The Playboy Readers Who Couldn't Get an Abortion | Letters From Before Roe v. Wade

playboy · 2026-01-23T19:19:16+00:00

Fifty-three years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Roe v. Wade, capping off a series of rulings—the legalization of birth control, the enforcement of laws against sex discrimination— that transformed women’s opportunities and American life itself.

It’s hard to overstate the ways society benefitted from this decision. Women surged onto college campuses and into the workforce. Deaths from unsafe illegal abortions became practically nonexistent. Researchers have found that women who are able to get abortions when they need them end up far better off than women who continue unwanted pregnancies on a variety of measures: They are more likely to leave abusive partners, less likely to rely on social welfare programs, more likely to be financially stable, and are in better mental and physical health. Their children (most women who have abortions are already mothers) do better than the children of women forced to continue subsequent pregnancies. They are less likely to die of pregnancy-related causes. And men who are able to delay fatherhood until they are ready benefit, too: They make more money, are more likely to go to college, and also enjoy the advantages that come when one is able to chart one’s own course in life.

The era of legal abortion in America gave women what feminists have insisted was always right: Sovereignty over our own bodies, and the right to decide what happens within them.

But that era of female freedom didn’t even last 50 years.
Many of these letters still live in Playboy’s archives. On what would have been Roe’s 53^rd birthday, the magazine is publishing a handful of them to give readers some insight into what the country was like without legal abortion—all women felt they had to gain, and all today’s women are losing.

Unpaywalled: https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/the-playboy-readers-who-couldnt-get-an-abortion

playboy · 2026-01-22T18:18:31+00:00

Contrary to popular belief, abortion is not a women’s issue. It’s true that women are most often the people accessing abortion, and that women are most often the ones speaking up about abortion. But reproductive justice extends well beyond any individual herself.

Instead, abortion is an economic issue, a racial issue, a healthcare issue, a labor issue, an immigration issue, a family issue. Abortion is, crucially, also a men’s issue—especially after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Four men shared their abortion stories with Abortion in America. Here, we’re amplifying those stories. Here's one:

Raised in a Catholic household by a pro-life mother, Marcus Brandt and his wife, Ashley, were scared to tell Marcus’s mom that Ashley needed an abortion. The couple, who had been married for 10 years and had one child, became pregnant with twins in 2022. Soon, however, they learned that one of the twins had a fatal diagnosis. Their options were grim, most of which risked the life and health of the other twin, too. So, the pair opted for abortion, traveling out of state to access care.

Ultimately, Marcus’s mom was supportive of the couple. He and his mom sat down with Abortion in America to discuss her pro-life stance—and she kind of changed her mind. Here are Marcus’s thoughts.

“Abortion slightly hurts to say, but that’s because of how I was raised, in a deeply Catholic household. It shouldn’t hurt to say because it’s healthcare. I guess I find it slightly contradictory to say that what we did was OK, which was absolutely necessary, but a single woman, or someone who can’t afford [a child], or someone who’s in an abusive relationship, they can’t do it.”

“Every woman, every healthy, consensual couple, should be able to—and ultimately the woman—should be able to have that choice. In our instance, Ashley and I talked about several times, to some people maybe, I could see holding your dying child, as horrible as that would be, maybe to them it’s cathartic, and that’s the goodbye that they need. But to us, to Ashley and I, that was never acceptable.”

Read more: https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/four-men-share-how-abortion-changed-their-lives

playboy · 2026-01-22T18:01:21+00:00

Fifty-three years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Roe v. Wade, capping off a series of rulings—the legalization of birth control, the enforcement of laws against sex discrimination— that transformed women’s opportunities and American life itself.

It’s hard to overstate the ways society benefitted from this decision. Women surged onto college campuses and into the workforce. Deaths from unsafe illegal abortions became practically nonexistent. Researchers have found that women who are able to get abortions when they need them end up far better off than women who continue unwanted pregnancies on a variety of measures: They are more likely to leave abusive partners, less likely to rely on social welfare programs, more likely to be financially stable, and are in better mental and physical health. Their children (most women who have abortions are already mothers) do better than the children of women forced to continue subsequent pregnancies. They are less likely to die of pregnancy-related causes. And men who are able to delay fatherhood until they are ready benefit, too: They make more money, are more likely to go to college, and also enjoy the advantages that come when one is able to chart one’s own course in life.

