The Feministing Five: Renee Bracey Sherman

For this week’s Feministing Five, I had the pleasure of catching up with the utterly inspiring writer, organizer, and reproductive justice advocate Renee Bracey Sherman.

Renee is the author of Saying Abortion Aloud: Research and Recommendations for Public Abortion Storytellers and Organizations, and co-author of Speak Up & Stay Safe(r), a multi-lingual digital guide on handling online harassment. She is a writer with Echoing Ida, a project of Forward Together that amplifies the voices of Black women thought leaders. Her work on abortion storytelling and reproductive health and rights has been featured in The Guardian, Ebony, The Atlantic, Women’s Health, Salon, Time, and this site! She also sits on the board of the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation.  

These days, Renee is the Policy Representative and We Testify Program Manager at the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF). We Testify is an exciting new program that’s near and dear to Renee’s heart which aims to increase the spectrum of abortion storytellers in the public sphere as well as build their leadership. The program is especially interested in amplifying the voices of people most affected by barriers to abortion care — people of color, queer people, and people from rural communities.

Speaking with Renee, it’s clear that her zeal for compassionate, intersectional, and heart-felt feminist movement-building knows no bounds. I’m beyond excited to share my conversation with this fierce feminist, where we discussed everything from the complexity of sharing her own abortion story to how to be a pro-choice ally to what it actually looks like to allow people from all walks of life to be fully empowered in the choices they make. Read on, and catch Renee on Twitter @RBraceySherman!

Senti Sojwal: Can you tell our readers about the We Testify campaign, how it came to be, and what the goals are of the campaign?

Renee Bracey Sherman: We Testify is a new program of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which is an over 20-year old organization that is a network of abortion funds across the country that helps people pay for their abortions and navigate barriers. This means transportation, paying for flights, hotels, childcare, translation services, everything. Something that we noticed around abortion stories is that while there’s a lot out there, there’s not always a lot representing the data of who actually gets abortions. The program seeks to amplify the voices of people actually having abortions, and who are living at the margins. People of color, queer folks, people with different abilities, people living in various geographic regions, folks from rural communities, and people who need resource support. We Testify has a cohort of many storytellers who are going to be at a retreat and really learn how to share their stories and talk about intersectionality within their abortion experiences as well as how to deal with harassment and trolling, how to support other people. We also have the website with stories. The overall goal is to really shift the way the public understands the context and complexity of people who are accessing abortion care. We want to make sure that we’re not just doing story extractions, and just sharing the stories. We want to actually build the leadership of people who are most affected by restrictions to abortion.

Senti Sojwal: Your own abortion was profiled as a digital story by Fusion. You said having an abortion was one of the best decisions of your life, and also said elsewhere that it took you six years to share the story, and it can still make you nervous. What’s it like for you to tell your own abortion story?

Renee Bracey Sherman: Sharing my abortion story is actually now a huge part of my abortion story itself. There’s always things that I learn about myself and that experience, and how much I’ve grown and changed. When I share my story it’s a little different every time. It depends on the audience that I’m sharing with. It’s different if I know I’m sharing with others who have had abortions and we’re connecting through that, or if I’m sharing with a cab driver if they ask what I do. I think it’s constantly evolving, but I’m always really happy and proud to be able to speak out about it, and be able to have circles of family and friends who support me in sharing so that I can also connect with other people who have had abortions. For so long I didn’t share my story, because I really thought that I was one of the only ones, and I didn’t know anyone else who had had one. I dealt with a lot of internalized stigma about being a black woman who had had an abortion. That stigma is really harmful, and kept me silent for so long. I think it’s really important for me and the folks who are part of We Testify to show other people who look like us that they’re not alone. We need to make sure that the stories we hear in the media are as diverse as the people who have them. The majority of people who have abortions are people of color, and I want the stories to reflect that and to reflect the complexities in our lives. The one thing that really keeps me sharing is that every time I share my abortion story, someone shares one back. I was at the DNC, and in a cab. This woman shared her abortion story with me. Sometimes with men, it’s that they are close with someone who has had an abortion. It touches a lot of our lives, and so important that we actually talk about it, and don’t allow the stigma and shame to take over.

Senti Sojwal: NNAF said in a press release the We Testify project will help increase the spectrum of abortion storytellers in the public sphere, build leadership, and shift the way “the media understands the context and complexity of accessing abortion care.” Can you tell us about some of the largest problems you see with how the media understands access and abortion care, even the more progressive outlets?

