Our bodies under attack

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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...

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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?

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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. The search proved unnecessary-—I had appendicitis—-and possibly caused my appendix to rupture. I healed from the appendectomy but the trauma of the nurse’s hand, feeling... Read more »

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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 of my professional experience would be in community health, reproductive health, reproductive justice, and adolescent sexual health. My traditional Korean family never spoke about anything... Read more »

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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 coming into my awakening as a Black feminist. I went undercover out of curiosity, to find out what I would experience as a Black woman... Read more »

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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 the basics can’t hurt. NORMALIZE sexual and reproductive health at every age and stage of our lives. ELEVATE the voices and stories of those most... Read more »

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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 few days just how tiny the God of her warped orthodoxy is. Over and over we see those who seek to rob people of our... Read more »

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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.

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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 conversation that Albert herself has had a hand in shaping. After Birth hit bookshelves in 2015 and made waves by delving into the loneliness of... Read more »

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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 the souls descend to this world and are enclothed in bodies are they known as ‘those who walk.” atorah Vol. II, Bamidbar, Beha’alotcha) As I... Read more »

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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.

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