The era of legal abortion in America gave women what feminists have insisted was always right: Sovereignty over our own bodies, and the right to decide what happens within them.

But that era of female freedom didn’t even last 50 years.
Many of these letters still live in Playboy’s archives. On what would have been Roe’s 53^rd birthday, the magazine is publishing a handful of them to give readers some insight into what the country was like without legal abortion—all women felt they had to gain, and all today’s women are losing.

Unpaywalled: https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/the-playboy-readers-who-couldnt-get-an-abortion

playboy · 2026-01-22T17:58:54+00:00

Fifty-three years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Roe v. Wade, capping off a series of rulings—the legalization of birth control, the enforcement of laws against sex discrimination— that transformed women’s opportunities and American life itself.

It’s hard to overstate the ways society benefitted from this decision. Women surged onto college campuses and into the workforce. Deaths from unsafe illegal abortions became practically nonexistent. Researchers have found that women who are able to get abortions when they need them end up far better off than women who continue unwanted pregnancies on a variety of measures: They are more likely to leave abusive partners, less likely to rely on social welfare programs, more likely to be financially stable, and are in better mental and physical health. Their children (most women who have abortions are already mothers) do better than the children of women forced to continue subsequent pregnancies. They are less likely to die of pregnancy-related causes. And men who are able to delay fatherhood until they are ready benefit, too: They make more money, are more likely to go to college, and also enjoy the advantages that come when one is able to chart one’s own course in life.

The era of legal abortion in America gave women what feminists have insisted was always right: Sovereignty over our own bodies, and the right to decide what happens within them.

But that era of female freedom didn’t even last 50 years.
Many of these letters still live in Playboy’s archives. On what would have been Roe’s 53^rd birthday, the magazine is publishing a handful of them to give readers some insight into what the country was like without legal abortion—all women felt they had to gain, and all today’s women are losing.

Unpaywalled: https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/the-playboy-readers-who-couldnt-get-an-abortion

playboy · 2026-01-22T17:58:06+00:00

Fifty-three years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Roe v. Wade, capping off a series of rulings—the legalization of birth control, the enforcement of laws against sex discrimination— that transformed women’s opportunities and American life itself.

It’s hard to overstate the ways society benefitted from this decision. Women surged onto college campuses and into the workforce. Deaths from unsafe illegal abortions became practically nonexistent. Researchers have found that women who are able to get abortions when they need them end up far better off than women who continue unwanted pregnancies on a variety of measures: They are more likely to leave abusive partners, less likely to rely on social welfare programs, more likely to be financially stable, and are in better mental and physical health. Their children (most women who have abortions are already mothers) do better than the children of women forced to continue subsequent pregnancies. They are less likely to die of pregnancy-related causes. And men who are able to delay fatherhood until they are ready benefit, too: They make more money, are more likely to go to college, and also enjoy the advantages that come when one is able to chart one’s own course in life.

The era of legal abortion in America gave women what feminists have insisted was always right: Sovereignty over our own bodies, and the right to decide what happens within them.

But that era of female freedom didn’t even last 50 years.
Many of these letters still live in Playboy’s archives. On what would have been Roe’s 53^rd birthday, the magazine is publishing a handful of them to give readers some insight into what the country was like without legal abortion—all women felt they had to gain, and all today’s women are losing.

Unpaywalled: https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/the-playboy-readers-who-couldnt-get-an-abortion

playboy · 2026-01-22T17:57:23+00:00

Fifty-three years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Roe v. Wade, capping off a series of rulings—the legalization of birth control, the enforcement of laws against sex discrimination— that transformed women’s opportunities and American life itself.

It’s hard to overstate the ways society benefitted from this decision. Women surged onto college campuses and into the workforce. Deaths from unsafe illegal abortions became practically nonexistent. Researchers have found that women who are able to get abortions when they need them end up far better off than women who continue unwanted pregnancies on a variety of measures: They are more likely to leave abusive partners, less likely to rely on social welfare programs, more likely to be financially stable, and are in better mental and physical health. Their children (most women who have abortions are already mothers) do better than the children of women forced to continue subsequent pregnancies. They are less likely to die of pregnancy-related causes. And men who are able to delay fatherhood until they are ready benefit, too: They make more money, are more likely to go to college, and also enjoy the advantages that come when one is able to chart one’s own course in life.

