Byllye Avery grew up on a farm in DeLand, Florida and, together with her colleagues, opened the first abortion clinic in Gainesville in 1974. Avery founded the National Black Women's Health Project and was a signatory to 1989's We Remember: African American Women for Reproductive Freedom, along with Shirley Chisholm, Maxine Waters, and Faye Wattleton.

In New York City, Ann Trow Lohman sold abortifacient pills and surgical abortions through newspaper ads. Her work attracted the attention of the American Medical Association and Anthony Comstock. Their intervention led to the outlawing of abortion in the US and the passing of the Comstock Laws in 1873, which outlawed mailing contraceptives, abortifacients, and anything with obscene, sexual or pornographic content.

Moving away from my interest in the domestic sphere and into the public sphere, the video piece shown here is my first foray into video art. In contrast to the networks created by women sitting around kitchen tables, this piece investigates the public, outward experience of abortion in the US. The stills are screenshots from Google Maps of every active abortion clinic in the states least friendly to reproductive rights as of November 1, 2019. The length of time the clinic is shown on screen is proportionate to the number of women it serves. The text is from the Army of God, a Christian domestic terrorist group, and the audio is pulled from AP raw footage of the aftermath of attacks on abortion clinics.