Senate Bill 1 Testimony

83rd Texas Legislature, 2nd Special Session Committee Meeting

MT: I oppose Senate Bill 1 because it has been put forth as legislation that will protect women and raise the standard of care in abortion clinics in Texas, but the measures it contains will in fact endanger women's lives by closing most Texas abortion clinics while they come up to code as ASCs, a process that will take a great deal of time and money to put in place unnecessary new requirements that do nothing to raise the standard of care or even change the way abortion procedures are currently performed. [continue]

Uploaded by TEA Fund on 2013-07-11.

This Bill Constitutes a Heinous Form of Structural Violence Against Women

FrontBurner [D Magazine]

by Bradford Pearson

MT: Proposing legislation that masquerades as intended to “protect the health and safety” (language from SB 537) of women is, in my opinion, worse than open hostility. By restricting access to sexual health education, family planning services, and abortion, Texas is severely damaging the futures of thousands of women and girls, not to mention the children they already have—two thirds of women who have an abortion already have children. [continue]

One of 2012's Most Interesting Characters: The Sharer

Dallas Observer People Issue

by Brentney Hamilton

Think of her as a modern Artemis, Protector of Young Women. Though she is soft-spoken, measured and humble, Merritt Tierce is, in her bones, a fighter. She is ignited, and ignites, mostly through her prose, but she's an intriguing double threat—triple if you count her ability to de-crumb a table. [continue]

photograph by Mark Graham

Prize-Winning Female Authors Respond to Questions About Gender Gap

The Huffington Post

by Zoe Triska

MT: I am profoundly grateful that this award exists and that it is being given to me. But if my writing could only succeed as “women’s writing”—if I didn’t measure it by all the standards I subject any work of art to, and expect it to be taken seriously by anyone, if it is, solely because it’s good—I don’t think the Jaffe committee would have thought it was worthy of support. [continue]

Merritt Tierce Wins Rona Jaffe Award: Dallas Feminists, Literature Nerds Rejoice

Dallas Observer

by Brentney Hamilton

Texas native Merritt Tierce was one of six women awarded $25,000 and an opportunity to read at NYU on September 23, 2011. 

Merritt Tierce is among a select group of artists who seem best characterized not only by pure, unequivocal talent but also unflinching work ethic. Working ceaselessly, Tierce has spent much of her adult life employed in various clerical positions and waiting tables; where she differs from the majority of would-be artists ensconced in Dallas day-jobs, however, lies in the elegant fiction she has produced despite—and, assuredly, as a result of—her various experiences in the Dallas rat-race. [continue]