July 1, 2022

Volume 3, Resources 13: Reproductive Justice, 2 Pills 2 Furious

This is a public issue of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice. Feel free to share it!

Hi friends. It’s resource week and there have been so many incredibly unhelpful and flat-out harmful pieces of advice posted on the internet since the Roe v. Wade decision on Friday that I want to share the really good responses to some of these things in hopes that it can help someone reading this.

Reminder that I already have an abortion rights resource round-up in a previous public issue of this newsletter: Volume 3, Resources 9: Abortion Rights Resource List

I’ll put this up front and I’ll put it again at the end: The best thing you can do is to donate money to the community organizations who have been doing the work for years and have the infrastructure to do this work in a way that is actually helpful. Go to https://abortionfunds.org/ to donate to over 90 funds at once or choose your local orgs.

I’m going to put a few ineloquent points here and then link to some Twitter threads that say things much more thoroughly than these points:

• Quit offering up your couch to people on the internet. Your hero complex and your virtue-signaling are going to get people hurt or worse. You do not have the infrastructure nor resources to keep people safe doing this. Just donate on https://abortionfunds.org

• Quit reposting things that say you’re going to commit a felony / “aid and abet abortion.” Use your head, honestly. I know some of you daydream about being arrested protesting for abortion and I promise being arrested isn’t as cute as you think it is.

• Learn to keep a secret. Learn to move in silence. Not everything you do needs to be posted on the internet.

• Enough with the herbal abortion advice from tik tokers you’re gonna get someone killed. This isn’t a young adult fantasy. You aren’t the queen's assassin who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy so you go to the local witch for herbs. A lot of science went into creating safe abortion pills. (Note: I love YA fantasies, I do. But we are not in one.)

Now I’m just going to link out to some threads, posts, and resources.

• First up, this Digital Privacy and Abortion Access primer from ACLU:

• There are no herbs safer for abortion than abortion pills are. Here is a Twitter thread from a toxicologist on pennyroyal poisoning:

• Here is the Guttmacher Institute’s live map tracking state abortion policies as they change.

• Violet Blue is always my go to for advice on online privacy and I recommend her book The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy (Bookshop | Amazon). No, it is not just for girl’s and I think she’s working on an updated version. I am still looking for more free resources that are also actually good. I think the Electronic Freedom Foundation tools might be a good start as well.

• Been seeing a lot of virtue-signaling from companies offering to assist employees seeking abortion. This Twitter thread has a lot of great questions and I want to point out that a lot of these companies are funding the very politicians who led us here.

• I beg you. Think before you post your clever little “I will take you camping” or “I will take you to the nail salon” WINK WINK memes. Imani Gandy is one of my favorite lawyers to follow online and she puts it in a way that I think everyone can understand in this Twitter thread:

• Here’s a great Twitter thread about folks offering their couches or spare rooms without thinking it through:

• And here’s one more Twitter thread on the same. Different ways of communicating reach different people. Maybe this one will stick:

One more time: The best thing you can do is to donate money to the community organizations who have been doing the work for years and have the infrastructure to do this work in a way that is actually helpful. Go to https://abortionfunds.org/ to donate to over 90 funds at once or choose your local orgs.

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