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Seven Stories Press

Works of Radical Imagination

Generation Roe

Inside the Future of the Pro-Choice Movement

by Sarah Erdreich

Book cover for Generation Roe
Book cover for Generation RoeBook cover for Generation Roe

Inextricably connected to issues of autonomy, privacy, and sexuality, the abortion debate remains home base for the culture wars in America. Yet, there is more common ground than meets the eye in favor of choice. Sarah Erdreich’s Generation Roe delves into phenomena such as "abortion-recovery counseling," "crisis pregnancy centers," and the infamous anti-choice "black children are an endangered species" billboards. It tells the stories of those who risk their lives to pursue careers in this stigmatized field. And it outlines the outrageous legislative battles that are being waged against abortion rights all over the country. With an inspiring spirit and a forward-looking approach, Erdreich holds abortion up, unabashedly, as a moral and fundamental human right.

Book cover for Generation Roe
Book cover for Generation RoeBook cover for Generation Roe

Buying options

“Before and after Roe v. Wade, a third of all American women have needed an abortion at some time in their lives, yet instead of a subject of health care, this has become subject of secrecy. To break the spell, read Generation Roe by Sarah Erdreich. She replaces lies with honesty and myth with reality.”

“Forty years after Roe v. Wade, Erdreich shows why the abortion issue remains salient.”

“Each generation experiences the battles for reproductive choice uniquely. Sarah Erdreich digs into our current terrain—one of crisis pregnancy centers, the lulling effect of Roe, and the introduction of a new cadre of young activists online—to illustrate the morality and urgency that animate the right to abortion.”

“In her first book, journalist and women’s health advocate Erdreich delivers a passionate study of the past, current, and future state of the pro-choice movement in America...This is a thoughtful and comprehensive treatment of one side of an emotionally charged topic.”

“In several sagaciously researched essays, Erdreich presents some of the voices of women who choose abortion and why. An honest probing of law, public perception and conscience in the abortion debate.”

“Sarah Erdreich zeroes in on the central paradox of abortion in America: One in three women will have at least one abortion by menopause, but the anti-choice movement is scoring victory after victory. Stigma and shame—and, let's not forget, fear of anti-choice violence—keep too many women from speaking out even as their rights are whittled away. Can the young activists of Generation Roe revitalize the pro-choice movement? If you want to know what they're thinking, this book is a great place to begin.”

“Published at the start of President Barack Obama's second term in office, Sarah Erdreich's Generation Roe envisions the new challenges that reproductive rights advocates must face in order to push abortion out from the shadows of social taboo, exposing it for the common, life-saving reality it is.”

“The book maintains a deft, critical tone that’s a refreshing break from most writing about abortions. Erdreich honestly and sharply evaluates the state of the movement and looks at what is and is not working for reproductive rights activists. She discusses the social stigma surrounding abortion, the tide of anti-choice legislation sweeping the nation, the dangers of providing abortion care, abortion in pop culture, and the strategies employed by the anti-choice movement in detail, weaving personal and political narratives together quite seamlessly. It’s a fantastic overview of the issues facing the movement today, and the people on the front lines of the culture war over reproductive rights. A must-have for readers interested in reproductive rights subjects, particularly those who wish to expand the scope and nature of the debate to make it more inclusive of the larger picture.”

blog — January 20

Roe v. Wade at 50: Download a free copy of The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America

“The overturning of Roe is the perfect time for every supporter of abortion rights to examine their own commitment to the cause and to discover how they, too, can meet this moment. … Thinking local will be key in a post-Roe environment in which more than ever access to abortion is determined by one’s geography.”

—Robin Marty, author of Handbook for a Post-Roe America, for New York Times Opinion

get the healthcare you need — by any means necessary


January 22, 2023 marks fifty years since the passage of the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade (1973), and seven months since it was unceremoniously overturned by our current Supreme Court justices. In the months since the Court declared that the federal government cannot mandate states to allow pregnant people to end their pregnancies, we have grappled with the consequences of this decision, strengthening existing abortion networks and funds and establishing new ones to help serve the now-significant portion of the US population that doesn’t have direct access to abortion.

