The Abortion Stories I Wish I'd Told
THE ABORTION STORIES I WISH I'D TOLD
Our personal experiences matter, but the media (including us!) owes patients more
BY CINDI LEIVE
It’s been 181 long days since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And every morning, you probably pick up your phone to learn a horrific new consequence of that decision: bleeding patients turned away from hospitals, pregnant people prosecuted, doctors told by lawyers that they cannot do their jobs.
Abortion is everywhere now. Not the procedure—that’s been around for 4,000 years—but the subject, which has re-entered public discussion after several decades of euphemisms and stigma. (All it took was an apocalypse.) As someone who worked through a lot of those silent, euphemistic years, I’m wowed daily by the commitment and resourcefulness of the journalists on this beat, along with the patients telling their own stories under the toughest circumstances.
All of which has made me reflect on my own coverage of abortion—and how to do it better.
A little personal history: When I first started in women’s magazines in the 1990s, few major outlets covered abortion. (The publications of the 1980s had done so more openly—it was on the cover of People in 1985!—but by the ‘90s, the self-proclaimed “pro-life” movement had begun its ascent, and the assumption that abortion was distasteful and divisive settled in.) I was lucky enough to work for a boss who felt differently. When state legislatures began to pass bills requiring teenage girls to get permission from their parents—or a judge—in order to end a pregnancy, I walked into an editorial meeting, voice shaking, and pitched a story on the laws; she green-lit it—unusual at that time—and we went on to do a series that exposed the rising shortage of doctors willing to do abortions at all.
Over the years that followed, I was proud of the stories the teams I led did—and generally confident that sharing the truths of what pregnant people experience would prompt progress to roll forward, and minds to change. By the time I got around to writing about my own abortion (emboldened by many who’d shouted before me), TRAP laws and doctor assassinations were putting more and more providers out of business; the Hyde amendment had made abortion difficult-to-impossible for low-income women. (All while Roe still stood!) But I still held out hope, on some level, that personal stories mattered. Wouldn’t it make a difference, I wrote, if the people who wanted to deny us our freedom had to look us in the eye?
Well…maybe. Since then—and especially since Texas’s SB8 went into effect last fall—personal abortion stories have come fast and furious. On talk shows and the floor of Congress, in Sunday sermons and YouTube testimonials, in amicus briefs, and the set of SNL, people who’ve chosen abortion have shared their experiences with mounting urgency and the frustration that comes from feeling like no one cares.
In the years that come, those stories are going to be especially important, and some will be devastating. But what do we (meaning the media, The Meteor included) owe the people who tell these stories? And now that everyone’s talking about abortion, how can we talk about it better than we used to?
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First of all, keep talking. Remember that era of silence on abortion? The silence, it turns out, was mostly on the left: One study of cable news coverage during the ’10s found that 94% of all abortion mentions were on Fox. Eighty-five percent of those were filled with lies—about abortion’s risks or what Planned Parenthood does all day—but at least among major news outlets, they went unchallenged. In other words: Even if it feels like we’ve talked enough—we haven’t. And if we stop, they’ll fill the void.
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Oh, and talk to the right people. Abortion is health care. But one reason we don’t always see it that way is that the media doesn’t. A 2020 NARAL study found that while 65% of news stories about abortion quoted a politician, only 14% quoted a medical professional—and only 8% quoted an actual human person who’d had an abortion! (Even more enragingly, the NIH found that language personifying the fetus turned up twice as often as any story about a woman.) In the years to come, providers and patients will be closest to the pain, and they should be the loudest voices. As Renee Bracey Sherman says, borrowing a quote from the disability rights movement: “Nothing about us without us.”
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And remember who “us” is. Even in 2022, a year where you were more likely than ever to see a TV character making an abortion decision, the majority of those characters were white, wealthy, and not parenting a child, according to a new report from Abortion Onscreen. In reality, the majority of people who seek abortions are BIPOC, have at least one child, and wrestle with the financial realities of care. (Abortion pills—now used in the majority of American abortions—are also weirdly absent.) Portraying abortion frequently is good; portraying it frequently and accurately is better.
