1). “You Made This Possible: What Abortion, Every Day accomplished in 2024”, Jan 1, 2024, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, includes embedded video “Jessica Valenti Full Remarks to Senate Dems” duration of video 7:33, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
2)., “ ‘The Chronicler, the Microphone, the Billboard’: Jessica Valenti’s ‘Abortion’ Book Arms Us to Face the Violence of Abortion Bans”, Oct 10, 2024, Karen Thompson, MS Magazine, at < https://msmagazine.com/2024/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~
Introduction by dmorista: Valenti in her article in Item 1)., “You Made This Possible: ….”, while lamenting the horrors of the new Trump Regime, discusses the various successful ventures that Abortion Bans enacted by the 20 most virulent Red States regimes. Her 7 ½ minute discussion, embedded in Valenti's article is particularly effective. She noted, in that speech to the Senate Democrats, that rather than list the endless horrors of the suffering concentrated among the poor women by rapacious police and prosecutors, women arrested and harrassed and most tragically allowed to die for lack of modern abortion and reproductive health-care. She very effectively pointed out that this endless stream of stories about suffering and death is not some unanticipated side effect of Trump Abortion ban laws. It was, rather, planned for decades in advance and was not surprise to the strategists of the Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth operations. As I have stated here before there have been in the area of 1,000 American Women Tortured and Murdered, by the policies enacted in the various Trump Abortion Bans, since Roe was overturned. The Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth stragists knew full well that there would a horrific toll of death and suffering for American Women if they were to be able to force their hated policies on the population. What is more if these savage policies become the norm nation-wide the toll will then be about 1,500 American Women Tortured and Murdered per year. The Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth operatives don't blink an eye over such carnage, it is their path to ever greater power and ever more oppressive Theocratic conditions in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Item 2)., “ ‘The Chronicler, ….” is a short book review of Valenti's landmark book, Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies and The Truths We Use to Win. It is a fine article in its own right.
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You Made This Possible
Looking back at the year in abortion rights is not for the weak—it was an extraordinarily tough year. Given the constant attacks on our bodies and freedom, it’s reasonable to feel disheartened, exhausted, and even a bit hopeless. But I’m determined to make sure we don’t wallow in those feelings too long. We fought back every step of the way, every day—and created change that matters. So before we jump into 2025 to do it all over again, let’s take a collective pause and look back at all we accomplished together.
By the way, I say ‘we’ deliberately. Abortion, Every Day’s successes this year were driven by you all—an engaged and influential audience that gets shit done. Whether it’s getting out the vote, volunteering at your local clinic, or raising awareness in a neighborhood Facebook group, the community here is a force. Even if reading AED is the only way you interact with abortion rights, your support still helped to make a meaningful difference.
And as you read ahead, remember this: AED is an independent newsletter without the kind of resources, staff, and support of a traditional publication. Yet we still accomplished more than many mainstream outlets could ever hope for. Imagine what we could do with even more support!
Click to skip ahead (though you really should read everything!): Abortion, Every Day’s Impact & Wins, Breaking News & Shaping the Debate, Making Abortion News Accessible, Predicting Anti-Abortion Attacks, Fostering Community, Doing the Dirty Work
Abortion, Every Day’s Impact & Wins
Abortion, Every Day kicked off this year in Washington, DC, briefing Senate Democrats on anti-abortion strategy and the dangers of post-Roe America. Because you all submitted thoughts and questions beforehand, I was able to bring the brilliance of the AED community into the room with me—giving readers a chance to influence the country’s most powerful politicians. You can watch my remarks below:
That wasn’t the only time AED influenced the Senate this year. When we learned that Republicans had invited Christina Francis, president of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs (AAPLOG), to testify as an ‘expert’ at a key abortion hearing, the newsletter published a detailed exposé on her extremism—namely, that she believes abortion is never necessary to save a patient’s life and that certain forms of birth control are abortifacients. During the hearing, Sen. Patty Murray confronted Francis on those very issues in an exchange viewed by millions of people on AED platforms.
Our work exposing anti-abortion extremism also led to tangible action this year: In May, AED uncovered a massive data breach at Heartbeat International, the largest network of crisis pregnancy centers in the country. The group wasn’t just exposing women’s private health data—down to the dates of their last menstrual periods—but also misleading clients into believing their information was protected under HIPAA.
Thanks to our reporting, Attorneys General in six states are now being urged to investigate Heartbeat centers for potential violations of consumer protection laws. Remember, crisis pregnancy centers are central to Republicans’ post-Roe strategy; there’s no overstating the importance of exposing their danger and dishonesty.
