Women's Medical Fund in the News
Steph Herold delivered the following on May 19, 2011 at the WMF Spring Reception, where she was honored with the Rosie Jimenez award for her work taking advocacy to a new generation of activists using social media.
I’m so honored to be here and to receive this award. I am beyond grateful to Susan and to the Women’s Medical Fund for providing me a place to nurture and grow my reproductive justice wings. Susan was the first person in the movement who treated me like a peer. She never believed the libel that young women don’t care about abortion rights.
As Susan said, I started working at the Women’s Medical Fund during my freshman year of college. To say that my job as an Access Counselor changed my life would be an understatement. Working at WMF felt like coming home. I worked alongside women who cared passionately and deeply about the well-being of strangers in tough situations. Each time I left the office, I felt confident that thanks to WMF, I had changed many women’s lives that day.
When I graduated from college, I made the easy transition of working at an abortion clinic, the Philadelphia Women’s Center. I mostly talked to women before their abortions. We covered everything from their medical history to how they thought they were going to feel after the abortion. It was my job to make sure they felt physically, emotionally, medically and spiritually prepared for their abortion experience. A pretty tall order for someone who didn’t even know where her own cervix was.
About 6 months and many abortion stories later, I felt comfortable providing women with the compassionate, safe abortion care they deserved. But then everything changed. On May 31, 2009, my hero Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider in Kansas, was murdered in his church.
At PWC, like at other clinics nationwide, we referred our patients to Dr. Tiller if we couldn't see them due to a later stage in pregnancy or a severe fetal anomaly. He was a hero in my mind, a kind of Abortion God who stood for justice, peace, and compassion. I aspired to live and work by his high standards.
After his murder, we had an all-staff meeting to discuss our feelings and, of course, our safety. Out of that meeting, one of the many sentiments expressed was the need for a space for abortion providers to tell our stories. In creating such a space, perhaps we could humanize abortion providers and clinic staff. Maybe, we thought, if they hear our stories, they won't kill us.
So I started IAmDrTiller.com. I asked abortion providers, including doctors, clinic escorts, counselors, abortion fund volunteers and others, to submit a personal story about their experience in abortion care to post on the website. I also asked them to submit a photo of themselves with a sign saying, "I Am Dr. Tiller,” obscuring their face, or not, as a way of showing our connectedness and solidarity. Many of these people are in this room right now.
I didn’t ask permission to start this site. I didn’t ask my supervisor and I didn’t ask my co-workers. I saw a need and I got to work.
I also didn’t ask if I could start a twitter account. I just did it. I started by tweeting every time there was a new submission to the website, but eventually that grew into more. I tweeted about what it felt like to be harassed at my workplace simply for showing up, and about the need to de- stigmatize abortions – the people who provide them and the women who have them.
I learned very quickly that social media not only is a possible tool for activism, it is a critical tool. Twitter is our march on Washington, except anyone in the world can log on and see what’s happening. Social media – twitter and facebook – are how we yell to the entire universe HEY! SOME INJUSTICE IS GOING DOWN HERE, AND WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT! Do I need to mention Egypt? Iran? Wisconsin? Twitter didn’t make these revolutions happen. Twitter helped these revolutions spread.
I felt this more personally when I started a twitter hashtag that ended up on CNN and in the Washington Post. I asked women to come out about their abortion stories and use the hashtag #Ihadanabortion to do so. Within a few hours, women were tweeting their experiences- some of whom had never been public, in any way, about their abortions before. I didn’t realize what a nerve this struck until I was taking a practice GRE test and got a phone call from a CNN producer. She asked me a few questions, none of which I was prepared for (and which led her to determine that I was a little too passionate to be on TV), and the next morning my name and the hashtag were on CNN’s national morning show, and then on PBS, and then all over the print media.
I didn’t ask permission to start this hashtag. I saw a need and I filled it. I didn’t ask permission to become an activist, and you don’t have to either.
Everyone in this room has the potential to start a hashtag, a website, a blog, a twitter account. Don’t listen when people tell you that our generation is apathetic. We’re working around the clock. We’re doing it online, we’re doing it in the streets, and on CNN, and on the hotline of the Women’s Medical Fund. Embrace online activism in whatever form you want as a tool that allows you to be a four-dimensional leader. And if you’re ok being a follower, follow me on twitt
Susan Schewel quoted extensively in this piece "Thirty Years: What's Happend to Abortion Access"
How has WMF responded to the Kermit Gosnell story?
Click here to read Susan Schewel's op-ed in the Philadelphia Daily News.
Click here to read Katha Pollitt's piece in The Nation. Susan Schewel is quoted in it. Pollitt makes the critical point: "This is what illegal abortion looks like."
Check out coverage in RH Reality Check: Susan Schewel and Patty Skuster: "Why Did They Seek Abortions There? How Abortion Bans Threaten Women's Lives"
Click here to read the Philadelphia Tribune piece that quotes Susan Schewel.
Click here to read the Alternet piece that features Susan Schewel and Rose Corrigan.
Reproductive Justice Arts Extravaganza in the News!
Check out this blog post on this special event held on September 25 at AxD Gallery.
All Things Considered
Susan Schewel was interviewed on All Things Considered on National Public Radio regarding the closing of Dr. Kermit Gosnell's West Philadelphia clinic.. Click here to read or listen to the story.
WHYY
WHYY, our local National Public Radio affiliate also interviewed Susan Schewel. Click here to read or listen to the story.
City Hall Press Conference
Women's Medical Fund Executive Director Susan Schewel addresses issues of reproductive justice in health care reform at a press conference in Philadelphia on Dec. 21, 2009. Click here to see the video.