How America changed post-Dobbs — and how the fight for abortion rights continues

The night the Dobbs decision was leaked, feminist writer Jessica Valenti wailed. She crawled into bed with her husband, sobbing, saying “My daughter, my daughter.” When it was made official in June 2022, she again wondered how she was supposed to protect her daughter when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.

Eventually, she turned her despair into action, quickly starting a newsletter called “Abortion, Every Day.” At first, Valenti wasn’t planning on starting a publication. She was just so angry and committed to not missing any ban, any court case, or any anti-abortion tactic that might pop up. Today, the newsletter is a thriving hub and go-to destination for all abortion-related news in the post-Dobbs landscape (sometimes featuring Salon's reporting), highlighting the news almost daily and putting it into context. 

“My joke has become that I should have called the newsletter 'Abortion, Every Hour,'” Valenti told Salon in a video interview. “That’s how quickly things are changing; it’s complete chaos.” 

Indeed, it is. But Valenti decided to take the platform a step further and turn it into a book.

“The newsletter is sort of here one day and gone the next,” she said. “It lives on the website, but it does feel sort of temporary.” Hence, her publishing "Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win.” Salon spoke with Valenti to discuss how the media reports on abortion access and reproductive rights, and what those in despair can do right now. 

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The book is a compilation of your newsletter, Abortion, Every Day. You do such a good job of putting into context what's happening in real time. I'm curious if you can share why you decided to extend this project into book form, and if you could share a little bit about what that process was like. 

As much as I do try in the newsletter to contextualize everything and connect the dots to the broader narrative, I really wanted to be able to do that in something tangible, in something that you could hold and have. The newsletter is very much about keeping everyone updated and providing some order to the chaos. But I was thinking of the book as something that people could use, something that gives them the information and the language they need to do the work they're interested in doing when it comes to abortion. Whether they're a seasoned activist who's already out there, or maybe someone who is new to the issue, who feels uncomfortable and doesn't know quite how to articulate something, I wanted to create something that was super accessible for anyone, no matter what their level of engagement on the issue. 

And with the election coming up, I wanted to capture this particular moment in time. I imagine we'll look back in a year from now, and some of these trends will be the same, and a lot of them will be different, right?

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I appreciated how you prefaced the book by saying some of the things you write about now may have changed by the time someone is reading this. I bet that made for an interesting challenge in writing the book. 

It was difficult. I just finished taping the audiobook version, and even as I was reading it out loud and seeing it for the first time in a while, you're like, well, there's been an update on that, and that's changed. It’s challenging because things do change every day. I tried to pick issues that I thought would stand the test of time, and also that demonstrate these broader trends. Like, what happens in Florida with the ballot measure is going to be different than when I was writing about it. But attacks on democracy are still going to be there. And having an understanding of that is really important.

It was definitely challenging because you sort of instinctively want to make sure you're covering everything, but you have to put that idea to the side and just be okay that there is no way that you can capture everything that's going on with this issue.

In Chapter 1, you write about how abortion is usually seen as an ending. Even in the rhetoric in which we use to describe an abortion — the termination of a pregnancy. But you write it's very much the opposite for many. Abortion can be the start of something. And as you share with your readers, that was true for you and your abortions. I'm curious, how do you think people can communicate the shift in tone? That it can be an opportunity, not an ending. 

I think such a huge part of it is undoing the stigma. And I think part of undoing that stigma is not talking about this issue apologetically — not feeling like I have to tell you why it was important that I had access to this basic health care. And that's why I framed it that way and told my own story because I think that talking about the lives, the choices, and the paths that abortion made possible for people, is a really important reminder to folks. 

I feel really confident if you talk to most people about their abortions, and you ask, “What did your abortion make possible for you?” they're going to have some really incredible answers. 

In Chapter 3, you talk about the debate on who deserves abortion care and who doesn't, especially in this post-Dobbs landscape. It’s so noticeable in the media that more attention is given to these stories of those who wanted to be mothers and were denied care. But I can’t help but think so many stories are being left behind, and as you said, women who don't want to be pregnant are being portrayed as murderers. What is the path forward to embracing a message that the “why” doesn't matter. 

