Call for Submissions: “Our Abortions, Our Lives”

By admin on September 22, 2015

Our Abortions, Our Lives: A Forum

In the face of repeated attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, stigmatize abortion, impede reproductive justice, punish mothers, disavow children, and undermine women’s health care in the U.S. and globally, The Feminist Wire issues this call for a forum on abortion. We invite you to join the conversation by sharing your story.

Like the Twitter campaign #ShoutYourAbortion, alongside a host of other activities geared toward securing women’s greater autonomy, we are keen to destigmatize abortion and to proclaim women’s fundamental right to life and liberty. In our view, this must include the freedom to determine what happens to our own bodies. We are deeply concerned that women – especially poor women and women of color – are targeted by conservative misogynists intent on rolling back the clock.

We recognize that abortion is one reproductive experience among many – including contraception, sterilization, pregnancy, adoption, infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, infant and child death, and mothering – that is profoundly shaped by the politics of race, gender, class, age, sexuality, ability, citizenship status, health, and empire. Yet, abortion is singled out by those who wish to prevent women’s full personhood and flourishing, despite its status as a legal medical procedure.

The logic here, if there is one, is not about “life” – if it was, we would hear the same pundits and politicians talking about the need to protect Black lives, the need to decrease infant and maternal mortality rates, and the importance of accessible, affordable birth control. Rather, the logic of the Right is based on a worldview in which women are not persons, but corporations and fetuses are. This is unacceptable.

So please, share your story with us. We welcome any style (e.g., poetry, prose, visual media) and any length up to 1,500 words. We will accept submissions on a rolling basis until October 31, 2015. Unlike many other TFW forums, in which all thematic submissions appear together across a limited time frame, for this forum we will publish submissions as they arrive. We believe the conversation — and our collective need to act — is urgent.