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Speaking of accuracy: No more using anti-abortion terms as if they are fact. The misnomer “pro-life” is, at long last, being phased out of news coverage. (I wish I could erase it from old headlines I edited.) But right-wing-manufactured terms like “heartbeat bill” and “fetal pain”—or the habit of calling the pregnant person the “mother,” as Andrea Grimes has reported—still pop up in mainstream outlets even though they have no basis in science. Let’s use a better, fairer dictionary.
Finally, and most importantly: It’s not just about abortion. During my decade and a half as the editor of Glamour, we published plenty of abortion stories I was proud of—how it felt to have one, to self-manage one, to jump through legal hoops to get one. But in 2010, the GOP weaponized gerrymandering to rewrite the makeup of key legislatures; pretty sure we never covered it. In 2013, the Supreme Court green-lit voter suppression with its historically awful Shelby County v. Holder decision; again, we never covered it.
Obviously, we should have—for a million reasons, but partly because the political machinery the right put in place over that decade laid the groundwork for our current abortion hellscape. Many of the trigger bans which snapped into cruel effect after Dobbs were in states like Ohio, Missouri, and Georgia, where the majority of people favor legal abortion, but ruthless gerrymandering or voter suppression meant it just didn’t matter.
We were telling stories, but not the whole story.
The story of abortion is fundamentally not just a story about bodily autonomy and why crusty white men should have any say about whatever’s in your uterus. (Although, let’s be clear, they should not.) It’s a story about why our country still accepts that presidents who lose the popular vote can nominate justices who are confirmed by a Senate which radically over-represents white, agrarian states and that those justices then can green-light laws passed by state governments which no longer represent the will of their people. It’s a story about misogyny, yes, but it’s also about the malapportionment of the Senate—even though those words are really hard to make appealing in a Good Morning America segment. (Only Stacey Abrams can do that).
A few days after Roe fell, I interviewed Dahlia Lithwick, and her words rang in my head for months. That very first week, “I had a pollster say to me, ‘Dahlia, women just don’t care about structural democracy reform,” she said. “And my answer was kind of like, well, then prepare to keep losing, ’cause we can’t fix this with marching and tote bags.” And she’s right: As Black women organizers have been saying for a century, voting rights underpin all other freedoms, and abortion is no exception.
Though it may sound impossibly optimistic, I believe we are going to win on abortion, at least eventually and at least technically. There are too many of us, there will be too many horror stories, and the punishment for politicians, even in this messed-up democracy, is already evident. Securing reproductive freedom might take years and would be heroic. But if we only attend to abortion and not the larger landscape that permitted the laws against it to thrive—the same landscape that enables laws against LGBTQ populations, poor people, immigrants, and gun reform—we will be back, Whack-a-Mole style, to attend to the next issue, and the next, and the next.
My Pregnancy vs. the State of Texas
FEATURED STORY
“The loss of my daughter was inevitable. What happened next was not.”
BY AMANDA ZURAWSKI
I was 18 weeks pregnant when I knew something was wrong. My body was leaking thick and yellowish discharge, and my pelvis felt what I could only describe as abnormally “open.”
A shockingly brief examination later, I was diagnosed with an “incompetent cervix”—a condition in which the cervix prematurely dilates, usually during the second trimester of pregnancy and often leading to premature birth.
The loss of my daughter, I was told, was inevitable. What happened next was not.
It was evident from the moment my doctor saw my bulging amniotic sac that this was not a question of if I would lose my baby—the baby my husband and I wanted so badly and had worked for 18 months with the help of science and medicine to conceive. It was a question of when.
If we had conceived the previous year when we began our journey with infertility, or if we lived in a different state, my healthcare team would have been able to treat me immediately and end my doomed pregnancy as soon as possible, without risk to my life or my health. I wouldn’t have had to wait in anguish for days for the inescapable ill fate that awaited. But this was August 23, 2022, in the state of Texas, where abortion is illegal unless the pregnant person is facing “a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy.” Somehow, any medical help to make the horrific inevitability of losing my beloved child 22 weeks early less difficult qualified as an illegal abortion.
My doctor outlined the roadmap in no uncertain terms: I could wait however long it took to go into labor naturally, if I did at all, knowing that my baby would be stillborn or pass away soon after; I could wait for my baby’s heartbeat to stop, and then we could end the pregnancy; or—most alarmingly—I could develop an infection and become so sick that my life would become endangered. Not until one of those things happened would a single medical professional in the state of Texas legally be allowed to act. It was a waiting game, the most horrific version of a staring contest: Whose life would end first? Mine, or my daughter’s?
I knew I was going to lose my baby. And I knew it could be days—or weeks—of living with paralyzing agony before we could move forward.
People have asked why we didn’t get on a plane or in our car to go to a state where the laws aren’t so restrictive. But we live in the middle of Texas, and the nearest “sanctuary” state is at least an 8-hour drive. Developing sepsis—which can kill quickly—in a car in the middle of the West Texas desert, or 30,000 feet above the ground, is a death sentence, and it’s not a choice we should have had to even consider. But we did, albeit briefly.
Instead, it took three days at home until I became sick “enough” that the ethics board at our hospital agreed we could legally begin medical treatment; three days until my life was considered at-risk “enough” for the inevitable premature delivery of my daughter to be performed; three days until the doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals were allowed to do their jobs.
By the time I was permitted to deliver, a rapidly spreading infection had already claimed my daughter’s life and was in the process of claiming mine.
I developed a raging fever and dangerously low blood pressure and was rushed to the ICU with sepsis. Tests found both my blood and my placenta teeming with bacteria that had multiplied, probably as a result of the wait. I would stay in the ICU for three more days as medical professionals battled to save my life.
Friends visited every night. Family flew in from across the country. I didn’t realize until nearly a month later that my doctors, nurses, and loved ones feared I was going to die.
We still don’t know the extent of damage the wait or the infection had on my body. I’m facing months of procedures and tests to know whether my eggs or my reproductive system were permanently harmed. In fact, later this week I’m having surgery to remove the massive amount of scar tissue plaguing my uterus as a result of the infections. We don’t know yet whether the baby we want more than anything will ever be possible.
Everything that happened after my cervix dilated was avoidable, and it never should have happened. What’s worse is I’m not the only one. This will happen to many women—of all races, all ethnicities, all ages, all across the country—if we don’t fight back.
When the six-week abortion ban in Texas passed last year and Roe vs. Wade was overturned this year, I was furious. But as someone who was then desperately trying everything I could to have a child, I never imagined it would impact me personally. I didn’t realize then the extent to which these laws would truly restrict a woman’s right to make the right decisions for herself, her body, and her future children. I didn’t realize the laws I was angry about would soon prevent me from safe access to healthcare. I didn’t realize these laws would directly prevent doctors from being able to protect their patients in so many ways.
But it’s not just me, and it’s not just Texas. As more states pass similar laws—let alone if members of Congress enact a federal ban on abortion—my story will become the norm. The number of people who will be hurt will be too much to bear, and we have to do something to stop it.
Being angry isn’t enough. To enact change, we must vote and make sure our elected officials know that this is not okay and we will not allow it.
We named our daughter Willow—after the tree that’s known for its ability to withstand adversity and fight against harsh conditions. With our Willow, we’ll show our strength and we will fight.
Amanda Zurawski lives in Texas with her husband, Josh, whom she met in preschool in their home state of Indiana, and their dogs Paisley and Millie.
Stay tuned for more United States of Abortion Stories. And read more here about the medical facts in Amanda’s case.
