Abortion and Mothering: Research, Stories, and Artistic Expressions of a Common Intersection is a collection of academic research, personal narratives, and art that comments on different perspectives on abortion and mothering. Scholarly research is balanced with voices and experiences from outside of academia, through the inclusion of personal narratives, poetry, and art. The collection is rooted in the idea that there are not ‘women who have abortions’ and ‘women who have babies’, but that they are the same women at different points in their lives. By considering the intersection of abortion and mothering, and the liminal spaces in between, the reader is challenged to explore some of the culturally and socially constructed complexities that surround the decisions that people make about to their reproductive lives.

Heather Jackson, a former teen mom, is now a 30-something single mom of a teen. She is often mistaken as her daughter’s friend or sister! She is a former site producer of girl-mom.com. Currently, she works as a birth doula and an early childhood counsellor in Rhode Island. She published a chapter in The Bakken Goes Boom regarding the change of maternal health related to the oil boom in North Dakota (where she grew up!). In addition to this, she is also co-editor of Feminist Parenting and is currently co-editing Motherhood and Abortion anthologies through Demeter Press (http://demeterpress.org/). Her writing has also been published on thepushback.org, hipmama.com, girl-mom.com, muthamagazine.com, books, and zines. She loves bike riding, going to the beach, playing guitar, drums, and ukulele, going to shows, making zines (etsy shop: ramonegirl), and writing.

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Jessica Shaw is a professor of social work at the University of Calgary (Alberta, Canada) a full-spectrum doula, and a director of Women Help Women (womenhelp.org) – an international feminist organization that supports abortion access in places where it is illegal or highly restricted. Jessica became a mother in 2021 and completed final edits of this book while babywearing her newborn.

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