Liberating Abortion: Our Legacy, Stories, and Vision for How We Save Us

Summary

A vital and galvanizing history of abortion and how its stigma is intrinsically connected to racism and systemic oppression, told from the viewpoint of people of color, focusing on their experiences with the American health care system and the injustices they have suffered.

For far too long, the narrative around reproductive rights has excluded the experiences of people of color—the majority of abortion patients. Instead, language has been weaponized to to terrify and manipulate rather than support. Many people of color who have had or considered an abortion have lacked two essential resources: back-to-basics sex education and knowledge of other Black women’s personal experiences managing their reproductive rights.

Many of us weren’t taught the birds and the bees in medically accurate, sex-positive ways. Liberating Abortion reveals how lawmakers have used restrictions on abortion to bar people of color from wielding their power and controlling their bodies and lives—relegating them to poverty and perpetuating racist and xenophobic stereotypes. To envision a new, more encompassing future centered in reproductive justice, award-winning reproductive rights activist Renee Bracey Sherman and journalist Regina Mahone talk in-depth with a variety of Black women about building a world where women can choose to have safe and healthy pregnancies on our own terms, as well as pleasurable sex that affirms our bodies and beings. As two Black women who have had abortions and have experienced the anti-Blackness of the so-called “pro-life” movement, they have crafted a book that truly reflects their decision-making, and that of other people of color who have abortions, offering an entirely different viewpoint that invites those who are most often silenced to speak.

Offering support and affirmation to women who’ve had abortions but have been too afraid or ashamed to speak openly, the authors remind us that the stigma we feel, often perpetuated by the media, is by design. This is a book for young people of color who will have abortions and believe they’re alone—as we once did. This is the book we wish we’d had. And this is a book for all who wonder where to stand in the ongoing debate around reproductive freedom.