Group tells stories of back-alley
Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights started in 2013
Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights is a group dedicated to telling stories of illegal abortions before Roe.
Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights started in 2013 in New Orleans. Four years later, it went national. Kelli Wescott McCannell, executive director for the organization, spoke to Repro Rights Now about the work they do and their storytelling program.
“Some of them are pretty harrowing as you would imagine,” McCannell said. “And others are, even though some of them were illegal, they weren't very traumatic experiences. It was just a choice that they were able to make and move on with their life, basically.”
McCannell said she hopes the stories change the narrative about abortion. The organization looks for stories that show what abortions made possible for women later in their lives.
Many of the women have done media interviews. It can be difficult for reporters to find a woman who had a back-alley abortion. So it is useful to have an organization that arranges those types of stories, which can be poignant.
“A lot of these women did become mothers and they have families,” McCannell said.
“But it was able to be done on their own time, by choice. And so the storytellers are somewhat reclaiming their voices because a lot of them were trying to be quiet about this.”
McCannell said she admires younger feminists because they have focused on abortion access as much as they have its legality. That was something that differed from her generation.
“They really expanded the conversation on abortion, to make sure that it's about access as well,” McCannell said. “(They also) look at that intersectional lens of economics and race and the environment and all of those things and how this comes together. That's something that I find really powerful.”