Senior Producer
Jenn Stanley is a journalist, writer, and audio producer living in Chicago, Illinois. Currently, she’s a Senior Producer for Rewire.News. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Salon, the Windy City Times, and Next City, among others, and she’s worked as a facilitator at StoryCorps. She has an M.S. in journalism from Northwestern University.
Retired engineer and Lyft driver Rachel Brown came out as transgender at age 68. She's been using her time as a driver to educate her passengers in Massachusetts about an alarming referendum on the ballot this fall that could repeal transgender legal protections in the state. This is her story.
Season 4 of CHOICE/LESS is all about teens, sex, abortion, and the law. In the season finale, host Jenn Stanley talks to youth activists, artists, and their allies about putting abortion on center stage to fight stigma and change policy.
Season 4 of CHOICE/LESS is all about teens, sex, abortion, and the law. So far this series has posed the question, if adults and children have a hard time talking about even the most basic sex stuff, then why do 38 states force minors to tell their parents if their seeking an abortion? This episode explores what role schools should play in educating young people about sex.
Season 4 of CHOICE/LESS is all about teens, sex, abortion, and the law. In this episode, host Jenn Stanley asks what it takes to have open and healthy family communication, especially around polarizing topics like abortion.
Season 4 of CHOICE/LESS is all about teens, sex, abortion, and the law. In this episode, host Jenn Stanley talks to legal experts, including a former Cook County judge, about how teenagers in Illinois (and 37 other states) end up in court trying to prove they're mature enough to have an abortion.
Season 4 of CHOICE/LESS is all about teens, sex, abortion, and the law. In episode 1, Jenn takes you back to her own adolescence and talks with a former classmate about their experiences attending a small, all-girls Catholic high school.
It's no secret that parents and kids struggle to have honest conversations around sex and intimacy. At the same time, sex ed continues to disappear from our schools, and 38 states require teens to include their parents in their abortion decisions. This summer, host Jenn Stanley will help teens, parents, lawmakers, activists, and anyone who cares about young people find some answers to a simple question awash in complexity: If adults can't or won't talk to young people about sex, how can the law mandate that teens involve parents in their abortion decision?
The Atlantic editor-in-chief defended hiring a conservative columnist who once said women should executed for having abortions and who also likened a Black child to a primate. Because we need to hear angry white male rants more than the mainstream media wants real diversity.
Roy Moore lost, but barely. And his theocratic vision for the country lives on through Operation Save America (OSA). In this two-part audio documentary, CHOICE/LESS host Jenn Stanley and Rewire investigative reporter Sofia Resnick team up to reveal the alarming ways OSA’s far-right ideology is worming its way into state and federal government.
Roy Moore lost, but barely. And his theocratic vision for the country lives on through Operation Save America (OSA). In this two-part audio documentary, CHOICE/LESS host Jenn Stanley and Rewire investigative reporter Sofia Resnick team up to reveal the alarming ways OSA’s far-right ideology is worming its way into state and federal government.
Last winter, Kentucky state lawmakers fast-tracked a bill to ban abortion at 20 weeks post-fertilization. In this episode of CHOICE/LESS, Heather Hyden, 30, of Lexington, Kentucky, talks about how that bill directly affected her pregnancy and upended her life.
Calla Hales is the lead administrator of a regional chain of abortion clinics called A Preferred Women's Health Center, which she took over from her parents. She discusses her experience running a chain of clinics at such a young age, and what it's like growing up when the family business is abortion care.
Patrisse Cullors joins CHOICE/LESS again this week, and this time she’s talking to Alex Alvarez, a Latinx transgender man, about his decision to get pregnant and how he plans to parent.
Host Jenn Stanley and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors are joined by Black midwives Racha Tahani Lawler and Debbie Allen to discuss racism in health care and midwifery, and what it means to provide maternity care and support to communities who need it the most.
Stephanie Toti tells her story of arguing on behalf of Whole Woman's Health in the landmark Supreme Court case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. Go inside the mind of a reproductive rights attorney as she prepares for the biggest case of her career on the biggest stage in the country.
CHOICE/LESS returns with a blockbuster episode as host Jenn Stanley interviews former Texas State Senator Wendy Davis about the great lengths she took to kill the sweeping anti-abortion bill that because the infamous Texas HB 2.
In the final episode of the miniseries CHOICE/LESS: The Backstory, one of the men who blew the whistle on the "Tuskegee Study" talks about that experience, the study's legacy, and what we can learn from this page of history.
In our third episode of CHOICE/LESS: The Backstory, Comanche activist and women's rights advocate Charon Asetoyer discusses the Indian Health Service's extensive and deliberate campaign to sterilize thousands of Native American women without their informed consent.
In the second episode of our miniseries CHOICE/LESS: The Backstory, Loretta Ross, one of the founding mothers of the reproductive justice movement, talks about how her harmful experience with the infamous Dalkon Shield IUD inspired her career as a human rights activist.
Today, many people might be appalled to hear of a medical study being conducted on unwitting participants, but the concept of informed consent as we understand it today wasn't always a standard practice in health care. The first episode of our new miniseries CHOICE/LESS: The Backstory explores what went wrong during the 1956 contraceptive pill trial in Puerto Rico.
There are many wonderful adoption stories in the world, but almost none of them feature the perspective of the birth mother. In the season finale of CHOICE/LESS, Angelique Saavedra tells her powerful and heart-rending story so that other birth mothers know they don't have to be invisible—their experiences matter.
Dominick Evans is a filmmaker and activist who has a progressive, neuromuscular disability called spinal muscular atrophy. He needs the help of a wheelchair and other people to complete most physical tasks. He's also transgender. These intersecting identities have made it difficult for him to access the most basic and necessary reproductive health care — even in the emergency room.
Dr. Nicola Moore travels across the country to provide abortions at clinics where laws have made it nearly impossible to find providers in those areas. She has faced harassment and intimidation, but anti-choice threats haven't stopped her from helping to make abortion accessible. Listen to her story now on CHOICE/LESS.
Fourteen years ago, Cherisse Scott was a singer finishing a national tour. The career she'd worked so hard for all her life was about to blossom. Then an unplanned pregnancy and a trip to what she thought was an abortion clinic changed all of that. Listen to her story on this episode of CHOICE/LESS.
Tasha Fierce is a feminist writer and student of sociology. She's always been pro-choice, and when she chose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy she says she felt no shame — until she came face-to-face with anti-choice protesters outside the clinic.
The previous two episodes of CHOICE/LESS featured stories of people denied care at Catholic hospitals because the hospitals claimed their treatment would violate the church's ethical and religious directives. When do the church's rights trump the patient's rights? In this episode of CHOICE/LESS, Jessica Mason Pieklo explores the answer that question.
Mindy Swank grew up staunchly "pro-life" in a conservative Baptist family in Illinois. Then at age 24, already a wife and mother, Mindy developed life-threatening complications during a pregnancy. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just her church and family that felt she should risk death rather than terminate her pregnancy—the Catholic hospital at which she was being treated seemed to share that same sentiment.
Evan Minton is a transgender man, and the day before his hysterectomy was scheduled, his doctor called him with bad news: the surgery was cancelled. Dignity Health was a Catholic hospital, and claimed that Evan’s hysterectomy would conflict with the church's ethical and religious directives. But Evan chose his name for a reason; one of its meanings is fierce warrior, and he was ready to fight.
Jack RR Evans tells the stories of their abortion and of coming out. Jack is a nonbinary transgender person, and during the pregnancy they experienced gender dysphoria. But it wasn’t until years later that Jack understood why, when they realized they were transgender.
CHOICE/LESS is back, and for the first episode of season 2, host and producer Jenn Stanley speaks to Shout Your Abortion's Amelia Bonow about abortion storytelling and "taking back the moral high ground" from members of the religious right who've laid claim to powerful buzzwords like life, love, and patriotism.
