Anger, fear and despair: people reflect on two years since the fall of Roe

After Roe v Wade was overturned in June 2022, Daphne didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

Abortion is currently legal up to 18 weeks in Utah, where the 38-year-old lives — but the state has a 2020 trigger law that bans almost all abortion care which is currently being appealed.

Daphne knew she didn’t want children, so she decided to undergo surgical sterilization in October 2022 to “have peace of mind that (she) physically cannot become pregnant.”

“My husband could have had a vasectomy for less money and an easier recovery time. However, that doesn’t change the outcome if I were attacked. Living in Utah, I could not and did not want to risk having to seek an abortion, and likely having to leave the state to do so, after an already traumatic event,” Daphne said.

The procedure, which was not fully covered by her health insurance, left her with about $1,000 out of pocket.

“I’m lucky that I was able to take these measures, and most people can’t,” she added.

Nearly two years after the Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, patients are increasingly forced to leave their states to access abortion care, while others carry unwanted pregnancies abroad. term. A study published earlier in January It is estimated that there have been nearly 65,000 pregnancies resulting from rape in states with abortion bans.

Traveling between states for abortion care in the US doubled between 2020 and 2023Data from the Guttmacher Institute shows that one in ten to almost one in five people leave their country to access treatment.

In states where it is possible, many go to neighboring countries. Hanz, a 30-year-old who works as a clinical social worker at an abortion clinic in Illinois but lives in Missouri, found out she was pregnant in late July 2022. They recalled: “As soon as I saw the two lines on the screen after the test, I knew I had more rights in Illinois than when I got home that night. Abortion rights had already deteriorated so much in recent years – and then Roe was overturned.” (Missouri passed a trigger law in 2019 that banned abortions except for medical emergencies.)

Hanz wanted a child, but felt that this was not the right time. “I was really weighing up what I wanted and what felt like the right decision. It was very difficult for me to terminate the pregnancy, but I had a hard time growing up and didn’t feel like I could bring a child into the world and give them the quality of life I wanted,” said she. .

After carefully weighing their options for a month, they crossed into Illinois to terminate the pregnancy at nine weeks in early September.

“Making the decision was much more difficult than actually performing an abortion,” Hanz said, adding that there are still fears about crossing the border to receive care.

“I’ve talked to people who thought they might be arrested if they returned to their home state. You’re not breaking the law by crossing the state,” Hanz said.

For others, the introduction of abortion restrictions has meant they no longer have children they could have had. In recent years, Brie, 41, had considered having another child, but after Dobbs, she felt like she couldn’t risk pregnancy at her age in the state of Texas.

“My husband and I dreamed of a third child. Now I know it’s absolutely not going to happen,” Brie said, adding that she felt like she couldn’t risk a pregnancy in Texas, which has a near-total abortion ban.

Her medical history contributes to her fears: She had a complicated first pregnancy, including preeclampsia, and required an emergency cesarean section.

“It was scary and dangerous,” she said. “With my history, I can’t trust that I would have this pregnancy in Texas or in the South. I should move.”

She believes that the loss of the constitutional right to abortion has taken the choice out of her hands. “Our seven-year-old son is asking for a younger brother or sister,” says Brie. “I know I’m in a privileged position – we have two wonderful, healthy children – but I don’t appreciate the state making my decisions about family planning.”

Abortion is an issue that divides her family. “The last two years have been a very volatile time, even as I have had these discussions within my extended family,” she said. The issue is at odds with other values ​​held in Texas, she believes: “People here are very concerned about freedom. But there is a huge conflict here between the concern for personal freedom and the approach to women and fertility. The only acceptable exception is women who are pregnant.”

Every month she worries about the chance of pregnancy. “It’s been on my mind since Dobbs: Am I going to be thrown under the bus by my state this month?

“You play out scenarios: what if, where would I go, who would I tell. It’s a big wall of separation between who you can trust. I think that’s the goal: to isolate women and put them in a position of insecurity.”

For some, the fall of Roe was a call to action. Paul, who is in his mid-50s and lives in North Carolina, knew little about abortion rights when he heard the news two years ago.

“Until then it wasn’t something I cared about – it was clear that women should have the right to choose,” he said. He thought abortion was a “settled issue.”

When he heard the news, he remembers that he and his wife “stared at each other in silence thinking, What the hell is happening now?” It doesn’t affect us personally, but it does affect millions of women. I went into it completely blind.”

Driven by the need to take action, Paul had begun volunteering in November 2022 with a group that provided logistical assistance to people needing abortions, often picking up patients who had traveled from states with stricter laws and taking them to clinics.

“I have driven young teenagers with their parents who were completely petrified; women in their 20s who accept that it’s something they have to do, and others for whom it doesn’t matter. Everyone has different circumstances. You don’t have to explain the reason to me,” he said.

After North Carolina lowered the limit from 20 to 12 weeks in May 2023, the number of patients traveling to the state declined until the service was lifted. Now Paul volunteers most weeks as a clinic escort.

“More often on Saturdays I wear a vest with rainbow stripes, protecting women behind umbrellas as I walk them into the clinic. “I’ve been called a murderer, a baby murderer… And I’ll happily do it again next weekend,” he said. “Many men don’t want to acknowledge that men have a role to play in solving this – it’s not just up to women.”

For Jane*, a Texas woman in her 60s, the writing was on the wall for Dobbs as she watched restrictions undermine abortion rights year after year. Between 1973 and May 2022, 1,380 abortion restrictions were passed in states, according to the Guttmacher Instituteof which more than 630 have been imported since 2011.

Jane got involved in direct action in 2018, driving people who needed abortions to appointments: “I got involved because I realized that pro-choice is just that: it’s not about access. It’s a limited way of looking at reproductive justice. When I saw the impact of restrictions on abortion, I felt that doing nothing was complicity.”

After Texas passed a bill in 2021 banning abortion after the detection of heart activity – usually around six weeks – Jane was prompted to take further action. Towards the end of that year she reached out Las Libres, a Mexican network that ships pills for self-managed medical abortion.

“The inhumanity of the restrictions only raised my temperature, making me increasingly angry and willing to stick my neck out and do something to help,” she said. “Dobbs was the logical next step after the increased regulation allowed under Roe. (Access) was very effectively destroyed before Dobbs.

Jane has been packaging and shipping pills to states with abortion bans for the past two years.

“It’s empowering and effective in fighting back,” Jane said. “Maybe I’m in denial about my own risk, but I’ve had a good life, I enjoy relative financial stability in retirement, and who better than me to fight back? Small actions are important and keep me hopeful.”