Writing About the Sounds of the Abortion Movement

Hi friends, Romans, and people who signed up for my former Substack. I'm trying out a new platform and thought I'd send out a note about a piece I wrote for Pitchfork on the sounds of the abortion movement. I thought I'd give you a behind the scenes look at how this story came together — it's been in the works since it was commissioned in June. The header illustration on it came directly from signs I saw at the Reproductive Liberation march in Dallas back in July.

The idea for this piece came from an editor at Pitchfork, who I've worked with before. Following the Dobbs ruling, the site was looking for someone in a state directly impacted by the swiftly changing abortion laws to write an on-the-ground piece about the sounds of a rally. It was going to be about what songs people played, what chants they said, what song lyrics were on their signs, and what band t-shirts they might wear.

So went to Main Street park downtown in the middle of an insane heat wave, coated in mineral sunscreen with a bag of canned water and towels soaked in ice water. The first draft was that first-person piece, but due to some personal life stuff it didn't go. Later in the summer, that editor and I connected again and decided to expand the piece beyond one moment in time into a broader historical view of the sounds of this movement.

It struck me at the rally how much the contemporary songs I heard played were unrelated to the idea of abortion, women's rights, equal rights, or bodily autonomy. The most impactful musical moments, the ones that seemed to rile the crowd up, came when a band on-site played alt-rock '90s songs. That guided my writing, it served as a starting point to consider if the songs we still sing about this came out before or after the 1992 Casey vs. Planned Parenthood decision. My editor had suggested using the excellent Rock for Choice story in the L.A. Times by Suzy Exposito as a peg, and it did end up staying in the final story.

My editor also wanted to loop in the bizarre case of the Chainsmokers "Paris" becoming a TikTok anthem for women expressing solidarity for each other as a pro-choice sign in the days after Dobbs passed, documented in this Washington Post article. I remembered seeing one of those TikToks in particular, where French women sent support to Americans. I searched for the song because I didn't know it. It was...a surprise, to say the least. But it got at an idea about how songs about the abortion movement aren't always songs overtly about abortion.

I knew I wanted to include country music in this story because it's been clear to me that the angry women sound of the '90s had a counterpart in the emancipated woman trend that happened in country music. At some point, I'd like to write more about those two sounds and their relationship to the Casey decision. It was especially interesting to go back to Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn's catalogs and examine them. When talking to people as I was writing this, "The Pill" came up so many times. It may be shocking today to realize it, but the birth control pill wasn't made widely available to single women until 1972, the same year Roe was passed. Lynn released that song in '75.

In the course of writing, my editor had to take a leave of absence, and someone new came on to work on the story. They offered absolutely amazing suggestions that made this piece so much better than my drafts. This is the first time I've published a piece with Pitchfork since 2015, just at the time when it became part of Conde Nast. The process couldn't have been more different, with multiple rounds of edits, a top edit, and a fact check.

The publication mindfully wanted to publish this before the election to speak to the moment and encourage voters to think about the importance of bodily autonomy in states where abortion access has been impacted. In Texas, the abortion ban is total, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The right for an individual to consult with their doctor and determine the health outcome that is best for them is important. Equal rights for women, the LGBTQ+ community, and for BIPOCs is important. I hope you'll vote with that in mind in this election. I hope you'll show up.