I created the Abortion Trading Cards in response to a moment of profound upheaval in the fight for reproductive rights—an outcry against the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. In this politically charged climate, art became my way of channeling the fear, anger, and frustration that I, along with so many others, felt when access to safe abortion care was thrown into uncertainty.
Drawing from history, herbalist lore, feminist art, and the Constructivist Art movement, The Abortion Trading Cards imagine a dystopian future where all abortion, sexual education, and reproductive healthcare is illegal. Information has been forced underground, and pregnant people secretly share information about abortifacient herbs, anatomy, and abortion history using decks of hand-altered playing cards. They were purposefully made to look and feel as if they had been "traded" amongst hundreds of hands, passed in secret from one person to the next. Hand-written notes and arcane symbols share camouflaged clues that have been forgotten or lost.
Soon after the Dobbs decision came down, I was in Galway Ireland for a 1-month residency and landed on St. Brigid's Day. A longtime supporter of the Brigid Alliance, I knew the history of this saint as Ireland's first abortionist in medieval hagiographies.
Inspired by the "escape map cards" in the Spy Museum, I began to make a deck of cards that imagined abortion becoming totally illegal. During WWII, the U.S. Playing Card Company joined forces with American & British intelligence agencies to create a deck and help Allied prisoners of war escape from German camps. When cards were soaked in water, they reveal a piece of a map inside which helped POW's escape.
- Alexandra Jamiseson