New digital project aims to document ever-changing realities of abortion politics
Abortion in America was created by Cecile Richards and a team of storytellers.
Stories make the abstract come to life in most people's eyes. Hearing or seeing vivid descriptions of how people experience things provides insight that detached and remote conversations just can’t.
With abortion, stories have always made a profound difference. In the 1960s and 1970s, feminist leaders would have abortion speakouts, which were gatherings of women in churches in which they would share their stories in front of audiences about going to the back alley or another country. Now, a seminal figure in the reproductive rights movement has begun an initiative that collects and shares stories of women, doctors, and everyone else who is affected by an abortion ban.
Cecile Richards, one-time leader of Planned Parenthood and a powerhouse in Democratic politics, began Abortion in America: Stories Igniting a Movement, a new national effort dedicated to lifting firsthand experiences of people affected by post-Roe abortion laws. It highlights reporting on bans as well as original interviews with healthcare providers, patients, and abortion seekers in banned and restricted states. Designed with an immersive format that encourages visitors to search by state, topic, and type of storyteller, abortioninamerica.org invites audiences to engage with these crucial stories and share them with people in their lives.
“Over these last two years, brave people have shared stories of being unable to access
prenatal care, being forced to travel hundreds of miles to get an abortion, and being left with
no option but to give birth – all because of abortion bans,” Richards said in a news release. “They are some of the most powerful and compelling messengers for reproductive freedom this country has ever seen because their stories transcend politics and resonate with Americans on a deeply personal level.”
Abortion in America will also publish a new collection of audio and video interviews that illustrate the wide-ranging impact of Louisiana’s abortion bans, gathered in partnership with Glamour and the Newcomb Institute at Tulane University.
Created by a team that includes Richards, Florida abortion provider Eileen Diamond, Baton-Rouge-based mom and advocate Kaitlyn Joshua, writer Lauren Peterson, and Florida reproductive freedom advocate Lillian Tamayo, the project will bring together front-line storytellers and journalists chronicling this unprecedented moment for our country and people working on expanding access to reproductive health care to support storytelling around the personal impact of abortion bans.
Richards and Peterson spent a year traveling through states like Florida and Louisiana. They wanted to tell the whole picture of abortion.
Kiana Tipton, the digital director for the project, spoke to me about its motivation.
“We have a deep belief as a team, and our leadership has a deep belief that these stories really can change the hearts and minds of people who might be on the line or not know where they stand on abortion and the bans and don't really know what the real impacts are,” Tipton said.
What fascinated me was that the website now includes accounts from places like Pennsylvania and other states with liberal abortion laws. Even there, the bans have led to increased wait times and over-stretched doctors and medical staff caring for patients pouring in from out of state.
Before the demise of Roe, many people felt they had figured out the narrative of abortion. They felt the Supreme Court would never overturn it, and every story would be a small legal battle between conservative legislators and abortion providers about whether a new regulation was constitutional. Or about some incident of antiabortion violence. Maybe a clinic was bombed. Perhaps a person was harassed. Those were the accounts that we heard and thought defined what abortion politics meant. Much of it centered on political grandstanding.
That’s changed. The ground has shifted endlessly in the last five years, and each election has taken on greater importance than the previous. In many ways, it’s worse than it was before Roe because, at least then, doctors would perform abortions when exceptions were called for.
Tipton said she didn’t think the public understood the full realities faced by people getting abortions or providing them.
“The project really started out of this deep belief that hearing these personal stories and talking about them with your family or people you know can have a true impact on how they perceive abortion in America,” Tipton said.