For abortion access resources and to create a voting plan for the 2022 midterm elections, visit iwillharness.com/abortion.
Video Credits
Director: Amy Elliott
Editor: Ellen Callaghan
DP: Pat Blackard
Camera: Tony Lopez
Audio: Chris Kupeli
Field producer: Karen Bernstein
Music: “Come On Doom, Let’s Party”
Written and performed by Emily Wells
Courtesy of Thesis & Instinct
By arrangement with Terrorbird Media
This film is a project of The Meteor Fund, and produced in partnership with Harness; with support from Pop Culture Collaborative.
"You Can't Just Tell Someone to Go Home and Pass an 18-Week Fetus. That's Not Safe."
FEATURED STORY
The doctors behind Obstetricians for Reproductive Justice break down the medicine behind Amanda’s case—and what should have happened
BY MEGAN CARPENTIER
Amanda’s case highlights a key problem about being pregnant in an anti-abortion state in post-Roe America. Vague laws that prioritize the “life” of even a non-viable fetus above the health or life of the person carrying it prevents doctors from providing crucial care in dangerous and life-threatening situations.
That’s because, until September 2021, there was one red line in the law that even the most anti-abortion state legislators could not cross: There had to be exceptions to any and every abortion restriction, even after fetal viability, “for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”
But last year, when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the state of Texas to implement its ban on abortions after six weeks—10 months before it overturned Roe v. Wade—it allowed the state to set a new standard.
Under Texas’ S.B. 8, the only time an abortion might be allowed after cardiac activity is detected would be in the case of a “medical emergency”…which the statute does not define. (Another section of the state’s abortion law does define a medical emergency as a condition that “places the woman in danger of death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function,” though medical providers and lawyers say it’s unclear whether it applies to S.B. 8 and notes that a woman’s health is a better standard.) But because S.B. 8 created a private right of action, even a doctor who can absolutely prove there was a medical emergency would still have to go to court to make their case if sued.
These legal burdens made the situation for Amanda’s doctors untenable. Her condition was likely to cause a “medical emergency,” but they couldn’t treat it as one until it became much more dangerous for her.
Drs. Jenn Conti, Heather Irobunda, and Jennifer Lincoln of Obstetricians for Reproductive Justice have spent time with Amanda and her husband. They sat down with The Meteor to explain the medical facts, and what patients are facing.
Tell us more about Amanda’s diagnosis. What is an “incompetent cervix” and how common is it?
Dr. Heather Irobunda: Cervical insufficiency (or incompetency) happens in about 1% of all pregnancies. However, it happens in about 20% of people who end up having miscarriages [in the second trimester].
Dr. Jennifer Lincoln: By definition, this is a painless cervical dilation, as opposed to typical preterm labor or labor, where you have contractions and it hurts. With cervical insufficiency, you don’t know, or there might just be these vague symptoms like Amanda had, where she’s like, “Something just doesn’t feel right.”
Dr. Irobunda: Sometimes a patient will come in for a routine ultrasound around 20 weeks, and then we may notice that their cervix is shortened or is dilated.
Dr. Lincoln: Sometimes what we’ll see is a cervix that is so completely shortened that it’s non-existent anymore, and it’s also dilated. Or, when we look in the vagina with the speculum, all we see is the amniotic sac because it’s basically prolapsed down past where the cervix is. That was the case for Amanda when she went in.
Dr. Irobunda: It can happen so quickly: You can evaluate a patient a week or a few days before and everything looks fine. And then all of a sudden, your patient comes back in and is like, “I feel, like, a lot of pressure. Things feel weird. Can you check me out?” And then their cervix can be completely dilated and there’s no real reason.
Dr. Lincoln: But, as you can imagine, the term “cervical incompetence,” like many obstetric terms we have, is a really terribly guilt-producing word.
What is the normal course of treatment?
