Dear Meteor readers,

When I think about culture-shifting moments of the past, I always wonder if the people living through them actually knew how profound the change was.

In the case of June 24, 2022, I think many of us did know. That morning, when the United States Supreme Court published its decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and in a single day undid five decades’ worth of hard earned abortion rights, I heard the news from my husband in the simplest of sentences, “They did it.”

This week we’re suspending our regular programming to take a step back and reflect on what has happened in the year since they did it. Leading up to the one year anti-versary on Saturday, we’ll be bringing you daily stories from the front lines, and the reality of what birthing people have been forced to endure in A Year Without Roe. Today, we hear from a journalist who’s covered all of it; tomorrow, one of the most powerful leaders in the world reflects on what’s next.

And we’ll also be thinking about the future and the possibility of making history once again in the fight to win back our reproductive freedom. To paraphrase The Beatles, there’s nothing they can do that can’t be undone.

Taking it one day at a time,

Shannon Melero

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

A Year of Abortion, Every Day 

Journalist Jessica Valenti has published over 300 abortion stories since Roe v. Wade fell last year. Here’s what she’s learned.

BY SAMHITA MUKHOPADHYAY

Jessica Valenti has been doing feminist work for over two decades. She was one of the founding editors of the blog Feministing and has written or edited seven books on feminism, sexual consent, and more. But this year, she has been relentlessly focused on one topic: abortion. Her daily newsletter, Abortion, Every Day, has become an essential resource for anyone who cares about the issue, and the title doesn’t lie: She has taken only one day off since she began publishing last summer.

I wanted to talk to my friend about what she’s learned—but first, we had to reminisce.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay: We’ve known each other for a long time—25 years! I remember the first thing we worked on together was the Vagina Monologues in college. You were making T-shirts.

Jessica Valenti: That’s right! That’s right! The bedazzled clitoris.

…that we wore to watch the Vagina Monologues, and then probably also to Take Back the Night. 

Oh my God. True nineties.

Well, I share this to establish a little context here. You’ve been doing feminist work for a long time.

It’s your way of calling me old. I understand.

Well, if you’re old, I’m old too. Do you consider yourself a feminist journalist or an activist?

Both—but if I had to choose one, I would choose activism, especially now. For me, feminism and journalism [are] natural allies because of the way that journalism is supposed to be about making things accessible to people, telling the truth, and holding powerful institutions and people accountable.

You’ve been ringing the alarm on the attack on reproductive rights for a while. Do you remember the first time you realized these attacks were escalating, but no one else was taking them seriously?

Like most feminists, I have felt like this for at least the last 10 to 15 years because even with Roe existing, the attacks were ongoing, and restrictions were being implemented. Abortion has not been available in many parts of the country for a very, very long time. But, obviously, now that it’s nationwide that folks have lost the right, there’s a different kind of attention being paid, rightfully so.

And it’s always been really frustrating. I’m sure you feel this way, too, when you’re like, “Hey, look at this thing. Look at this thing. Look at this thing!” And to you, it’s this very clear picture, and you’re pointing it out over and over again, and you’re constantly being patted on the head and told not to worry.

We were told we were delusional. So take us back to a year ago. Where were you when the Dobbs decision came down? 

That day is almost blocked [for me] because my moment was after the decision was leaked [in May 2022]. I was sobbing. And I just kept saying, “My daughter.” I just kept thinking about her. It hit me in the pit of my stomach. By the time the decision was actually released [on June 24, 2022], I was far gone. I had switched from denial to anger.

How have things changed for you in the last year?

I just naturally started writing about abortion all the time. I just couldn’t stop tracking things, and researching things, and looking at things. It made me feel more in control of a generally uncontrollable situation.

What’s your goal with Abortion, Every Day? 

We’re trying to put out comprehensive reports that track everything but also provide a throughline of information because one of the biggest strategies for the anti-abortion movement is to make us feel completely inundated and overwhelmed into inaction. And so the hope is that if people understand what is happening, they’ll feel like they’re informed and empowered to do whatever they have to do.

Have you learned anything new from just being in the weeds this much in the last year?

I have learned that the anti-choice movement actually gives away the game constantly. They are laying [out] what they’re going to do, in all sorts of ways, if you know where to look and how to listen. They are so much more ignorant than people realize. And they say the wildest stuff and put their strategy out there in this very explicit way. It’s just that it’s not being seen, and it’s not being reported on. 

You’ve broken a lot of stories. What’s been the most shocking thing you’ve reported so far? 

It’s all shocking. It’s all awful. I published something last week about a young woman in Texas who couldn’t get an abortion even though her fetus had no head. And in Texas, they are manufacturing abortion complication data. Everything that they’re doing is shocking.

What is it actually going to take to get these stories to penetrate the mainstream in some way?

I think we’re going to be at a point soon where you’re not going to find a single person in America who hasn’t been touched by an abortion restriction or an abortion ban in some way. Whether it’s themselves, a family member, or a member of their community, it is not going to take long for this to impact everyone. And I think part of what we need to do, and what Democrats need to do, and the mainstream media needs to do, is to start treating the issue for what it is—which is a winning issue. It’s something that Americans are not split on, not polarized about. Americans overwhelmingly support abortion rights, and it’s just a small group of extremist legislators who are imposing their will on the majority of voters. And the more that we talk about that, the better off we’re going to be.

It sounds like you’re hopeful. 

I am hopeful in the long run, but that doesn’t take away from the everyday suffering that’s happening. That’s the hard bit. It’s like, yeah, we probably will win this, eventually. But in the meantime, a lot of people are going to be hurt.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR

A year ago today, Renee Bracey Sherman spoke with Samhita on what people could do after SCOTUS ruled on Roe. Her prediction: “It’s going to be fucking chaos.”

She was right.

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