A Letter from the Editors Dear Readers,
On Friday, June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court cases that upheld the constitutional right to choose abortion. To the Court, women do not have a right to their own bodies and, instead, are at the whim of the states. In light of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, we at Feminist Spaces are reminded that the work that we and our contributors do for feminism is ever important. Because this recent redaction of reproductive rights has been on our minds, this year’s issue critiques and discusses motherhood, pregnancy, and sexuality and their effects on oppressed individuals. The fight for reproductive freedom retains relevance not only to people in America but also to feminists everywhere. The overturning of Roe v. Wade might affect Americans directly; however, challenged bodily autonomy, restricted health access, and archaic views of motherhood are not exclusive to the United States. In this issue, we present international works that tackle these topics, including Tallulah Costa’s essay “Women of the Surveillance State,” a discussion of anti-abortion surveillance and women’s loss of privacy and Sasan Meftahi’s artwork The Body Has Been Looted, a visual challenge to the societal condemnation of motherhood in Iranian culture.
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