent I Wanted to Be’

“I already was a parent to my sister and I couldn’t financially or emotionally provide for another child. I also wanted to finish high school.”

9/20/2023
by VAL DIEZ CANSECO, Ms. Magazine

Last summer, the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding precedents of Roe v. Wade, representing the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. A series from Ms., Our Abortion Stories chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post-Roe. Abortions are sought by a wide range of people for many different reasons. There is no single story. Telling stories of then and now shows how critical abortion has been and continues to be for women and girls.

The fall of Roe will strain abortion access nationwide. We cannot, we must not lose the right to safe and accessible abortion or access to birth control.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/20/abortion-stories-before-roe-v-wade/

21.09.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

abortion stories

Our Abortion Stories

women's abortion stories

United States

Health

Human Rights

Her pregnancy was non-viable and her life was at risk but Oklahoma Law Prevented an Abortion

by Whitney Bryen
September 19, 2023

When she awoke on the couch in the early morning hours of Nov. 21, Magon Hoffman’s pajama pants were soaked in blood. What began as light bleeding the night before had turned severe. Hoffman assumed she was miscarrying.

But an ultrasound revealed it was Hoffman’s life that was in danger. At 14 weeks, the fetus seemed healthy, but Hoffman, 31, had one of the largest blood clots her doctor had ever seen and was at risk of going into shock or organ failure if it continued to grow.

Continued: https://oklahomawatch.org/2023/09/19/her-pregnancy-was-non-viable-and-her-life-was-at-risk-but-oklahoma-law-prevented-an-abortion/

Idaho physicians must have greater discretion over when abortion exceptions are warranted

I’m speaking out so women who will need to make a difficult decision will have the right to make it, writes guest columnist Jillaine St.Michel.

Jillaine St.Michel
SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

I have always considered myself pro-choice on the issue of abortion for all circumstances, but I never had to think about what that really meant until my husband and I were faced with that choice for me and our family last November.

Up until that point, it was a theoretical right, and one I so mistakenly took for granted — the right to bodily autonomy, the right to make health care and personal family decisions without government intrusion. I no longer take these human rights for granted.

Continued: https://idahocapitalsun.com/2023/09/19/idaho-physicians-must-have-greater-discretion-over-when-abortion-exceptions-are-warranted/

19.09.2023

Commentary

abortion story

Center for Reproductive Rights

Jillaine St.Michel

women's abortion stories

Our Abortion Stories: Two Years of Texas’ S.B. 8

On this grim two-year anniversary, we lift up the stories of Texas women and their families who are fighting for the right to abortion care.
9/1/2023
by VAL DIEZ CANSECO and ROXY SZAL

Last summer, the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding precedents of Roe v. Wade, representing the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. In Texas, this has been part of women’s reality for years.

Two years ago, Texas’ S.B. 8 became law: the six-week ban with a “bounty hunter” provision. At the time S.B. 8 took effect, it was considered the most restrictive abortion ban to ever take effect in the U.S. post-Roe.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/01/texas-abortion-stories-women-risk/

Ohio – An abortion saved my life and made the family I have now possible

"For my own life and my family’s, I did what I never thought I would have to do – I ended the pregnancy," Emily Savors

Emily Savors, Guest Columnist
Aug 31, 2023

As a mother of two beautiful daughters, I can say with confidence that the incredible family I currently have would not be possible without abortion. My pregnancy journey has been incredibly long and difficult — it is the reason why my two daughters are nearly nine years apart.

It was early 1997, and I was newly married with a 4-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. My husband and I wanted more children, and by late spring, I was pregnant. My first pregnancy being uneventful, we settled in for an easy few months with expectations of a baby due in March 1998.

Continued: https://www.dispatch.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2023/08/31/ohio-mother-how-an-abortion-saved-my-family/70711306007/

31.08.2023

Opinion

abortion is life-saving

abortion story

Emily Savors

women's abortion stories

UK – Mom documents at-home abortion to destigmatise abortion pills

‘Thank you for posting. I’ve never known how these kind of abortions work,’ viewer says

Kaleigh Werner
Aug 22, 2023

An internet-wide debate has resulted from one brave woman’s choice to detail her at-home abortion experience on TikTok.

On 20 July, a 24-year-old woman named Monica showed her TikTok followers how she completed her abortion, from the comfort of her home, for the first time at nine weeks pregnant. She began by showing the items she needed to prepare her body: the required prescription drug typically used for terminating early pregnancy, motion sickness medicine, a bottle of water, maxi pads, and Planned Parenthood’s timely instructions.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/mom-abortion-at-home-stigma-b2397061.html

22.08.2023

Monica abortion story

self-managed abortion

women's abortion stories

Australia – The moment I knew: I woke up from my abortion – and he was waiting with curry and rice

At first Madison Griffiths was reluctant to accept the support of the man with whom she shared her pregnancy. But his ‘abortion antidotes’ helped them imagine a future together

Madison Griffiths
Sat 12 Aug 2023

In August 2021, I sat in the quiet waiting room of a Melbourne abortion clinic, my eyes cast lazily on the television as it screened the morning news. A text message from Domenic*, the man I shared my pregnancy with, sat unanswered on my phone screen. He was checking in, insistent I let him support me through this. He knew I would be taking the first handful of abortion pills today, and the second tomorrow.

I was reluctant to respond. I didn’t know what to say. I had known Domenic for only a handful of months. We met via Tinder during a brief two-week reprieve from lockdowns, our budding relationship bookended by social isolation, job insecurity and now the stress of an unwanted pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/aug/13/the-moment-i-knew-i-woke-up-from-my-abortion-and-he-was-waiting-with-curry-and-rice

12.08.2023