Abortion Rap

"In January of 1970, 300 women plaintiffs with 6 women attorneys pressed a suit in Federal Court challenging the constitutionality of New York State's abortion laws. Claiming that abortion laws deny a woman's right to privacy and her right to decide whether or not to bear children, they demanded total repeal of the law rather than liberalization. For the first time in a court proceeding, women testified as to how they were forced to face illegal and unsafe abortions, exorbitant prices and the experience of giving up a child for adoption. Portions of this devastating testimony have been compiled for this book by Diane Schulder and Florynce Kennedy, two attorneys in the suit." -- excerpted from back cover.

"In January of 1970, 300 women plaintiffs with 6 women attorneys pressed a suit in Federal Court challenging the constitutionality of New York State's abortion laws. Claiming that abortion laws deny a woman's right to privacy and her right to decide whether or not to bear children, they demanded total repeal of the law rather than liberalization. For the first time in a court proceeding, women testified as to how they were forced to face illegal and unsafe abortions, exorbitant prices and the experience of giving up a child for adoption. Portions of this devastating testimony have been compiled for this book by Diane Schulder and Florynce Kennedy, two attorneys in the suit." -- excerpted from back cover.

Often photographed in a cowboy hat with her middle finger held defiantly in the air, Florynce "Flo" Kennedy (1916–2000) left a vibrant legacy as a leader of the Black Power and feminist movements. In the first biography of Kennedy, Sherie M. Randolph traces the life and political influence of this strikingly bold and controversial radical activist. Rather than simply reacting to the predominantly white feminist movement, Kennedy brought the lessons of Black Power to white feminism and built bridges in the struggles against racism and sexism. Randolph narrates Kennedy's progressive upbringing, her pathbreaking graduation from Columbia Law School, and her long career as a media-savvy activist, showing how Kennedy rose to founding roles in organizations such as the National Black Feminist Organization and the National Organization for Women, allying herself with both white and black activists such as Adam Clayton Powell, H. Rap Brown, Betty Friedan, and Shirley Chisholm. Making use of an extensive and previously uncollected archive, Randolph demonstrates profound connections within the histories of the new left, civil rights, Black Power, and feminism, showing that black feminism was pivotal in shaping postwar U.S. liberation movements.

Representing Abortion analyses how artists, writers, performers, and activists make abortion visible, audible, and palpable within contexts dominated by anti-abortion imagery centred on the fetus and the erasure of the pregnant person, challenging the polarisation of conversations about abortion. This book illuminates the manifold ways that abortion is depicted and narrated by artists, performers, clinicians, writers, and activists. This representational work offers nuanced and complex understandings of abortion, personally and politically. Analyses of such representations are urgently needed as access to abortion is diminished and anti-abortion representations of the fetus continue to dominate the cultural horizon for thinking about abortion. Expanding the frame of reference for understanding abortion beyond the anti-abortion use of the fetal image, contributors to this collection push beyond narrow abstractions to examine representations of the experience and procedure of abortion within grounded histories, politics, and social contexts. The collection is organized into sections around seeing (and not seeing) abortion; fetal materiality; abortion storytelling and memoir; and representations for new arguments. These themes cover a range of topics including abortion visibility, anti-abortion discourse, pro-choice engagements with the fetus, personal experience and media representations. The analyses of such representations counteract anti-abortion rhetoric, carving out space for new arguments for abortion that are more representative and inclusive and asking audiences to envision new ways to advocate for safe abortion access through reproductive justice frameworks. This is an innovative and challenging collection that will be of key interest for scholars studying reproductive rights and reproductive justice, as well as women and gender studies. Representing Abortion is organized to structure upper year undergraduate and graduate courses on reproductive rights and reproductive justice in a new and engaging way.

Despite recent advances in the study of black thought, black women intellectuals remain often neglected. This collection of essays by fifteen scholars of history and literature establishes black women's places in intellectual history by engaging the work of writers, educators, activists, religious leaders, and social reformers in the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean. Dedicated to recovering the contributions of thinkers marginalized by both their race and their gender, these essays uncover the work of unconventional intellectuals, both formally educated and self-taught, and explore the broad community of ideas in which their work participated. The end result is a field-defining and innovative volume that addresses topics ranging from religion and slavery to the politicized and gendered reappraisal of the black female body in contemporary culture. Contributors are Mia E. Bay, Judith Byfield, Alexandra Cornelius, Thadious Davis, Corinne T. Field, Arlette Frund, Kaiama L. Glover, Farah J. Griffin, Martha S. Jones, Natasha Lightfoot, Sherie Randolph, Barbara D. Savage, Jon Sensbach, Maboula Soumahoro, and Cheryl Wall.

"Abortion Without Apology is based on audiotaped, videotaped, and filmed interviews produced for the 'Abortion Rap' workshops and for the film documentary 'With a Vengeance', and on letters solicited for this pamphlet. If not otherwise indicated, all quotes are drawn from the following sources: Byllye Avery, 'In Defense of Roe' conference, videotaped April 8, 1989; Lucinda Cisler, interview videotaped February 16, 1988; Lana Clarke Phelan, interview videotaped November 6, 1987; Constance Cook, interview audiotaped February 3, 1987; Carol Downer, interview videotaped November 4, 1987; Rowena Gurner, interview audiotaped November 5, 1987, and letters dated December 13, 1989, and December 15, 1989; Brenda Joyner, interview filmed April 8, 1989; "Jane", interveiew filmed November 13, 1988; Patricia Maginnis, interview videotaped November 5, 1987, and letter dated December 28, 1989; Sojourner McCauley, interview filmed June 29, 1989; Irene Peslikis, interview audiotaped December 17, 1987, and interview videotaped July 14, 1988; Lorraine Rothman, interview videotaped November 4, 1987."--From Acknowledgements