Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win

Those who would see abortion banned like to pose hypothetical questions about the remarkable baby a woman could have if she just didn’t get an abortion: What if they cured cancer? Rarely, if ever, does anyone ask if that woman herself might change the world.

America supports abortion, it's time we act like it

We all have the ability and the responsibility to do something: to remind people that we are not overreacting, we are not exaggerating and that what is happening right now is that bad and that it can absolutely get worse; to make sure people know the truth about abortion misinformation; to help people get care when they need it; to tell the truth about how pro-choice America really is; to hold our local media and politicians accountable.

When you codify the lie that our bodies are not our own, everything is on the table. And when you collaborate with men who believe you are fundamentally less than, and you throw other women under the bus, you can’t be surprised or hurt when your body gets run over along with the rest of us.

when the 2022 story of a ten-year-old girl being raped and impregnated was called a fabrication by Republican politicians and “too good” to be true by journalists, it wasn’t “Trust Women” that I thought of. It wasn’t even “Trust Girls.” I thought, They will never believe us.

Here’s the thing. Doctors, as a rule, are not stupid. They understand exactly what the law says. They have hospital lawyers who tell them what the law says and what they are legally allowed to do. Anti-abortion groups and politicians would have us believe that trained doctors, lawyers, and experts are all wrong—or that they’re purposely denying women health- and life-saving care because they’re pro-choice. It’s everyone’s fault but their own.

This same Republican, in the very same speech, said that babies grow in women’s “bellies.” That is who is telling our daughters what they can and can’t do with their bodies and lives: a guy who talks about pregnancy like a toddler.

But a 2024 study estimated that there were 65,000 rape-related pregnancies in the fourteen states that banned abortion after Dobbs. Sixty-five thousand.

Can you ever really be prepared for your country to tell you that you’re less than human?

I’ll be honest, I resent having to write this book. I’m livid that of all the things I could be doing right now, I am defending my humanity. It feels, as a friend of mine once put it, humiliating. Women should not have to convince the world that we are full people worthy of rights, protections, and the ability to control our own bodies. Yet here we are.