this week in sweet

links, lists, & opinions

• I’m currently reading Gretchen Sisson’s new book Relinquished and am learning *a lot*. An essential repro read.

  A powerful decade-long study of adoption in the age of Roe, Relinquished reveals the grief of the American mothers for whom the choice to parent was never real. Adoption has always been viewed as a beloved institution for building families, as well as a mutually agreeable common ground in the abortion debate, but little attention has been paid to the lives of mothers who relinquish infants for private adoption. Relinquished reveals adoption to be a path of constrained choice for those for whom abortion is inaccessible, or for whom parenthood is untenable. The stories of relinquishing mothers are stories about our country's refusal to care for families at the most basic level, and to instead embrace an individual, private solution to a large-scale, social problem.

• Are you listening to The A Files: A Secret History of Abortion?

  In this series, Renee Bracey Sherman and Regina Mahone—reproductive justice experts and friends—unpack the hidden history of this very common practice, from ancient Greek methods to the anti-Black roots of abortion bans in the U.S. Plus, some of the smartest people we know stop by to drop wisdom, and Renee and Regina start a little book club for all of us.

  • (Psst: don’t forget to preorder Renee and Regina’s upcoming book Liberating Abortion: Our Legacy, Stories, and Vision for How We Save Us!!)

• I just finished all 8 seasons of Shetland (a rec from our collective mystery show list!) and wish there were more. In case you missed it, here’s the list of the best mystery tv shows/books: