MERJ Newsletter 4/7/2025
“[Dobbs] compounds racist practices that have bedeviled Black families for centuries. ... Calling it ‘pro-life’ is a smokescreen. They say pro-life, but they are actually pro-birth. If they were really pro-life, they would be talking about enhancing the lives of people. ... Every program they create is anti-life, anti a better life for the people who are hit the heaviest on a decision like this, which are our people, because we don’t have the resources.”
Photos from NPR.org, April 5, 2025: See demonstrators around the country rally in 'Hands Off!' protests
A letter from MERJ’s co-founder
April 7, 2025
Hey MERJ Members,
We are breathing a sigh of relief today — but not without anger.
Last week, prosecutors in Georgia finally dropped ALL of the outrageous charges against 24-year-old Selena Maria Chandler-Scott, who suffered a miscarriage at 19 weeks and was arrested, jailed, and charged with concealing a death and abandoning a body.
This never should have happened. Learn more in this month’s featured “Power Read,” below.
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MERJ has worked alongside Elevated Access in the fight for bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom for years. Tomorrow, Elevated Access turns 3 years old! We ask that you consider joining our efforts in lifting up their critical work. All of us at MERJ wish you a Happy Birthday, EA!
About the Fundraiser:
“Since our founding in April 2022, we have flown over 1 million miles and assisted over 2,000 individuals in accessing abortion and gender-affirming care. And we’ve only just begun. Lawmakers may attempt to intimidate pregnant individuals from making decisions with their doctors or deny the existence of transgender people. Our team and volunteer pilots, however, will never stop flying and advocating for your rights. No matter what else happens, we will always fly the plane.
“Donate today and your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar — up to $50,000 — but only until April 10.”
Please consider donating to this inspiring reproductive justice organization.
Best,
Justin Haas & the MERJ Team
📖 5-Minute Power Read, from Jessica Valenti’s “Abortion Every Day” newsletter:
“BREAKING: Georgia Drops Miscarriage Charges”
“Selena Chandler-Scott goes free after national backlash”
Written by Jessica Valenti. Posted April 4, 2025.
Excerpt, with quotations: Georgia prosecutors have dropped all charges against Selena Chandler-Scott, the 24-year-old woman previously arrested for “concealing a death” and “abandoning a dead body” after she disposed of her miscarriage. Tift County District Attorney Patrick Warren explained that his office had determined continuing the prosecution was “not legally sustainable and not in the interest of justice.” However, he left the door open for future prosecution, stating, “If additional information or incriminating evidence becomes available,” the case may be reviewed again. Despite the charges being dropped, the incident highlights a troubling trend of increasing criminalization of pregnancy outcomes, especially in states with fetal personhood laws. As Dana Sussman of Pregnancy Justice notes, “This doesn't undo the trauma she faced of being arrested after a tragic medical emergency.”
🔊👂🏽 Podcast Power Listen:
“The SCOTUS Case Threatening Medicaid Recipient’s Ability to Choose Their SRH Provider,” 4/1/2025 episode of the “rePROs Fight Back” podcast
36 minutes
A new case with tremendous possible consequences for U.S. sexual and reproductive health and rights has made its way onto the Supreme Court docket. Medina v. Planned Parenthood of South Atlantic is a culmination of decades of anti-choice activist’s attacks to Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health care providers, specifically targeting efforts to kick these providers out of Medicaid. Jessica Mason Pieklo, Senior Vice President and Executive Editor of Rewire News Group and co-host of Boom! Lawyered, sits down to talk with us about the implications of this case for the country’s most vulnerable.
The question in front of the Supreme Court is whether the Medicaid statute confers a right to its recipients to go to providers of their choosing. Not only does this open doors to re-defining “qualified” and “unqualified” reproductive health care providers, it allows an opportunity for legal conservatives on the court to meander around Congressional conferring of rights via statute. Oftentimes, Planned Parenthood affiliates are the only option for low-income, Medicaid patients.
💸 Amazing Organization to Support:
Help this incredible organization, who has already flown over 2,000 clients over 1 million miles to access abortion and gender-affirming care since April 2022, with their one-day $50,000 anniversary fundraiser on April 9!
📚 MERJ Book Club!
