Profiles
of Renee
For the ‘Beyoncé of Abortion Storytelling,’ the Fight Is Just Beginning
Renee Bracey Sherman is changing how people think about abortions, but her target isn’t the anti-choice activists picketing the rally in front of the Supreme Court. “It’s a waste of my time and energy,” she says. “Men like that are never going to change their minds. They are hell-bent on controlling women and people of color. My job is to ensure that people who have abortions are loved and supported.”
Renee Bracey Sherman wants you to know that someone you love has had an abortion
When does a personal story become a confession?
That's one of the questions Renee Bracey Sherman was mulling a few days after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, paving the way for abortion bans to take effect in nearly half the country.
Bracey Sherman is the founder and executive director of We Testify, an outlet for people who want to share their abortion stories, and a resource for journalists to put a human face on coverage. Her mission is summed up in her email sign-off: "Everyone loves someone who had an abortion."
The Unapologetic Abortion Storyteller
Renee Bracey Sheman is unapologetic about her abortion. And she thinks everyone else should be, too.
The activist and author was 19 when she got an abortion. Little did she know at the time that her experience would lead to a decades-spanning career in reproductive justice work. As the founder and executive director of We Testify, Bracey Sherman has made it her life’s work to help other people tell their abortion stories, with a focus on the intersections of race, class and gender, as a way to eliminate stigma around the procedure.
‘Police may be at your hospital bed’: an abortion rights activist on post-Roe criminalization
Renee Bracey Sherman argues that abortion rights and police support cannot go hand-in-hand
The day before the decision, Bracey Sherman, the founder of We Testify, an organization that shares stories of abortion, argued in a column in The Nation that police and law enforcement have long hampered the abortion rights movement – and that they would have a dramatically expanded role in a post-Roe world where abortion is widely criminalized…The Guardian spoke to Bracey Sherman on Monday about the protests, and why she believes “you can’t support Roe v Wade and then turn around and say we need to give the police more money”.
Renee Bracey Sherman Is the Beyoncé of Abortion Storytelling
Renee Bracey Sherman a.k.a. the “Beyoncé of abortion storytelling” has been an integral part of the national and global fight for reproductive justice for quite a while now—and she doesn’t intend to slow down now. Bracey Sherman formerly worked as the senior public affairs manager at the National Network of Abortion Funds where she created and ran We Testify, a program that worked to increase the “spectrum of abortion storytellers in the public sphere” and shift “the way the media understands the context and complexity of accessing abortion care.”
Now, Bracey Sherman is turning We Testify into an independent organization that will continue helping people who’ve had abortions tell their stories.
The Reproductive Justice Activist Fighting for Black and Brown Women
With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent passing and President Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to replace her, the Supreme Court could be weeks away from transforming into a solidly conservative judicial body. Reproductive rights hang in the balance. We have never needed activist Renee Bracey Sherman and her work more.