AED’s biggest wins, though, are harder to quantify. As the newsletter has grown, so has its influence. Our readers include everyone from legislators and cable news producers to leaders of national abortion rights groups. Hillary Clinton even quoted AED in her newest book. The work that we’re doing here makes a tangible difference because it’s read by some of the most powerful voices in the country.
Breaking News & Shaping the Debate
More than once this year, I’ve broken news or flagged an anti-abortion strategy just to see that same story or tactic repeated soon after in some of the nation’s biggest publications. When AED uncovered that the Texas GOP platform endorsed the death penalty for abortion patients, for example, the story was picked up across the country everywhere from New York Magazine and The Guardian to Teen Vogue—reminding Americans just how extreme ‘mainstream’ anti-abortion lawmakers really are.
And after I broke the huge news that Republicans had revived their legal attack against mifepristone, it took only a few hours for the Associated Press and CNN to report on the lawsuit. In the days that followed, the story prompted dozens of articles in other mainstream publications.
Sometimes AED gets credited and sometimes it doesn’t—but that’s beside the point. The goal is to influence mainstream outlets and shape the national debate, regardless of whether our name gets dropped. Because as much as I’d love for everyone to read AED, the reality is that traditional outlets have a much bigger and broader audience. (And honestly, it’s pretty cool to know that I’m helping to ensure millions of people know what’s happening with abortion whether they’ve heard of the newsletter or not!)
AED didn’t only influence what journalists wrote about abortion this year, but how they wrote about it. When The New York Times and NPR wrongly reported that JD Vance opposed a national abortion ban, for example, the AED community successfully pressured them to issue a correction. For months, I had been obsessively tracking Republican language tricks—so we all knew that when Vance said he supported a ‘minimum national standard,’ it meant the same thing as ‘national ban.’
By relentlessly holding the media accountable, AED and its audience shifted the narrative. As the election approached, mainstream outlets moved from uncritically accepting Republicans’ claims of opposing a national ban to directly questioning candidates about what they meant by ‘minimum national standard.’
And that’s just our impact on one phrase; the newsletter’s constant decoding of anti-abortion language has influenced coverage across the board.
Making Abortion News Accessible
Speaking of anti-abortion terminology: This year, Abortion, Every Day partnered with feminist media group The Meteor to put out videos explaining what some of the most popular (and confusing!) terms really meant—from ‘post-birth abortion’ to ‘abortion trafficking.’ “Anti-Abortion Glossary” ended up driving over 1.5 million views.
Projects like this are a vital part of AED’s work making abortion news more accessible. Because in a moment when Republicans are depending on voters staying ignorant or being fooled, it’s essential that we’re making complicated legal cases, policies, and political strategies as plain as possible.
It’s why I publish explainers digging into everything from court decisions to Project 2025, why my newsletters are written more informally than some might expect, and why I’ve spent so much time building up AED’s social media audience. Consider that in November alone, my videos had over 10 million views. That’s a hell of a lot of people who walked away more informed, angry, and resourced!
These are some of the best tools we have to reach the people most impacted by anti-abortion laws, and to arm them with the information they need to fight back.
Predicting Anti-Abortion Attacks
What AED has always done best is surface hidden stories, connect the dots, and predict anti-abortion tactics and attacks. This year was no different.
My long-time warnings that conservatives would attack maternal mortality data came to fruition in 2024: By the end of this year, Georgia Republicans had fired everyone on their maternal mortality committee, and Texas had not only appointed an anti-abortion extremist to its committee but also announced it wouldn’t analyze data from the first two years of the state’s total abortion ban. This happened at the same time that Republican-led states made moves to end participation in the CDC’s federal maternal death tracking program.
My predictions that Republicans would hone in on data as a whole also proved correct—from fabricating abortion ‘complication’ data to attacks on women’s private medical records. And the column I wrote in 2022 warning that Republicans would blame doctors and pro-choicers for women’s deaths proved prescient as we watched exactly that happen this year in the wake of ProPublica’s reporting.
Republicans also ramped up their talking points around ‘coerced’ abortion, a tactic I started writing about in late 2023. And their efforts to force women with life-threatening pregnancies into c-sections rather than abortions increased; I warned about that in January. I even accurately predicted precisely what Donald Trump’s strategy on abortion rights would be.
All of which is to say: If you want to be ahead of the game on anti-abortion tactics, consider reading and supporting the newsletter.
Fostering Community
What makes AED special is the people who read the newsletter, comment, and take action. And as much as I wish the community here wasn’t necessary, I’m so heartened to see it grow. Truly, all my work is done in the hopes of making your lives better and easier—whether it’s because you’re a full-time abortion rights advocate and the newsletter helps you stay current, or simply because you care deeply about this issue and want to make a difference.