Renee Bracey Sherman: One of the things that really frustrates me is that when people report on abortion, they kind of just report straight on the restrictions. They create a dichotomy between anti-choice people and pro-choice people. But these are not equal ideas, it is not 50-50. 7 in 10 people identify as pro-choice but the 7 in 10 are getting this 50-50 representation. The majority of legislators are anti-choice, but that’s just not what the majority of the electorate is. That false dichotomy is really problematic. Another thing is that the identities of people having abortions are often left out. If you’re writing an article or covering abortion in any way, and you don’t talk about race and class, are you actually covering it correctly? The majority of people who have abortions are people of color, and they are living at, below, or just above the poverty level. When we talk about abortion restrictions, we actually have to talk about how they affect certain people disproportionately. Stories, for me, do that. Hearing from someone that not only was a law awful, but they had to travel out of state. There’s a story on the site about a woman dealing with HB2. She is an immigrant, she did not discover that she was pregnant for a while. She couldn’t go get the procedure done in her home country of Honduras, where abortion is illegal. She was getting further along in her pregnancy, and she went to a crisis pregnancy center, which are often state-funded, and they told her it was too late to get an abortion. They talked to her about religion, which was inappropriate. She ended up having to fly out of state, away from her home, and it cost her $12,000 to get this abortion. Simply reporting on a law and saying well, it would create an extra 24-hour wait time — well, that’s important, because we need to talk about that, but what does an extra 24-hour wait actually look like in a person’s life when they are seeking an abortion? When they don’t have sick days at work, when they can’t tell their family or friends where you’re doing, but you need someone to watch your two kids. The majority of people who have abortions are already parenting. A lot of the stories in the media don’t really talk about that, and we want to shift that. The media doesn’t share what actual on the ground experiences are like for people, and how they are specifically impacted by certain laws. When I was younger, the only people I really knew of who had had abortions were a cousin of mine and Lil Kim. I was a huge Lil Kim fan, and I knew that if my cousin could do it, and especially if Lil Kim could, then I could too! We’re at a moment now where more celebrities are talking about their abortions, which is amazing. But at the same time, it’s important to see how many of those are celebrities of color. We need that representation. It can’t just be rich folks, or white people, or else people will still feel alone, despite the data that says 1 in 3 cis women will have an abortion. It matters.

Senti Sojwal: In a piece for Cosmo, you wrote: “Just like it’s impossible to eradicate racism without the support of white people who benefit from a racist system, we cannot eradicate abortion stigma without the support of those whom society deems “good” mothers because they didn’t choose abortion.” This is so important, because as you said in the piece, it’s imperative for those who have had abortions to share the experience in order to further the pro-choice movement, but it’s also very difficult and there can be real consequences, which we should also be aware of. Can you speak more about this? How can those of us who have not had abortions can be the best support we can be to those in our community who have, but may be unable to share their experience?

Renee Bracey Sherman: I think it’s going to take all of us to eradicate abortion stigma. I often hear, well if everyone who has had an abortion can just share their story, stigma will be over! That’s just not true. We have a lot of people walking around who are black, there’s still racism! Queer folks are pretty open, and homophobia and transphobia are still rampant. We need to have a culture change. It needs to not just be those of us who have had abortions to speak up for ourselves. We need support. We need people to say, I love someone who had an abortion, and I don’t want you to talk about them that way. Everyone loves someone who has had an abortion. They may just not know it yet. People need to realize that the things that you say, we hear you! Part of the reason we’re silent or hide the fact that we’ve had abortions, are the things that people say. One of the things that we can do immediately is just have people be open about their support and love and value for people who’ve had abortions. Say, I support whatever decision someone makes. We will hear that, and share our stories with you and know that you are a safe person to go to. Or at the time that someone may need an abortion, they know that you are a safe person to go to if they have questions or need support. Be someone who can talk about abortion with compassion and respect. If you don’t openly talk about it, how will we know how to find you? We need you all to challenge the other people who are saying awful things about us, whether it’s a family member or a friend. Be someone who won’t stand for it when people do things like call people who’ve had abortions “murderers” or “baby-killers”. This is why we have items in our We Testify store that say “I love someone who had an abortion”. Break down these stereotypes about people who’ve had abortions — that we’re unlovable, that we’re not fit to be parents, that we don’t love children. There is not this world where the “good people” have kids and the “bad people” have abortions. We are the same people, it’s just different times in our lives. We need to get rid of this idea that there are people who have abortions, and people who don’t. We also really need to talk about the fact that even people who choose to have children may have thought about abortion or adoption. We don’t broadcast that or talk about it. It’s important for those folks also to say, I thought about abortion, but I actually decided that I was ready to parent. We need to talk about what it means for people to make the best decisions for their lives at certain times. Right now, I have a lot of friends who are new parents. Many of them have said that becoming parents made them even more supportive of abortion rights, because being a parent is so hard and a lot of work. It’s not something we want to force people into without any support. With most people who have had abortions already being parents, they know what they can handle and what’s right for them. It all circles back to what it means to support and defend people making the most empowering choices for themselves about their lives.

Senti Sojwal: My last question is a big one, but one I feel I absolutely have to ask you. What does reproductive justice mean to you?

Renee Bracey Sherman: Reproductive justice means to me loving people of color, especially for me black women, both cis and trans, and trusting black women to make the best decisions about our bodies. It means not being afraid to let us lead.

Photo: WeTestify.org