Summer 2022

Our bodies under attack

My abortion is none of your business • Re-doing sex ed • Bodies in the Bible • Intersectional feminism fights back!

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In This Issue

Lilith Feature

The Choices They Made…The Ones They Couldn’t Make

“We deserve the respect and equality to make the decision to end a pregnancy without the interference of the state.”

Lilith Feature

Abortion at the Intersections: Politics, race, religion and identity

Politics, race, religion and identity: fighting the backlash.

Lilith Feature

Bodies, Hormones and Doctors

Lilith Feature

Who Owns Our Bodies?

From the Bible to sex-ed to a Jewish rally for abortion...

More Articles

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Poetry: We Are The Peace

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The faint outline of a page of my memory rises from its home, hidden deep within a chapter, in a book, in a box, in the basement, in a closet behind closed doors...

“Pretty Privilege”

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I began to wonder: what is beauty? In ten years, will the image of female perfection change completely, continuing its constant unattainability?

Fiction: Take Flight

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Lily’s wings were small—handfuls of feathers protruding from stubborn shoulders. Using an eyebrow tweezing kit, her mother would gently pluck those early feathers and smooth them down with a saliva-moistened finger. Eventually, she had clipped the wings into submission. But, she rationalized, it wasn’t until the praying that they had stopped growing entirely.

Fiction: An Article About a Cinnamon Cake

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Placenta is not a matter for women only. Men, too, are nourished from placentas. Menstruation is not a women-only issue, either. Men know what life and death are.

The Abortion I Had That’s None of Your Business

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My personal story should not matter. The fact of my decision is all that should matter.

When Women Were Sent Away

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The Crit girls were useful for me, and I’m glad we could show them kindness, but I’m glad they’re not around anymore.

“He Is Not Guilty”: My Mother’s Abortion

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I kept watching through the crack of the door. I never saw you trying not to scream before. I never saw Daddy crying before.

My Abortion Story That Wasn’t

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I trusted only myself— and I made certain I would never be pregnant again.

Letter from a Namesake to My Ancestor

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I see the future of many women heading back into the past, with you, because your life and the lives of women need constant illumination.

“The Following Patient…”

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They don’t peddle me the puritanical shaming bullshit that they’re required to torture women with elsewhere.

The Biblical Jephthah’s Daughter: Who Owns Your Daughter’s Body?

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Who owns women’s bodies? The ancient answer is that women are the property of fathers, brothers, husbands, who are entitled to buy and sell them, or even, as in “honor killings,” to kill them.

Re-Doing Sex Ed

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The first time I was penetrated I was 13. The rushed hand of an emergency room nurse—forceful, gloved, lube-less—reached inside of me to quickly check any cysts on my ovaries.... Read more »

Roe, Reproductive Justice and Judaism

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  Six months after the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, I immigrated to the United States from Korea. Despite the momentousness of the ruling, I had no idea then that much... Read more »

What the “Pro-Life” Side Says Behind Closed Doors

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I infiltrated a crisis pregnancy center (CPC) in 2010 when I was in college. At the time, I was working for a national feminist organization in the D.C. area and... Read more »

Lessons for Moving Forward

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Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned while working in the field. Sadly, since we seem to be losing ground in the reproductive battlefield, a return to some of... Read more »

When They Act Like Their God Is Bigger

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The day after the leaked Roe Supreme Court memo, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted this inane claim: “Our God is bigger.” Strangely, I had actually been thinking over the previous... Read more »

Rallying for Abortion, Jewishly

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In May 2022, Jews and allies from around the country traveled to D.C. to join NCJW and others for The Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice.

Elisa Albert Takes on the Mess and Anger of our Reproductive Lives

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The messiness of motherhood, indeed of a woman’s whole life, is something novelist Elisa Albert has been thinking and writing about for years. Her much anticipated new novel joins a... Read more »

Hormones in Motion: How Estrogen Set Me Free

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Hormone, n. (Greek) “setting in motion.” “It is known that the angels are deemed ‘those who are standing [still]’ as are souls before they arrive in this world… Only after... Read more »

The Current Mysteries of Testosterone

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Many of us learned about the details of medical transition through online forums and anecdotal experience, rarely with the help of medical practitioners and hardly ever with the guidance of well-funded, long-term research.

Changing the “We” of the Jewish Community

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Celebrating Rabbi Sally Priesand’s 50th anniversary as the first female rabbi ordained in North America, a renowned scholar challenges us all. Here’s some of what she said.

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