Emily Jane O'Brien

Writer, Researcher, Editor, & Community Organizer for Reproductive Justice

United States

Hi, I'm Emily (she/her/hers) and I support abortion access & reproductive justice as an advocate, writer, storyteller, teacher & researcher. I have experience with blogging, content writing, copy editing, proofreading, policy analysis, academic research writing, technical writing, creative nonfiction, and more. My policy and political analyses have been published in Salon and Rewire News, and I have also been interviewed for outlets such as Vice News, Teen Vogue, and NBC on my abortion and reproductive justice expertise and advocacy work.

Portfolio
(My Abortion Story Featured] in “NBC Think”; article by Danielle Campoamor
09/02/2021
New Texas abortion law must change how we think about 'illegal' abortions

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court refused to block a near-total abortion ban in Texas in a 5-4 decision. The ban, which outlaws abortions after about six weeks' gestation - before most people even know they're pregnant - allows citizens who "whistleblow" on anyone they believe has provided an abor ...

(My Abortion Story Featured] in “Teen Vogue;” article by Danielle Campoamor
01/2019
These 39 Stories Show the Many Reasons Why People Need Abortion

On January 2, 39 GOP Senators signed an AMICUS brief urging the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade , the 1973 Supreme Court case that secured the legal right to abortion.

Rewire.News
Indiana's Assault on Reproductive Rights Continues, But Not Without a Fight - Rewire.News

Indiana's record on reproductive rights is among the worst in the nation, and some (mostly male) Hoosier legislators seem determined to continue that trend in 2017. While the most extreme proposed bill that would have banned and criminalized all abortions, HB 1134, was stalled in committee, two other major anti-choice bills are still being considered in the state legislature.

Editing
2019
Bridging the Movements- A Crip Political/Relational Model for Reproductive Justice

I propose the reproductive justice model for coalition-building as an example of the political/relational crip coalition that Kafer calls for— my analysis answers Kafer’s call for scholars and activists to use crip theory to imagine alternative futures of coalition-building and social justice work. My analysis uses crip theory through a feminist theory framework to show how feminist theorists have long been the ones turning theory into practice, and how crip theory’s focus on praxis is...

Pending
2019
“The Redstockings Abortion Speakout” Feminist Oral History as Feminist Practice: A Historiography...

Using the U.S.’s first public abortion speakout as a point of both origin and return for feminist public history practices, this historiography traces some of the ways in which historians articulate and practice a distinctly feminist method of public history. First, I examine some foundational feminist oral history methodologies that resonate with the storytelling approach of the Redstockings. I also analyze some examples of the two-way-flow between activism and scholarship in the field of...

M.A. Thesis (unpublished; 5 year hold)
11/2016
Reclaiming Abortion Politics through Reproductive Justice: The Radical Potential of Abortion...

Over the course of this thesis, I examine storytelling in context with the radical theory and praxis of reproductive justice. As a white feminist committed to dismantling white supremacy, I am particularly invested in illuminating the urgency of RJT as a radical theory of liberation in context with historical and current trends about how the U.S.’s cultural approaches and normative responses to reproductive politics. Each of the following chapters examines storytelling in certain contexts—in...