Roe v. Wade: Essential reading

Contribute to our collaborative list

On abortion rights, Laurie Penny laid it out for us when she wrote:

"Without the absolute right to safely and legally terminate pregnancy, there can be no equality between genders. Without abortion and birth control, women [or anyone who can get pregnant] will never have sexual, social or economic freedom."

In the wake of the news on Roe v. Wade, we’re feeling equal parts angry, powerless, and determined. We feel angry because this is an attack on a freedom that is foundational to any efforts to achieve gender equity. We feel powerless because we’re not American citizens, and we can’t fight back at the ballot box — yet we know that if Roe is overturned, the US’ financial, political, and cultural power means the health and bodily autonomy of pregnant people will not only be compromised at home but also in other parts of the world. We feel determined, and most of all, ready to arm ourselves with as much information as we can get our minds on.

We know that you might be feeling a mix of these things, too. For that reason, we’d like to invite you to contribute to our collaborative reading list. For us, one of the most energizing and powerful things about Feminist Food Journal is the community of feminist thinkers and doers that it has connected us to. We’re just two heads, and we’d love to work together to amplify critical perspectives in this urgent time.

We’ll kick off the list with a few links below. We encourage you to share any other resources—articles, books, podcasts, artwork, film, poetry—that you’re leaning into right now in the comment thread underneath this post. We’d also love to hear what kinds of things you’re doing to overcome the feeling of powerlessness. What actions are you taking? What organizations are you supporting?

If you’d prefer not to share publicly, you can email us at hello@feministfoodjournal.com and we’ll post it as a comment anonymously. We also welcome resources in languages other than English.

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Here’s what we’ve been reading:

• Abortion is a Public Good (Boston Review)

• Democratic Leaders Are Getting the Abortion Story Wrong — Again (The Cut)

• Do women have a Right to Life? (Penny Red)

• Latin American feminists vow to protect abortion rights at home after shock US ruling (The Guardian)

• Reproductive Justice for Disabled Women: Ending Systemic Discrimination (CAP)

• Roe Inspired Activists Worldwide, Who May Be Rethinking Strategy (NY Times)

• Roe v. Wade Explainer (Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy)

• Roe v. Wade in Peril: Our Latest Resources (Guttmacher Institute)

• Ten Books to Understand the Abortion Debate in the United States (NY Times)

• The End of Roe: Saving Abortion Rights Means Taking Them Into Our Own Hands (The Intercept)

• The end of Roe v. Wade? Implications for global development (Donor Tracker)

• Unplanned Is a More Terrifying Movie Than You Think (The Walrus)

• Unthinking the Family in “Full Surrogacy Now” (Los Angeles Review of Books)