It’s been hard not to tell you all this until now, but the release just went out so I can share! I’m going to DC next week to brief Senate Democrats on what’s happening with abortion rights.
On Wednesday morning, I’ll be speaking alongside Dr. Austin Dennard, an OBGYN and patient plaintiff in Zurawski v. Texas, and Dr. Serina Floyd, Chief Medical Officer for Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, DC. The briefing is hosted by U.S. Sens. Patty Murray, Debbie Stabenow, Amy Klobuchar, Tammy Baldwin, Elizabeth Warren, and Catherine Cortez Masto.
The remarks, along with questions from Senate Democrats and the press, will be live-streamed, and I’ll send out all the info about where you can watch in the next few days.
As you can imagine, I’m super honored to have been invited to talk about the work we’ve been doing here, and to lay out what I’ve learned since I started Abortion, Every Day. There is so much I want to say, and it really will be a challenge to narrow it all down. More than anything, I want to get across how all of the suffering we’ve seen since Roe was overturned was predictable and planned. Republicans are trying to run away from what they’ve done and it’s vital that we don’t let them.
The only reason I have this opportunity to share my work and thoughts is because of the support of Abortion, Every Day readers. There are tens of thousands of you who open the newsletter single day, share the work, and ensure that abortion rights stays top-of-mind in your own communities. Thank you. I hope I do you all proud.
I’ll be working on my testimony for the next few days, so there won’t be a regular report today, or “The Week in Abortion” tomorrow. But still keep an eye on your inbox: In the coming days, you’ll have an opportunity to share what you think is most important for me to tell the Senate Dems, and what you’d be most interested to ask them, as well. I’m going there to represent all of us, so I want to know what you think!
Thanks again to all of you for your support—and more from me soon. -Jessica
For the senators: that abortion care is about prioritizing women’s (and pregnant people’s, but it might not be the audience for inclusive language) lives, children’s lives and families. That fetuses and embryos are not alive without us and can’t make medical decisions. We are the parents making decisions for their and our own and our family’s future, seeing as, you know, 59% of the people who get abortions are already parents. We weigh all those factors when faced with an unplanned or a doomed pregnancy, not the least of which is whether or not THEY have provided us with the lifelong resources to raise a child. And they haven’t. They’ve only made choosing parenting harder.
I just finished listening to an excellent book: UNCULTURED, by Daniella Mestyanek Young. At 15, she left the Children of God cult and later joined the Army. She endured sexual and physical abuse from the time she was a very little girl. Much of what she writes rings true about anti-abortion zealots I’ve encountered (though the book isn’t at all about abortion): “Besides, I learned from the older kids that I could always tell on someone else. And then they might get hit too and that would make me feel better for a little while.” It is about group-think and patterns of abuse, how such behavior is enabled and how people become so numb to it and come to want to see it inflicted on others because it affirms them for a minute. And they believe, not only that abusing others doesn’t matter, but that they’ll be rewarded for it in heaven if they’re doling out punishment to people who are unworthy. Very interesting. People raised in a punitive, abusive environment like that are dehumanized from so young, it makes dehumanizing others not just second nature, but righteous. I’m big on understanding what makes people tick. I don’t know...it helps me...process, I guess.