Coercion
Surviving and Resisting Abortion Bans
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- £12.99
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- £12.99
Publisher Description
“Read this book to get informed, stay sane, and learn to fight back” Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show and host of Feminist Buzzkills
“A must-read for all who care about bodily autonomy” Renee Bracey Sherman, founder of We Testify and co-author of Liberating Abortion
“An urgent, unforgettable book” Hannah Matthews, author of You or Someone You Love
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the horrors inflicted by abortion bans began immediately and haven’t stopped. These laws have become a tool for abusers, as pregnant people face legal harassment, reproductive coercion, and life-threatening medical trauma.
Through biting analysis, Kylie Cheung argues that these are not unintended consequences but deliberate acts of state violence against women and pregnant people within a system where certain lives are designated as expendable.
This book is for everyone coming to terms with these realities amid the ongoing, alarming rollback of our bodily autonomy.
Kylie Cheung is a Brooklyn-based journalist and the author of Survivor Injustice. Her work on reproductive rights and gender-based violence has appeared in Jezebel, Salon, Teen Vogue, and more.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this incendiary follow-up to Survivor Injustice, which drew parallels between abortion bans and domestic abuse, Jezebel staff writer Cheung surveys the "gruesome horrors" being inflicted upon women, children, pregnant people, and rape survivors in a post-Roe America. Cheung argues that, following the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, the state's abuser-like "control" over women's lives has tightened dramatically. As evidence, she points to the increased criminalization of miscarriages (treated as illicit abortions under the law), the widespread ignoring of "rape exceptions" to abortion bans in states that supposedly have them, the denying of free emergency contraception to rape victims because it allegedly counts as an abortifacient, and the apparent winding down of medical institutions' efforts to track and prevent maternal mortality. She profiles shocking cases of women and girls who have been deeply impacted by a rapidly changing legal and medical landscape—among them a 14-year-old denied her much-need osteoporosis medicine because it could theoretically induce miscarriage and an Idaho resident who suffered a shocking 19-day-long miscarriage as, despite "excruciating pain and severe blood loss," she was repeatedly turned away by medical providers who refused to remove the fetus. Clear-eyed and cutting, this disturbing litany of medical barbarisms calls into question the very notion that America is an advanced society, let alone a just one.
