MERJ Newsletter 8/26/2025
MERJ Co-Founder Justin Haas (center) and two supporters at MERJ’s first “Wings for Wings” fundraiser for Elevated Access on 8/23/25!
We’re proud to announce that we brought together 20 people in person, and raised nearly $2,000 for Elevated Access, in one delicious and empowering afternoon!
📚 MERJ Book Club!
If you’re interested in joining our June 23, 2025 book discussion, email us at action@endthepatriarchy.org, and we’ll be happy to invite you!
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, by Dorothy Roberts
Originally published December 29, 1998; notes below from Bookshop.org page.
Killing the Black Body remains a rallying cry for education, awareness, and action on extending reproductive justice to all women. It is as crucial as ever, even two decades after its original publication.
"A must-read for all those who claim to care about racial and gender justice in America." —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
In 1997, this groundbreaking book made a powerful entrance into the national conversation on race. In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, Killing the Black Body exposed America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies. From slave masters’ economic stake in bonded women’s fertility to government programs that coerced thousands of poor Black women into being sterilized as late as the 1970s, these abuses pointed to the degradation of Black motherhood—and the exclusion of Black women’s reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas.
“The language of eugenics did more than legitimate birth control. It defined the purpose of birth control, shaping the meaning of reproductive freedom. Birth control became a means of controlling a population rather than a means of increasing women’s reproductive autonomy. Birth control in America was defined from the movement’s inception in terms of race and could never be properly understood apart from race again.”
Other books we’ve read, and strongly recommend:
Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win, by Jessica Valenti
Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion, by Gabrielle Blair
Comics for Choice, ed. Newlevant, Taylor, and Fox
You’re the Only One I’ve Told: The Stories Behind Abortion, by Dr. Meera Shah
Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice, by Silliman, Gerber Fried, Ross, and Gutiérrez
Reproductive Justice: An Introduction, by Loretta J. Ross and Rickie Solinger
A letter from MERJ’s co-founder
Together We Raised Over $2,000 for Reproductive Freedom!
Dear MERJ Community,
We’re thrilled to share the incredible success of our recent fundraising event for Elevated Access on Saturday, August 23rd!
Thanks to the energy, generosity, and solidarity of our community, we raised over $2,000 to support Elevated Access in their critical mission of providing flights for people seeking abortion and gender-affirming care. Even more exciting: we welcomed 15 new members to our mailing list—further growing our movement for equity and reproductive justice!
This event marked the third powerful collaboration between MERJ and Elevated Access, and each time, our impact grows stronger. Together, we're advocating and mobilizing for bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom and showing that men have a vital role to play in this ongoing fight.
To everyone who attended, donated, invited friends, or simply helped spread the word—thank you. Your commitment helps ensure that no one is denied care because of geography, politics, or policy. You can still pitch in to support Elevated Access here.
Stay tuned for more ways to get involved, speak out, and show up. We’re just getting started.
With deep gratitude and determination,
Justin Haas & The MERJ Team
📖 4-Minute Power Read, from the Wisconsin Examiner:
“Women in states with abortion bans are the biggest users of abortion telemedicine”
Beginning of the article: As conservative lawmakers work to restrict online access to abortion medication, a new report shows how popular it has become for women who live in states that have outlawed abortion.
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin led a team that analyzed 15 months of prescription data from Aid Access, one of the largest online abortion telemedicine providers.
They found 84% of Aid Access’s more than 118,000 online prescriptions went to patients living in abortion-ban states.
The South and Midwest had the highest rates of patients accessing telemedicine abortion. Rates were also greater in high-poverty areas or where people would have to travel more than 100 miles to reach an abortion clinic, according to the report, which published this month.
Aid Access is able to mail abortion medications to residents in all 50 states — even those in states with abortion bans — thanks to shield laws in Democratic-led states. Shield laws are designed to minimize the legal risks for people who provide or access abortions across state lines.
By Anna Claire Vollers, published August 21, 2025
🔊👂🏽 Podcast Power Listen, from NPR (WAMU):
“Three years after Roe fell, more women are managing their abortions without doctors”
43 minutes
Excerpt: “Since the 1970s, legal abortions in the U.S. have taken place at brick-and-mortar facilities across the country, like the one where Bass practiced in Oklahoma. But that began to change in the early 2020s. Between the COVID pandemic and the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, doctors had to rethink what a safe abortion looked like. The evidence for how to have safe and effective abortions outside the clinical setting was waiting for them.
If what you picture when you think of an abortion is a woman in a medical gown, undergoing a procedure, that's far from the norm today. Medication abortion — taking pills to end a pregnancy — now makes up 63 percent of all abortions in the country.”
By Abby Wendle and Liana Simstrom, published June 22, 2025
💸 Amazing Organization to Support:
From their website: “VAG Clinic is the first Queer and BIPOC-led abortion clinic in the country. We are located on traditional, unceded Tiwa territory, also known as Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our patient care follows an anti-racist and survivor-centered model. We believe in empowering patients by prioritizing their rights, safety, well-being, needs, and wishes. We welcome and support patients from other states and countries.”
“There are those who aim to rob families across this country of essential abortion care in their home communities and they’re complicit in this harm.
They are using every tool – the courts, executive actions, and legislation – from state houses to Congress, and notably through this Big Ugly Bill as it makes it way through the Senate as we speak.
The cruelty is the point.
At this point, Republicans can’t deny that they are actually in the business of making people across America sicker, poorer and more vulnerable.”
Help and Resources to Share with Anyone Needing an Abortion: (from ifwhenhow.org)
Find a local clinic by using the National Abortion Federation map.
If you have questions about your legal rights and self-managed abortion, the Repro Legal Helpline is a free, confidential source for legal advice and information. Visit ReproLegalHelpline.org or call 844-868-2812.
If you are under 18 and need information about your rights to an abortion, you can message or call our Repro Legal Helpline at 844-868-2812. You can also read more about your rights on our Judicial Bypass Wiki.
If you have been arrested, contacted by the police, or fear you may be arrested for a self-managed abortion, our Repro Legal Helpline can provide immediate legal advice and support, and our Repro Legal Defense Fund can help with bail and legal fees. You can call our Repro Legal Helpline at 844-868-2812, and for help with bail and other fees, visit ReproLegalDefenseFund.org.
Medically-reviewed, step-by-step directions for how to self-administer a medication abortion using mifepristone and misoprostol can be found on the Hey Jane website.