The final episode, and for that matter the entire series, is a perfect, inevitable ending to a show that is at once beautiful, smart, and flawed, just like the Gilmore girls themselves.
Culture & Conversation Human Rights
"There are systems in place that are attacking our communities," explained Tara Tee of Hands Up United. "A lot of the things we’re doing is just rebuilding and creating plans to sustain, so that whatever this gap is doesn’t occur again.
Donald Trump's running mate has said that "life is winning in Indiana"—and the biggest winner is probably a chain of crisis pregnancy centers that landed a $3.5 million contract in funds originally intended for poor Hoosiers.
Catholic hospitals and health-care networks are thriving while other non-profit and community hospitals are struggling. As many hospitals try to stay afloat amidst continued turmoil in the health care industry, some merge with Catholic health-care networks, which follow the ethical and religious directives of the Church. As a result, about 20 percent of the hospital beds […]
All season long, CHOICE/LESS, has delivered powerful, personal stories of reproductive injustice and the laws, politics and people beyond the headlines. Over the past three years, it seems like one anti-choice law in particular has dominated the headlines: Texas House Bill 2. Jessica Mason Pieklo, vice president of law and the courts at Rewire, describes the bill as […]
A 2014 amendment to Tennessee’s fetal homicide bill allowed the state to charge pregnant women with aggravated assault, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, if they have pregnancy complications after illegal narcotic use. It’s the first law of its kind, and its opened the door for the state to charge women for drug use, and […]
Texas is one of 38 states that require some form of parental involvement when a minor seeks an abortion. In the 5th episode of CHOICE/LESS, we hear from Tina Hester, the executive director of Jane’s Due Process. She helps Texas minors who, for whatever reason, can’t involve a parent in their abortion decisions. Specifically, Tina assists pregnant […]
CHOICE/LESS creates a platform for people to take back their stories from the dangerous, false, and shameful rhetoric surrounding sex, unplanned pregnancy, and reproductive rights. But coming forward requires bravery, because it can come at a price. This episode is a perfect example of how anti-choice legislators and activists often try to advance their agenda by […]
In our third episode of CHOICE/LESS, Valerie discusses her family’s joy for her third pregnancy, the news that changed everything, and the cruel legal obstacles that left her stranded in her own state.
In the second episode of CHOICE/LESS, Regina shares the story of the heartbreaking pregnancy complications that tested her physical, emotional and spiritual limits, and the hospital board vote that would determine her future.
In this first episode of CHOICE/LESS, Candice discusses how her childhood influenced her own reproductive decisions, and how her choices in childbearing and parenting were hindered by HB 2, the sprawling anti-abortion law at the heart of the Supreme Court case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.
Gov. Dennis Daugaard was poised to sign the bill, but agreed to meet with transgender South Dakotans before he made his final decision, saying he had never knowingly met a transgender person.
In this first episode of Rewire's new storytelling podcast we hear from Candice, an activist, Texan, and Latina who will share her story in front of the Supreme Court this week against Texas' omnibus abortion law.
Gov. Matt Bevin has accused Planned Parenthood of providing "illegal abortions," even though the health-care organization has released documents showing that they were operating well within the law.
The South Dakota legislature this week passed a bill to ban transgender students from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has made anti-choice laws a key part of his agenda, so Kentucky women are fielding their reproductive health questions to #AskBevinAboutMyVag.
A Planned Parenthood representative believes that pressure to hold onto their majority during March special elections could lead many Kentucky Democrats in the state house to vote in favor of the GOP's anti-choice laws.
The funds will be redirected to about 200 health-care facilities, but pro-choice advocates don’t think those health centers could fill the gap left by Planned Parenthood’s defunding.
The bill is meant to protect animals from abuse. It also makes sodomy a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
The move is part of Republican lawmakers' conservative agenda designed to "send a message to voters."
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