Abortion Word List

ABORTION

Reproductive rights and bodily autonomy

WATCH

1. Happening (L’Événement) — Audrey Diwan, 2021 · Film · A French student in 1960s seeks an illegal abortion; Palme d’Or winner.

2. Never Rarely Sometimes Always — Eliza Hittman, 2020 · Film · A teen navigates systemic barriers to abortion access with quiet devastation.

3. After Tiller — Martha Shane & Lana Wilson, 2013 · Documentary · Four late-term abortion providers after Dr. Tiller’s assassination.

4. The Janes — Tia Lessin & Emma Pildes, 2022 · Documentary · The underground network of women providing illegal abortions before Roe.

5. Obvious Child — Gillian Robespierre, 2014 · Film · A comedy about abortion that treats it as a normal medical decision.

6. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — Cristian Mungiu, 2007 · Film · Romania under Ceaușescu; an illegal abortion and everything it costs.

7. Unpregnant — Rachel Lee Goldenberg, 2020 · Film · Two teens road-tripping across state lines for abortion access.

8. Reversing Roe — Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg, 2018 · Documentary · How the anti-abortion movement was built strategically over decades.

9. Citizen Ruth — Alexander Payne, 1996 · Film · A satire of the abortion debate that skewers both sides.

10. Ask For Jane — Rachel Carey, 2018 · Film · The Jane Collective’s underground abortion network dramatized.

LISTEN

1. Shout Your Abortion Podcast — Amelia Bonow · Personal abortion stories told without shame or apology.

2. The Repro Wrap — Rewire News Group · Weekly reproductive rights news and policy breakdown.

3. We Testify — National Network of Abortion Funds · People who’ve had abortions sharing their own stories.

4. Throughline: Roe v. Wade — NPR · The history of abortion rights from before Roe to after.

5. Lady Parts Justice League — Lizz Winstead · Reproductive rights advocacy through comedy and activism.

6. Code Switch: Reproductive Justice episodes — NPR · How race shapes abortion access and advocacy.

7. 1619 Project: Reproductive episodes — NYT · Black women’s reproductive rights in historical context.

8. The Daily: Dobbs decision coverage — NYT · Real-time journalism on the fall of Roe.

9. America Dissected: Abortion — Abdul El-Sayed · Public health framing of abortion access and outcomes.

10. Momentum: Reproductive Justice — Race Forward · Abortion within the broader reproductive justice framework.

READ

1. The Turnaway Study — Diana Greene Foster · A decade of research on what actually happens to people denied abortions.

2. Shout Your Abortion — Amelia Bonow & Emily Nokes · Personal stories and art destigmatizing abortion.

3. Reproductive Justice — Loretta Ross & Rickie Solinger · The framework that goes beyond “choice” to structural rights.

4. Killing the Black Body — Dorothy Roberts · How reproductive control has always been used against Black women.

5. Pro — Katha Pollitt · A full-throated moral defense of abortion rights.

6. The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood · Dystopian fiction that reads as warning and prophecy.

7. A Woman’s Story — Annie Ernaux · A Nobel laureate’s account of her own illegal abortion in 1960s France.

8. Abortion Without Apology — Laurie Bertram Roberts · Reproductive justice from a frontline organizer’s perspective.

9. Policing the Womb — Michele Goodwin · How pregnancy has become a site of criminal punishment in America.

10. Her Body and Other Parties — Carmen Maria Machado · Fiction where women’s bodies are sites of horror and resistance.