I want you to get the most possible out of the AED community; that’s why I’ve started to connect readers with the folks shaping abortion rights activism. This year, for example, subscribers had the chance to participate in video livestream conversations with Pam Merritt, executive director with Medical Students for Choice, and Lauren Brenzel, the campaign director for Florida’s Amendment 4. AED also carried guest columns from incredible activists like Renee Bracey Sherman and Lynn Paltrow, and writers like Moira Donegan.
The goal is to prop up the voices of people who are doing cutting edge work, and to make sure that AED readers get to hear from them in ways they wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to. The reason I can deliver on that kind of unique access is because abortion rights activists and thinkers trust AED. (One of the moments that meant the most to me this year was when Karen Thompson, the legal director of Pregnancy Justice, spoke about my work at NYU’s Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center; it bowled me over.)
AED also made sure you didn’t feel alone this year: We hosted debate live-chats and online events so the community could commiserate in key political moments. And I published columns giving voice to your outrage and sadness, from my post election piece on why of course “It’s Not Okay,” to a look at “The Fury Gap” between pissed off young women and their male counterparts who voted for Trump. It was my call to “Stay Mad,” though that was one of the year’s most-read columns:
Finally, I can’t write about the AED community without saying something about my book. To be honest, it’s hard for me to write about this without getting a bit emotional: This community’s support for Abortion was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. You all pre-ordered, shared, and showed up to event after event. You even made Abortion a New York Times bestseller.
Obviously, the hope was always that getting the book in as many hands as possible would help on election day, and that didn’t turn out the way we wanted. But it’s still totally incredible and important that this community was able to put Abortion and the issues in it center stage. Thanks to the AED community, I was able to talk about the abortion rights crisis everywhere from Morning Joe and We Can Do Hard Things to The Daily Show. Abortion also got glowing coverage in places like The Washington Post and Vanity Fair, and it sparked my favorite headline of all time at Mother Jones: “The Anti-Abortion Movement Is Relentless. But So Is Jessica Valenti.”
But what really fired me up this year was traveling around the country to spread the word about anti-abortion attacks. In spite of the circumstances, it was such a pleasure to meet so many of you IRL. I spoke with abortion clinic volunteers and providers in Florida in the wake of the state’s 6-week ban, gave a speech at a Wyoming conference organized by a local abortion fund, and helped rally pro-choice donors at events ranging from Colorado and California to New Mexico and New York.
In other words: We did a lot! And whether it’s speeches, media appearances or the activism we’re drumming up in AED’s comment section—this is the kind of impact I want us to make together every day. I want abortion rights to be on everyone’s mind, all the time, until we fix this nightmare.
Doing the Dirty Work
We’ve accomplished a lot of exciting things together, but the bulk of what AED did this year was the non-glamourous and necessary dirty work of tracking and painstakingly reporting every single thing happening with abortion rights. Writing updates on local ordinances, sharing stories of women denied miscarriage treatment, and detailing each and every attack on democracy in states considering pro-choice ballot measures—the daily report is the heart of the newsletter.
Now, I won’t lie, it’s incredibly tough to write about abortion rights every day. But as overwhelming as it is—work-wise and emotionally—that obsessive daily slog is how all the other work at AED gets done. I wouldn’t be able to predict political trends or suss out new talking points if I wasn’t meticulously cataloging everything I see.
It’s that daily work that could really use your support right now. Because as tough as 2024 was, the onslaught of the last year didn’t have the power of the federal government behind it. Post-Roe America under Donald Trump will be a whole new beast.
To prepare us for the new administration, I’m asking you to help me make Abortion, Every Day the strongest version of itself it can be. If you haven’t become a paying supporter yet, please do that now. You can also show your support by donating a subscription, gifting one to a friend, or donating directly to the newsletter.
Because while AED has accomplished a lot with very little—and risen to the occasion in a way that makes me proud—what we had to work with last year won’t be enough for the year ahead. That’s why I’ll be sending you an email in the next few days about AED’s plans for 2025—plans that include a significant expansion of our work. (As much as I wish it wasn’t necessary, I think you’ll be fired up about what I share.)
What comes next is a long fight. There was never going to be a quick fix to the end of Roe, but Trump’s ascension has extended that timeline by years. I don’t say that to discourage, but to encourage folks to settle in—and to support the places you know are in it for the long haul.
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‘The Chronicler, the Microphone, the Billboard’: Jessica Valenti’s 'Abortion' Book Arms Us to Face the Violence of Abortion Bans - Ms. Magazine
“Jessica Valenti has been the chronicler, the microphone, the billboard, and the warrior … of the bottom-feeder morality of those who would take our freedoms and our lives and abuse the legal system—and democracy itself—to do it.”
