Well friends, I went through roughly three hundred fucking pages of articles trying to pick the best ones for you (and boy is my clicking hand tired). And I’ve narrowed it down to 15! So let’s start with the best “Kylie Jenner's ‘Handmaid's Tale' Party Sparks Backlash As Reproductive Rights Are At Risk.” JKJKJK, but… remember how that effing happened this year??? Were we ever… so young??
We give the media a lot of DESERVED shit for not covering abortion enough, but we also have to applaud them when they DO cover abortion well, in a way that’s not stigmatizing, and with extensive research and interviews! So here are our most important reads of the year. Next year hopefully we’ll be able to do top 50!
And OK fine, before we start, just one more we wanted to include and didn’t “It Was Truly Difficult to Choose the Dumbest Parts of Scott Lloyd's Semi-Autobiographical Anti-Abortion Novel.” What. a. Year.
We’re not gonna include that many news stories on this list but… we can’t resist this troll headline. And a big theme of this year was Texas pro-choicers being like “Um, no the eff you WON’T be taking away our rights!” And anti-abortion Texans being like “WAAAAA I’M CRYING LIKE A BABY, AUSTIN ISN’T TEXAS! Which leads us to…
Another great troll headline. We gotta give it up to the Austin Chronicle (and the Houston Chronicle) who also relentlessly reported on fake clinics in Texas getting taxpayer money. Heidi Group may be a corrupt fake clinic with oodles of money, but we think the Austin Chronicle’s dogged reporting to expose just how corrupt Heidi is REALLY moved the needle on people knowing and caring about fake clinics.
This article inspired us to start a whole campaign! We think that fertility apps shouldn’t claim to be comprehensive while also not acknowledging birth control and abortion. The Femm App Trap (#FemmAppTrap) is that if you’re a pro-choice person you might not know that your fertility app is NOT upfront with you about its shitty anti-abortion views. Look we know apps are just fun, but you wouldn’t pay candy crush if you knew it meant your money went to someone who HATED CANDY (Or, you know, was anti-abortion)!
We changed our whole name this year!! There were a lot of articles like this and we think it’s important to read them. Abortion is not just a woman’s issue. And we can all be more mindful of our language!
As reproductive rights felt relentless under attack this year, many voices stood up to tell their abortion story. Rep. Jayapal’s story really stuck with us, because it spoke to the importance of having empathetic people in powerful positions who have REAL LIFE experience to pull from when making legislation. You know, not just weirdo dudes who literally no one asked!
Our good buddy Robin Marty’s Handbook for a Post-Roe America came out this year and you should definitely read the whole book and also read this article!
We’ve read versions of this article before, but this one was on PARENTS DOT COM. You know what that means in terms of destigmatizing abortion??? It’s finally acknowledging that most people that get abortions ARE parents already. It’s acknowledging that abortion is a part of reproduction. Just a round of applause all around.
And now we begin the science section of this blog! As we wrote earlier this week SCIENCE WAS UNDER ATTACK THIS YEAR. And we don’t just mean the fact that they believe life begins at conception (which is not science), but anti-abortion maniacs were arguing about JUST BASIC SCIENTIFIC FACTS. So when the Federalist published an article that was basically like “How can you live with yourself when you have an abortion, better to just let your ovary explode than have one,” we were happy to see Vice STEP UP and say “Yeah that… is bullshit.”
You know who ELSE called “bullshit” this year!? DOCTORS. This Scientific America article is a little dense in its use of terminology but oh boy does it put up IN FLAMES any sort of idea that a doctor should be impartial in BASIC MEDICAL FACTS ABOUT ABORTION! “For too long, scientists have been afraid to wade into controversies because we were taught to believe that being outspoken would chip away at our perceived public credibility. But our persistent silence has made us complicit.” FLAMES!
We always say “there are no good or bad abortions, just the abortion you need.” We don’t want to hold up someone as the “ideal abortion patient” the one who absolutely had to have an abortion to survive. But also the fact is that SOME abortions are medically necessary and anti-abortion people do NOT like that. And they’re lying about it. And FACEBOOK IS LETTING THEM! (See Lizz’s article!)
OMG it’s hard to believe that our beloved Garbage Fyre Fest was in JULY! So long ago now! We’ll never forget the friends we made (uh, cuz a lot of us are going to DC to counter-protest the March for Life next year)! Read about the actions we did in Milwaukee to counter some truly disgusting dudes (and ladies) who harrassed clinic workers, spread hateful messages, and also did NOT take up our challenge to a dance off.
One of our favorite things is reading journalists who have to try to be impartial at first towards anti-abortion losers but quickly are like “Wow, what nightmare people.” This article gives a great look at… just how awful anti-abortion people are and also a look at how they are TRAINING THE FUTURE! UGHHHHHHH!
Dr. Monica McLemore is on our BOARD! Like we KNOW HER! So this year we had to keep reading about “conscience clauses” and “Oh no these POOR nurses who are FORCED to perform abortions AGAINST THEIR WILL.” And like, we’re sure this doesn’t REALLY happen (and so was a judge), but also we… don’t care. Because like Monica says in this article, protecting patients is why you become a doctor. Not to spread your political agenda. So, if you don’t want to HELP PATIENTS… don’t be a doctor.
Number three transitions us nicely into this article about CATHOLIC HOSPITALS! We really gotta give it up to Rewire for all the work they did on catholic hospitals this year. They shouldn’t exist! They’re scary and deny patients care and patients could not even KNOW that until it is too late. WHY HAVE A HOSPITAL THAT DOESN’T BELIEVE IN COMPREHENSIVE CARE? WHAT IF IT’S YOUR ONLY HOSPITAL OPTION? The healthcare system is broken. And we need to keep interrogating it.
TIE FOR NUMBER 1: Fighting for Abortion Access in the South and ‘We Are Grabbing Our Own Microphones': How Advocates of Reproductive Justice Stepped Into the Spotlight
Look, we’re not gonna lie, we got to number one and realized we couldn’t pick! So let’s call these the SisterSong articles. They’re long features about the black women fighting for reproductive justice in the South. We don’t need to say more. Devour these articles. Then donate.
We hope all this reading inspires you to keep fighting in 2020. And if you’re a journalist, we hope it inspires you to report deeper and more empathetically! We need ya!
