Telling The Stories We Need To Hear:

Artists Explore Reproductive Freedom

At current rates, about one in three American women will have had an abortion by the time she is 45 (Alan Guttmacher Institute). Think about it: 1.3 million American women per year are having abortions. Where are these women’s voices in the echo chamber of public debate over reproductive rights?

Abortion was legalized nationwide by a 1973 case before the U.S. Supreme Court called Roe v. Wade. The Senate is now considering a Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, who may vote to reverse the Roe decision, allowing states to outlaw abortion altogether. The stakes are very high for women. Before Roe v. Wade, women were often forced to choose between an unwanted pregnancy or an illegal abortion, often performed under unsafe conditions.

This month you can click on the photos to the right to read interviews with three very different artists from the WomenArts Network whose work explores some of the human stories at the heart of the policy debates.

Abortion and contraception were unregulated and easily available in the United States until the mid-19th century, when states began passing laws banning abortion and restricting access to birth control. The most extreme of these were the Comstock Laws of 1873, which outlawed the distribution of “obscene literature” and “immoral articles.” They were used repeatedly to prosecute activists and health-care providers who tried to make family planning information available, most notably the pioneering Margaret Sanger, who was hounded for most of her adult life.

From the mid-19th century until 1965, states could - and did - prohibit the use of birth control by married couples (until 1972 for single people). These were truly difficult years for women: Many women of color and disabled women were sterilized against their will, sometimes even without their knowledge. By the early 1960s, 17% of pregnancy-related deaths resulted from illegal abortions. Most importantly, the power of the state to control when and if women would bear children severely undermined women's ability to be full participants in the public life of the country and to live the lives they would choose.

We’ve compiled some resources to help you learn more about this history and what’s at stake in the struggle for reproductive freedom:

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The Fund for Women Artists is a community of artists and allies dedicated to celebrating and supporting art that tells the truth about women’s lives. There is an overview of our goals and services in the Share the Vision section of our website at www.WomenArts.org.

The Fund for Women Artists is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. Federal Employer I.D. #04-3257661. All contributions are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.

This newsletter is made possible by generous grants from the Valentine Foundation, the CDQ Charitable Trust, the Women's Funding Network Venture Fund, and the National Endowment for the Arts.