EAST BAY BOOKSELLERS is excited to welcome Jenny Brown to read from her new book, Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now on Friday, December 6th at 7pm. She will be joined in conversation by Meagan Day and Allie Lahey.

With an antiabortion majority on the Supreme Court and several states attempting to outlaw abortion altogether, many activists are on the defensive, hoping to hold on to reproductive rights in a few places and cases. How did we get here and how do we build a fighting movement for abortion rights and full reproductive justice?

In her new book Without Apology, Jenny Brown uncovers a century of legal abortion in the United States until 1873, recalls women’s experiences in the illegal days, and shows how the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s really won abortion rights. She draws inspiration and lessons from the radicals of Redstockings, the Army of Three, and the Jane Collective, putting together a road map for today’s organizers from the black feminist argument for reproductive justice, the successful fight to make the morning-after pill available over the counter, and the recent mass movement to repeal Ireland’s abortion ban. It's time to return to the fundamental ideas that won legal abortion in the first place: Women publicly telling the full truth of their own experience, demanding repeal of all abortion restrictions, and showing how abortion and birth control are the key demands in the struggle for women’s freedom.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenny Brown was a leader in the fight to get the morning-after pill over the counter in the US and a plaintiff in the winning lawsuit. She is co-author of the Redstockings book Women’s Liberation and National Health Care: Confronting the Myth of America. While editor at Labor Notes magazine, she coauthored How to Jump-Start Your Union: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers. She writes, teaches, and organizes with the feminist group National Women’s Liberation and is the author of Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight over Women’s Work.

Allie Lahey has been organizing with reproductive rights and justice organizations for the last 7 years in Ohio and California, including leading campaigns to fight abortion bans, overturn the Hyde Amendment, and expand abortion access onto college campuses. She is also on the Steering Committee for the East Bay Democratic Socialists of America, and has been a part of campaigns for rent control, socialist candidates running for office, and the Oakland Teachers strike.

Meagan Day is the author of MAXIMUM SUNLIGHT (Wolfman Books 2016). She is a Ben Bagdikian editorial fellow at Mother Jones and a features editor at Full Stop . She's a former staff writer for Timeline, and her work has also appeared in n+1, The New Inquiry, The Believer, The Towner and elsewhere. She has worked at Aeon Magazine, McSweeney's Publishing and Time Out Istanbul, and interned at Granta Magazine. She holds a Bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a Master's in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London.