Dr. Irobunda: What we can do depends on how long the cervix is. If the cervix is just shortened and not open, we can do something called a rescue cerclage, which is a stitch we basically put in the cervix to try to keep the cervix closed until term. But if there’s pretty much nothing left and it’s dilated, unfortunately, there’s not much that we can do to close the cervix back up or prevent it from dilating more.
Dr. Lincoln: Sometimes part of the fetus is even in the vagina. Or it’s not possible to treat with cerclage because they’re showing other signs of infection, and if we were then to put a stitch in their cervix and basically sew in an infected bag of water and placenta and fetus, they would be at a much higher risk of having complications and going on to be septic.
Dr. Irobunda: In these cases, this is going to, unfortunately, end up with a baby that will not be alive. Depending on when, there may be the option of waiting and seeing how long it takes for your body to kind of kick the rest of this into gear and deliver the fetus that had passed on (which is called “expectant management” and is more common in earlier miscarriages).
Dr. Lincoln: But you can’t just tell somebody to go home and expectantly wait to pass an 18-week size fetus. That’s not going to be safe for anybody. The risk of infection is so high, especially with an exposed membrane and bag of water in the vagina. And then Amanda’s ruptured.
Dr. Irobunda: In my state, New York, there’s also the option that we can help induce this miscarriage by giving you medications in the hospital while we are monitoring you. Then it would come out of the vagina and we can give you as much pain medication as you need to get through that. And then the other option is to do a procedure called a dilation and evacuation, in which we would sedate you and then we use various instruments to remove what’s left of the pregnancy.
Dr. Lincoln: What should have been done without all these laws is not a difficult question. In a case where you’ve got somebody who has no cervix left, their bag of water was exposed in the vagina for days, now their bag of water is broken, every OB-GYN is trained to know that all of our patients look very stable until the moment they fall off that cliff and they’re not.
You’re talking about sepsis?
Dr. Lincoln: Yes. Patients can go from being healthy and fine to being septic in a matter of an hour. If you walked in like she did, we would say, “We need to move forward with delivery. You are stable now, this could very much change, and so we need to get the infection out of you, which unfortunately means the placenta and the fetus.” And it’s hard because these are people who want the baby. Sometimes you just wish you could leave people alone or say, “Let me give you a few days to decide.” In this particular situation for Amanda, I don’t think any OB-GYN would have felt comfortable doing that.
Dr. Irobunda: The longer that person remains pregnant, number one, it increases the risk of bad outcomes in terms of things like infection, sepsis, bleeding, and hemorrhage. But it also does a lot mentally to that patient and the family, just knowing that this pregnancy is a miscarriage and that it is not going to end well. We need to minimize the suffering of those involved. It’s not right.
What do you see as the long-term effects of these laws that prohibit or inhibit doctors from performing abortions?
Dr. Lincoln: These laws are tying our hands and, eventually, will end up killing patients. When these people say, “Well, there’s an exception so that’s OK,” well, actually, there’s not. The bottom line is that when somebody can go from being healthy to dead in 30 minutes, how are we supposed to wade through all of that with lawyers who have no clue? I guarantee you they are not awake at 2:00 AM.
Dr. Irobunda: It’s really hard to make sweeping laws about things like abortion because all these cases are different. The medicine is not black and white, [and] these laws don’t give anybody any wiggle room. We’re putting people in danger.
Dr. Jenn Conti: These laws affect every aspect of how women’s healthcare is handled from here on out. Once you start criminalizing doctors for doing their jobs, no one is safe—because there’s this paralyzing fear amongst healthcare providers that, if anything goes wrong involving pregnancy, someone somewhere could accuse them of illegal activity. And that’s all that matters in states like Texas: an accusation of guilt.
What would your advice be for other women in these circumstances?
Dr. Conti: If you’ve experienced post-Roe harm, I first want to offer my sympathy to you, because you didn’t deserve that.
If you want to share your story as a way of giving yourself a voice and fighting back, you can head to our website and use the contact form at the bottom of the page to either share anonymously or indicate that you are interested in becoming part of future ORJ storytelling projects.