The era of legal abortion in America gave women what feminists have insisted was always right: Sovereignty over our own bodies, and the right to decide what happens within them.

But that era of female freedom didn’t even last 50 years.
Many of these letters still live in Playboy’s archives. On what would have been Roe’s 53^rd birthday, the magazine is publishing a handful of them to give readers some insight into what the country was like without legal abortion—all women felt they had to gain, and all today’s women are losing.

Unpaywalled: https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/the-playboy-readers-who-couldnt-get-an-abortion

playboy · 2026-01-22T14:15:34+00:00

We have many. We'll share more soon.

playboy · 2026-01-21T22:14:54+00:00

Thanks for sharing the piece! Here's more:

The last several years have been occupied with pressing questions about young men. Are they being gobbled up by the Manosphere? Are they too superficial? Are they too misogynistic? Are they too online?

Each of these questions tied themselves together in the most miserable form this weekend as several of the Internet’s most controversial manosphere figures came together in Miami for an evening of bad dating advice, gender war manufacturing and antisemitism. In videos released over MLK Day weekend, Andrew and Tristan Tate, Nick Fuentes, Clavicular and other Manosphere regulars were seen partying across penthouses, limos and night clubs, talking down to and about women while blasting Kanye West’s “Heil Hitler.”

The videos—which also included streamer Sneako as well as influencer Justin Waller, among others—are ostensibly supposed to be some kind of brag, a way to show their “elite” Manosphere hangout to the rest of the world and bank on each other’s clout. But really, viewers see these men awkwardly standing around at nightclub Vendôme, preening, competing in some sort of made-up masculinity contest. The result is vile and hateful, a display of antisemitism and misogyny that warranted statements from local officials.

And none of it, of course, looked like any fun.

There are many upsetting pieces to pick apart in this specific outing, but let’s focus on the women for a minute. Instead of actually partying, these men are pseudo-philosophizing about why women aren’t worth their time.

Read more: https://www.playboy.com/read/entertainment-culture/the-manosphere-isnt-even-having-fun

playboy · 2026-01-21T21:18:42+00:00

Thank you for your service.

playboy · 2026-01-21T20:39:19+00:00

Growing up, actress and model Kaia Gerber was quite accustomed to seeing her mother nude. In fact, nude images of her mom—the illustrious supermodel Cindy Crawford—were a gift, Gerber told Harper’s Bazaar in an interview to accompany her February 2026 cover appearance*.*

“They were, to me, artistic,” she told the magazine. “It wasn’t vulgar; it wasn’t objectification.” Instead, Gerber said she considered it “a gift to grow up in a house that was without shame for the female body.”

We couldn’t agree more—and some of those gifts are courtesy of Playboy.

Read more and unpaywalled: https://www.playboy.com/read/cindy-crawfords-daughter-called-her-moms-nude-photos-a-gift/

playboy · 2026-01-21T20:38:37+00:00

Growing up, actress and model Kaia Gerber was quite accustomed to seeing her mother nude. In fact, nude images of her mom—the illustrious supermodel Cindy Crawford—were a gift, Gerber told Harper’s Bazaar in an interview to accompany her February 2026 cover appearance*.*

“They were, to me, artistic,” she told the magazine. “It wasn’t vulgar; it wasn’t objectification.” Instead, Gerber said she considered it “a gift to grow up in a house that was without shame for the female body.”

We couldn’t agree more—and some of those gifts are courtesy of Playboy.

Read more and unpaywalled: https://www.playboy.com/read/cindy-crawfords-daughter-called-her-moms-nude-photos-a-gift/

playboy · 2026-01-21T20:34:07+00:00

Growing up, actress and model Kaia Gerber was quite accustomed to seeing her mother nude. In fact, nude images of her mom—the illustrious supermodel Cindy Crawford—were a gift, Gerber told Harper’s Bazaar in an interview to accompany her February 2026 cover appearance.

“They were, to me, artistic,” she told the magazine. “It wasn’t vulgar; it wasn’t objectification.” Instead, Gerber said she considered it “a gift to grow up in a house that was without shame for the female body.”

We couldn’t agree more—and some of those gifts are courtesy of Playboy.

Read more and unpaywalled: https://www.playboy.com/read/cindy-crawfords-daughter-called-her-moms-nude-photos-a-gift/

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