The Abortion Conversation Project announced six successful grants totaling $5,000 in its Spring 2014 round of mini-grants. “The awards represent diverse ways to extend necessary conversations about abortion,” noted Peg Johnston of the Abortion Conversation Project Board.
The Abortion Conversation Project’s mission is “to challenge the polarization that characterizes abortion conversation, lessen the stigmatization of abortion, and promote speaking and listening with empathy, dignity, and resilience about even the most difficult aspects of abortion.”
- Emily Letts, whose video, “This is My Story” has gone viral after winning the Abortion Care Network’s Stigma Busting Video Competition, was awarded a grant to do further videotaping and to enter film festivals.
- Lori Brown, an architect, whose book Contested Spaces examines the controversy at clinics as a design issue, was awarded a grant for a contest to design a fence outside the Jacksonville abortion clinic, the only remaining clinic in Mississippi.
- Megan Smith, who founded the Repeal Hyde Art Project, plans to create a leadership course for young women in the Boston area.
- Also, the Boston Doula Project received a grant to host a monthly Salon Series to foster dialogue about reproductive experiences, including abortion.
- Another grant will help establish Social Workers for Reproductive Justice by creating training materials for social workers.
- The Peace Foundation in Pakistan, where abortion is legal but is considered a sin by many, has received a grant to buy software to communicate vital abortion information with women in far-flung rural areas.