In a recent interview with Truthout, Handbook for a Post-Roe America author Robin Marty stressed the importance of sharing information about self-managed abortion whenever possible. Marty says, “Technology is the biggest way of pushing it: websites, emails, Twitter, all of these electronic disseminations.” However, these methods of accessing information are not available to everyone, particularly those without reliable internet access or those who fear reprisal should a family member or partner gain access to their search history. “We need to make this easy,” Marty said. “There’s an easy way for people to be able to access medication. There’s an easy way for people to be able to perform their own abortions. This is not difficult. And the fact that the government is blocking them from it, that is cruelty. It’s nothing short of cruelty.”

That’s why we’re making DRM-free (easily shareable) copies of The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America available to download for free from our website through Monday, January 23rd. Download a copy for yourself or send it to a friend, family member, or anyone else who might one day need to terminate a pregnancy.

The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America is a comprehensive and user-friendly manual for understanding and navigating recent cataclysmic changes to reproductive rights law, to help you get the health care you need — by any means necessary. Activist and writer Robin Marty guides readers through a post-Roe America, offers waying to fight back, including: how to acquire financial support, how to use existing networks and create new ones, and how to, when required, work outside existing legal systems. She details how to plan for your own emergencies, how to start organizing, what to know about self-managed abortion care with pills and/or herbs, and how to avoid surveillance. The only guidebook of its kind, The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America includes new chapters that cover the needs and tools available for pregnant people across the country.

This second edition features extensively updated information on abortion legality and access in the United States, and approximately one hundred pages of new content, covering such topics as independent alternatives to Planned Parenthood, "auntie networks," taxpayer-funded abortions, and using social media wisely in the age of surveillance.

RECOMMENDED READING

WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 

Now a major motion picture directed by Audrey Diwan

Translated by Tanya Leslie

In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: Understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep that child.

This is the story, written forty years later, of a trauma Ernaux never overcame. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located an abortionist, and ends up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly dies.

In Happening, Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days. Clearly, cleanly, she gleans the meanings of her experience.

Inextricably connected to issues of autonomy, privacy, and sexuality, the abortion debate remains home base for the culture wars in America. Yet, there is more common ground than meets the eye in favor of choice. Sarah Erdreich’s Generation Roe delves into phenomena such as "abortion-recovery counseling," "crisis pregnancy centers," and the infamous anti-choice "black children are an endangered species" billboards. It tells the stories of those who risk their lives to pursue careers in this stigmatized field. And it outlines the outrageous legislative battles that are being waged against abortion rights all over the country. With an inspiring spirit and a forward-looking approach, Erdreich holds abortion up, unabashedly, as a moral and fundamental human right.  

Edited by Barbara Seaman and Laura Eldridge

Science journalist Barbara Seaman (1935-2008) spent the last forty years of her life on the front lines as a women's health advocate. Throughout her career, she was also a tireless supporter of other women's voices. Here she brings together an essential collection of essays, interviews, and commentary by leading activists, writers, doctors, and sociologists on topics ranging across reproductive rights, sex and orgasm, activism, motherhood and birth control. The more than two hundred contributors include Jennifer Baumgardner, Susan Brownmiller, Phyllis Chesler, Angela Davis, Barbara Ehrenreich, Germaine Greer, Shulamith Firestone, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Erica Jong, Molly Haskell, Shere Hite, Susie Orbach, Judith Rossner, Alix Kates Shulman, Gloria Steinem, Sojourner Truth, Rebecca Walker, Naomi Wolf, and many others.

Sarah Erdreich

Women's health advocate and writer SARAH ERDREICH has been identified as a leading pro-choice activist by Newsweek, and her incisive writings on abortion rights have been noted by Jezebel, Feministing, and the National Partnership for Women and Families. She has worked for several prominent pro-choice organizations, and has been published in On The Issues, Lilith, Feminists For Choice, and RH Reality Check. She has also worked editorially with the magazines HUES and Teen Voice. Generation Roe is her first book.