Reproductive Rights In The Time Before 'Gender'

When women were a sex class and they did not apologize

“Sex: Just The Facts” was a double gate fold pamphlet produced by Alabama Reproductive Rights Advocates (ARRA) in 2014. Reading it is like taking a step backwards in time to an epoch where women were understood as a sex class rather than a gender-feeling that only exists in the heads of men.

Founded by Elizabeth Potter Graham, a now-retired Birmingham attorney in her 70s, the organization appears to be defunct. ARRA stopped updating their website in 2017. The X account stopped posting in June 2024, while the last update on the ARRA Facebook page was a note about Costco providing Plan B in December 2024. Ms. Graham remains active on Bluesky under her own name.

Though I do not specifically recall an encounter, I may have met Ms. Graham during my reporting in the abortion clinic defense world. I encountered ARRA’s pamphlet at the POWER House located next door to the Reproductive Services of Alabama (RSA) clinic in Montgomery the same year it was printed. By happenstance, I recently discov…