Editor’s note: Karen Thompson originally delivered this essay as remarks at an event at The Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU Law on Monday, Oct. 7. The event was co-hosted by Pregnancy Justice and the NYU Law chapter of If/When/How Lawyering for Reproductive Justice.
Jessica Valenti came to speak to the staff at Pregnancy Justice this summer, and one of the first questions I asked her is: “How do you keep doing this?” Her answer echoed the one she wrote in the introduction to Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies and The Truths We Use to Win: You just do, albeit with fury and rage.
At that talk, I called Valenti “a Cassandra.” For those of you who aren’t Greek myth nerds, Cassandra was a priestess fated by Apollo to utter true prophecies and never be believed. What is less discussed—recognizing that these are myths, not life … but when things resonate, they resonate—is that Apollo wanted Cassandra, and so, to “entice” her to hook up, he gave her the gift of prophecy. It was only when she had the audacity to say no to his advances that he cursed his gift to her of foresight with the failure to be believed for her foresight. But today, publicly, I want to take that back.
Valenti is no Cassandra.
While she details the future, her gift is not prophecy, but clarity of facts.
She is clear that the question of abortion access is a question of personal autonomy.
She is clear that conservatives are carefully crafting a world where women who have the audacity to want sex on their own terms must be punished by a pregnancy.
She is clear that conservatives want to take personhood from a person with a uterus and assign it to the embryo or fetus within it.
Putting it all together; meticulously, scrupulously unearthing these foundations, allows her to know what is coming—because those who would end abortion and criminalize pregnancy in these United States in this year of our lord 2024 aren’t leaving crumbs about what future they would like to make real. They are paving the road to that future with baguettes.
While she details the future, her gift is not prophecy, but clarity of facts.
In 1963, in an interview with public radio, James Baldwin said:
“There are days … when you wonder what your role is in this country and what your future is in it. How, precisely, are you going to reconcile yourself to your situation here and how you are going to communicate to the vast, heedless, unthinking, cruel white majority that you are here. I’m terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long that they really don’t think I’m human. And I base this on their conduct, not on what they say. And this means that they have become in themselves moral monsters.”
While Baldwin’s words describe the American racial dynamics in which we all swim, his observations extend our particular racial history and reality into other spaces; to wars and systems of apartheid beyond our borders. To the criminal legal system that murdered Marcellus Khalifah Williams in the name of legal finality. To the battle for reproductive justice and freedom at this moment.
Valenti’s work has been to make the actions of moral monsters spoken and visible, to point out and inform us of where the moral high ground does, in fact, lie and how bottomless the moral low ground is of those who fight to undermine abortion as healthcare and as a choice across this country. As Valenti writes, it is those who would “force children to give birth… make devastated women carry dead and dying fetuses, and make women raped by men prove their attacks really happened before receiving health care” that are the problem.
No, Valenti is not a Cassandra.
Let’s be clear: This conduct, of moral monsters blithely leading a marching band of hideous reproductive horrors through our courts, through police and prosecutors, and through incel-informed ex-husbands and boyfriends, is violence. And Valenti’s work arms us to face that violence with, as she writes “both the facts and the fury.” And in so doing, she forces us to remember ourselves. She reminds us that feminism is not a kumbaya around the campfire imploring people to be nice, but a rising sun of liberation theology for the people of women that frees everyone else as it rises.
This conduct, of moral monsters blithely leading a marching band of hideous reproductive horrors through our courts, through police and prosecutors, and through incel-informed ex-husbands and boyfriends, is violence. And Valenti’s work arms us to face that violence.
Valenti understands why a woman was charged for murder for having the audacity to survive a nearly life-ending labor resulting in a stillbirth.
Valenti called it that a woman would be tortured to death as her organs slowly failed because doctors were too afraid to provide her with the abortion that would have saved her life.
Valenti knew for a long time that a state would argue that it wasn’t enough for a pregnant woman smoking weed to have a medical marijuana license to do so, but that her fetus should have one too.
She has been the chronicler, the microphone, the billboard, and the warrior around these things and of the bottom-feeder morality of those who would take our freedoms and our lives and abuse the legal system—and democracy itself—to do it.
As Toni Morrison famously noted:
The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.
What Jessica Valenti is, is undistracted. Put another way? She is the one more thing for the moral monsters. She stands, focused behind and in front of her, looking side to side, turning ignorance into stone. Valenti stands, with a sword of truth, engraved with, “They will never believe us” to beg us to believe in ourselves, and to follow her refusal to surrender. Valenti’s superpower is her no.
May her no live on our own lips.
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