Battling for Reproductive Rights: The Last 100 Years and Today

The Femtastic Podcast

This year marks the 100 year anniversary of the founding of the American Birth Control League, and while we've come a long way since then, fierce battles for reproductive rights are still being waged today.

Today’s interview is with Planned Parenthood's North Central States CEO Sarah Stoesz, a fierce advocate of over 20 years who has been fighting for reproductive health access in a reliably conservative part of the country. We're also joined by award-winning author Ames Sheldon, grand-niece of the founder of the Birth Control League of Massachusetts in the 1910s, and herself one of the founders of the Women's Studies field in the 1970s.

On the podcast today, Ames will discuss the challenges to just legalize INFORMATION about family planning 100 years ago, and the history of access to birth control and abortion over the course of the last 100 years. Stoesz will explain how this history ties into the struggles for reproductive health access today, and what battles we are still fighting to ensure people have reproductive autonomy. Stoesz also tells us what we can do to help protect abortion access today in the midst of relentless political attacks and the very real threat that Roe faces in the Supreme Court this year.

NOTE: This interview was recorded in early July 2021, prior to Texas' passing of S.B. 8.

LINKS:

- Lemons in the Garden of Love by Ames Sheldon

- Donate to an abortion fund

- Donate to independent abortion providers: Independent providers serve three out of every five patients who have an abortion; yet they receive only a fraction of public support. They also lack the institutional support, visibility, name recognition, and fundraising capacity of national health centers and hospitals, making it especially difficult for the community-based providers to garner the resources they need and provide care in their communities. It’s time to protect independent clinics, because they provide care when and where others will not, with a commitment to ensuring that no one is left behind.

- Donate to Planned Parenthood

- Donate to NARAL Pro-Choice America