Pamela Merritt |
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Pamela Merritt is an American writer and reproductive justice activist who advocates for women's rights and against white supremacy. Merritt is the executive director at Medical Students for Choice (MSFC), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a network of over 10,000 medical students and residents around the world. [1]
Prior to joining MSFC, Merritt co-founded and served with Erin Matson as co-director at Reproaction, a reproductive justice organization that works to increase access to abortion, [2] [3] expose deceptive practices at pregnancy crisis centers, [4] [5] and improve infant and maternal death rates. [6] [7] [8] [9] Merritt advocates for recruiting and training more doulas and midwives to improve birth mortality rates. [10] She has published thousands of articles on racism and gender, and been featured on several national websites for her activism and expertise, including on the Washington Post, [7] NPR, [11] Rolling Stone, [12] Vox, [13] and the Huffington Post. [4]
Merritt regularly receives violent sexual threats in response to her work, and is harassed extensively online on social media. [14] She says she routinely reports the most threatening incidents to the police, [15] and was once warned by the FBI about a white supremacist actively trying to find her home address, forcing her to change her online habits. [10]
Merritt is a member of the Guttmacher Institute board of directors, [16] the Leadership Council of Our Bodies Ourselves Today, [17] and is the Honorary Chair of the Reproaction Advisory Council. She has spoken out strongly against Donald Trump. [18] She grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and before becoming an activist worked for a St. Louis newspaper. [10] [19]
Merritt attended Bard College at Simon's Rock and Brandeis University, where she studied anthropology and women's studies.