If you’re interested in joining the MERJ Leadership Team in reading and discussing this book, email us at action@endthepatriarchy.org and we’ll be happy to invite you to our book discussions!
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, by Dorothy Roberts
Originally published December 29, 1998; notes below from Bookshop.org page.
Killing the Black Body remains a rallying cry for education, awareness, and action on extending reproductive justice to all women. It is as crucial as ever, even two decades after its original publication.
"A must-read for all those who claim to care about racial and gender justice in America." —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
In 1997, this groundbreaking book made a powerful entrance into the national conversation on race. In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, Killing the Black Body exposed America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies. From slave masters’ economic stake in bonded women’s fertility to government programs that coerced thousands of poor Black women into being sterilized as late as the 1970s, these abuses pointed to the degradation of Black motherhood—and the exclusion of Black women’s reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas.
We recently completed, and strongly recommend, these powerful books as well:
Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win, by Jessica Valenti
Published October 1, 2024; notes below from Penguin Random House website.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In a stirring and succinct examination of post-Roe America, “one of the most successful and visible feminists of her generation” (Washington Post) takes on what’s become the country’s most resonant political issue.
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
In her most urgent book yet, New York Times bestselling author Jessica Valenti shines a light on the conservative assault on women’s freedom, cutting through the misinformation and overwhelm to inform, engage, and enrage. From the attacks Americans know about to the ones anti-abortion lawmakers and groups are trying to hide, Valenti details the tactics and horrors that she’s been painstakingly tracking in her acclaimed newsletter, Abortion, Every Day.
Award-winning writer and activist Jessica Valenti is the author of seven books, including the New York Times bestseller Sex Object: A Memoir. Her groundbreaking anthology, Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, paved the way for legislation of the same name, setting what’s now considered the gold standard for sexual consent. Jessica has also been credited with sparking feminism’s online wave by founding the trailblazing blog Feministing. She’s been a columnist for The Guardian and The Nation, and her writing has been published everywhere from The New York Times and The Atlantic to Bitch magazine and The Toast. After the demise of Roe, Jessica founded Abortion, Every Day, an urgent synthesis of anything and everything happening with abortion rights in the United States. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.
***Please also consider supporting Jessica Valenti’s up-to-the-minute and incredibly important journalism (“Abortion Every Day”) by subscribing to her Substack!
Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion, by Gabrielle Blair
Published in 2022; notes below from Bookshop.org
In Ejaculate Responsibly, Gabrielle Blair offers a provocative reframing of the abortion issue in post-Roe America.
In a series of 28 brief arguments, Blair deftly makes the case for moving the abortion debate away from controlling and legislating women's bodies and instead directs the focus on men's lack of accountability in preventing unwanted pregnancies.
Highly readable, accessible, funny, and unflinching, Blair builds her argument by walking readers through the basics of fertility (men are 50 times more fertile than women), the unfair burden placed on women when it comes to preventing pregnancy (90% of the birth control market is for women), the wrongheaded stigmas around birth control for men (condoms make sex less pleasurable, vasectomies are scary and emasculating), and the counterintuitive reality that men, who are fertile 100% of the time, take little to no responsibility for preventing pregnancy.
The result is a compelling and convincing case for placing the responsibility--and burden--of preventing unwanted pregnancies away from women and onto men.
Help and Resources to Share with Anyone Needing an Abortion: (from ifwhenhow.org)
Find a local clinic by using the National Abortion Federation map.
If you have questions about your legal rights and self-managed abortion, the Repro Legal Helpline is a free, confidential source for legal advice and information. Visit ReproLegalHelpline.org or call 844-868-2812.
If you are under 18 and need information about your rights to an abortion, you can message or call our Repro Legal Helpline at 844-868-2812. You can also read more about your rights on our Judicial Bypass Wiki.
If you have been arrested, contacted by the police, or fear you may be arrested for a self-managed abortion, our Repro Legal Helpline can provide immediate legal advice and support, and our Repro Legal Defense Fund can help with bail and legal fees. You can call our Repro Legal Helpline at 844-868-2812, and for help with bail and other fees, visit ReproLegalDefenseFund.org.
Medically-reviewed, step-by-step directions for how to self-administer a medication abortion using mifepristone and misoprostol can be found on the Hey Jane website.
