Jessica Valenti says her abortion work is not “Preaching to the Choir.” It is equipping it.
Jessica Valenti writes and talks about abortion like someone who thinks about it dozens of hours a week — because she does.
For about two years—since the fall of fish eggs—Valenti writes about reproductive justice every day in her magazine. newsletterhas a suitable title Abortion, every day. However, in her new book, Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win, she joked that she could have called the news Abortion, every hour, because “that’s how things happen quickly afterfish eggs America.”
That was true, and the election has been since then Dobbs, including this, is largely defined by abortion. Voters in battleground states, especially women under 45, increasingly say abortion is the most important issue on their ballot. New York Times / Siena College opinion poll conducted in August. Via 25 million women15 to 44 years old, residing in states with more restrictions on abortion than before Dobbs, despite living in a country with a population warmly support Access to reproductive health services such as abortion. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance has been jump through rhetorical hoopstry to calm down past comments and act on this matter, as Vice President Kamala Harris spoke about reproductive freedom on the debate stage with unprecedented clarity.
Valenti has spent the past two decades writing about women and gender-based violence, launching the Feminist blog in 2004 and writing for newsrooms such as Guardian, Fatherland, New York Times, Atlantic, And Bitch. This is her eighth book. “I am furious and intend to leave no stone unturned,” Valenti wrote of his magazine report Abortion. She explained in the text that this anger is what keeps her going. “Republicans want us to be afraid. They want us to be too scared to help each other, too nervous to share our abortion plans with a friend, even too scared to get medical help when we need it. It’s heartbreaking: they have criminalized the community.”
abortion reads like a letter to scared women and allies, both challenging and encyclopedic. (After the final chapter, Valenti includes pages of resources and statistics to use when talking to others about abortion.) In an interview with Vanity Fair, Edited for length and clarity, she explains why language matters so much to this debate, the questions journalists should ask Republicans, and breaking stories Which pregnancy still makes her cry?
Vanity Fair: In a footnote in the introduction, you write, “The hardest thing about writing a book about abortion is knowing that you can never fit in everything there is to say.” How difficult was it to narrow hundreds of days of writing about abortion to less than 200 pages?
Jessica Valenti: Honestly, it was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life. Because not only do you know that these stories are changing every day, every hour, and therefore any story you come up with is going to be incredibly different by the time the book comes out. It feels like creating a hierarchy of issues in abortion, which I don’t like doing, because they’re all so important. I almost had to say, “Okay, I’m trying to capture a specific moment.” These seem to be the big, broad problems that are happening now two years into the aftermath of Dobbs. When I recorded the audiobook a few weeks ago, on every other page I said, “Damn, I wish I could add this” or “I should have talked about that.” It’s really difficult.