I fall into that trap myself too, right? It’s difficult not to because I think my instinct is to provide evidence for the horrors of this. You want to change hearts and minds. You know what is compelling. But it does leave people behind. And I think it does open up windows and doors for Republicans to say, ‘Well, yeah, you're right, a rape victim should have access, and here's your bulls**t exception.” We have to remember not to allow them to frame the debate. 

We’re coming from this place of apologeticness. We're coming from this place of letting them frame the debate, and coming from a vantage point of this is a necessary evil, rather than a proactive moral good. I think talking about the value of women’s and pregnant people's lives, futures and decisions is a big part of that. And recognizing that any abortion denied is a tragedy. Some of those tragedies are going to have different mental health and physical health outcomes for people, and it's important that we talk about all of them. But we're not going to get anywhere by leaving people behind and we run the danger of replicating, I think, the same mistakes that we made with Roe.

I found your chapter on birth control very interesting, especially how you brought up the trad wife and wellness influencers, some of whom are spreading misinformation about hormonal birth control. Can you elaborate on the consequences of this, and how does this ultimately strengthen the anti-abortion movement’s campaign on restricting access to birth control?

The thing that I worry about most with this campaign against birth control, and specifically this really culturally insidious piece of it with the trad wives and the wellness influencers, is that anti-abortion activists and legislators are taking advantage of a very real issue — which is medical sexism. [These are] real issues that women have with all sorts of medication, not just birth control, and they're tapping into this valid, legitimate fear and concern that women have, and they're exploiting it. 

And that is what I find so egregious about the entire thing. And they know that feminist language, feminist rhetoric, feminist ideas, resonate with people and resonate with young women They're successful in painting this really negative picture. When let's say, they start doing certain kinds of restrictions, which we've already seen in some cases like with Title X funding, they can paint it as protecting women, which we've seen all of them do in all sorts of ways when it comes to abortion restrictions. But it becomes a lot easier for them to pass those restrictions without voter outrage — like a 24-hour waiting period, right? I worry about that chipping-away approach going unnoticed. 

I wanted to talk about the phrase "abortion ban" with you. As you point out in your book, mainstream media outlets don't always use it. It’s frequently reported that there's this law, in this state, restricting access to abortion with this specific gestational limit, and it has these specific exceptions. I got a sense from your book that you sympathize with the media, because there is this pressure to be objective with all of this information. At the same time, it can almost be as if reporters are unintentionally supporting the anti-abortion agenda. How, in your opinion, should journalists be describing abortion bans and their exceptions in their reporting?

I do have a lot of sympathy for them. Especially when you're talking about individual reporters who are beholden to editors, who are beholden to senior editors, who are beholden to publishers — it's not just obviously one reporter's singular decision. But like, in a perfect world, I think we would just call things what they are. An abortion ban is an abortion ban, right?

And I wish they wouldn't use the word exception. Or if you’re going to write about exceptions, say what Republicans call an exception, right? Because that is objectively true. That is honest. That is factual. It’s impossible to say that Mississippi has a rape exception if no rape victims in Mississippi can get an abortion. That's not an exception.

In your book, you also talk about how anti-abortion activists and lawmakers are targeting the helpers, but you put a little bit of a positive spin on that. Yes, they are targeting the helpers, but the good news is that they know people are paying attention and doing something about it. For people reading this who want to help, what would you suggest?

That's a really good question. I think, what is so incredible about the way that people have risen to the occasion since Roe was overturned, is that there are so many different ways to help. I think for so long, people sort of thought that the only way that I can be like an activist or do something was to like be out with a picket sign or be really knowledgeable about an issue. There's so much work that's required to help each and every person get the care that they need.

And so it really can be anything from volunteering, giving money, to sitting on the phone as an abortion navigator. There are a million steps between someone's positive pregnancy test for an unwanted pregnancy and then getting to the clinic. Generally what I tell people is to look who is already doing work in your community and see what they need. I think that that is the best starting point. 

What else do you hope people take away from your book?

I think knowing that the anger, sadness and horror that they feel is fine and understandable. And that it also can be used to do something. That we don't have to feel stuck in it. I think that is one of the hardest things about this moment with a lot of issues. It's easy to feel sort of frozen with the overwhelm of it all. I really want people to understand that it doesn't have to be that way. That you can move out of that stuck, frozen feeling and into something better, especially when you're looking at the incredible community of people who are already doing work on this issue.