Jessica Valenti on Abortion with Alexis McGill Johnson

BPL Presents brings a stirring and succinct examination of post-Roe America by Jessica Valenti, “one of the most successful and visible feminists of her generation” (Washington Post). In Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies & the Truths We Use to Win, Valenti takes on what’s become one of the country’s most resonant political issues. Valenti will be in conversation with Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

New York Times bestselling author Jessica Valenti shines a light on what she sees as the assault on women’s freedom, cutting through the misinformation and overwhelm to inform, engage, and enrage. From the attacks Americans know about to the ones she argues anti-abortion lawmakers and groups are trying to hide, Valenti details the tactics and horrors that she’s been painstakingly tracking in her acclaimed newsletter, Abortion, Every Day.

Abortion gives voice to women’s frustration and outrage in a moment when many feel fed up with being talked over and diminished. Published in an election year when abortion partly dominated the national conversation, Valenti provides the language, facts, and context she believes readers need to feel confident when talking about the attacks on their bodies and freedom.

Abortion is a handbook for the overwhelming majority of Americans who, like Valenti,  support abortion rights, whether they’re seasoned activists or those just starting to learn. With the wit, expertise, and blunt moral clarity that’s made her writing popular for decades, Valenti offers what has been praised as an essential manifesto in an urgent moment.

 

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PARTICIPANTS

Award-winning writer and activist Jessica Valenti is the author of seven books, including The New York Times bestseller Sex Object: A Memoir. Her groundbreaking anthology, Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, paved the way for legislation of the same name, setting what’s now considered the gold standard for sexual consent. Jessica has also been credited with sparking feminism’s online wave by founding the trailblazing blog Feministing. She’s been a columnist for The Guardian and The Nation, and her writing has been published everywhere from The New York Times and The Atlantic to Bitch magazine and The Toast. After the demise of Roe, Jessica founded Abortion, Every Day, an urgent synthesis of anything and everything happening with abortion rights in the United States. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

 

Alexis McGill Johnson is president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), a national nonprofit organization that is the country's most trusted name in sexual and reproductive health and education. Through a network of separately incorporated affiliates, Planned Parenthood health centers provide vital health care to more than 2 million people each year at nearly 600 health centers across the country, so that everyone — no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make — can get supportive, high-quality health care to live full, healthy lives. She is also the President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, a national reproductive health and rights advocacy organization.