You can read Amanda’s full story, in her own words, here. Stay tuned for more United States of Abortion stories.
For abortion access resources and to create a voting plan for the 2022 midterm elections, visit iwillharness.com/abortion.
Megan Carpentier is currently an editor at Oxygen.com and a columnist at Dame Magazine. Her work has been published in Rolling Stone, Glamour, The New Republic, the Washington Post, and many more.
I Asked 61 Colleges If They Would Pay for Students to Travel for an Abortion. Only Five Hinted That They Might.
BY TALIA KANTOR LIEBER
On the morning that Roe v. Wade fell, I turned to my father and declared I would not be attending college in a state where I could not legally have an abortion.
Strikethroughs began to appear on my running list of potential schools, a document that is growing and shifting as I enter my junior year of high school. I knew I was in a position of privilege: If I did go to college in one of the 14 states where abortion was banned, I’d have the financial means to travel if I needed to. But that isn't true for many of my friends and classmates. And even with the ability to pay, there are so many students—myself included—who don’t want to take that chance. In fact, a recent survey found that over a third of students seeking higher-ed degrees say the Dobbs decision will affect which institution they attend.
So an idea occurred to me. After the Supreme Court’s ruling, many private companies promised to cover the travel expenses of employees seeking out-of-state abortions (much to the chagrin of some state lawmakers). Why couldn’t colleges do the same? After all, shouldn’t the aim of any school be to support its students, and rid them of any obstacles disrupting their education?
I decided to compile a list of schools in states where abortion is banned (or at high risk of being banned) and ask them one simple question: Would they cover the travel expenses of students forced to seek an out-of-state abortion?
Here’s what I found.
Of the 61 schools I surveyed, only five gave me anything close to a yes. The College of Wooster, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, the University of Idaho, and Vanderbilt University referenced “emergency” or “Student Success” funds that students could potentially access for abortion care or abortion-related travel expenses.
Twenty-one schools—mostly smaller, private institutions—gave ambiguous answers, either saying they were still developing plans or simply stating their commitment to their students.
Nine schools—mostly large public universities—said that they would not pay for travel or had not discussed the topic.
And 26 schools, almost evenly split between public and private, did not respond to repeated requests for comment, even as their students began to set foot on campus.
All in all, the vast majority of the schools I called (which, by rough calculations, are attended by at least 480,000 students who could become pregnant) were not ready to help those students access crucial abortion care.
Read the full list of schools’ responses here.
SO WHY ARE SCHOOLS NOT STEPPING UP THE WAY PRIVATE COMPANIES DID?
Schools are scrambling to create policies around abortion travel, and the reasons are complex. First, there are legal fears, especially for public universities whose budgets are controlled by the same legislatures that banned abortion in the first place. States such as Missouri have laws in place that prohibit the use of public funds for “performing or assisting abortion.” A public institution’s money may very well fall under that category. Other states’ abortion laws are too in flux, or not definitive enough for schools to create concrete policies.
Some states have even begun to explore legislation that outlaws crossing state lines for an abortion. According to Kimberley Harris, a constitutional law professor at Texas Tech University School of Law, “there is supposedly a constitutional right of interstate travel, or at least there has been in the past, but we’ve kind of seen what can happen with constitutional rights.” Bans such as these could even prohibit private schools from supporting abortion-related travel.
And colleges must not only consider the question of where students may go, but the details of their abortions as well. Harris notes the case of Sidley Austin, a law firm that promised to pay for employees to go out-of-state to acquire abortion pills. The firm is facing legal threats from a group of Texas Republicans who claim that Sidley Austin facilitated “illegal” abortions. In a letter to the firm, they argued that “criminal prohibitions extend to drug-induced abortions if any part of the drug regimen is ingested in Texas, even if the drugs were dispensed by an out-of-state abortionist.” If a school were to pay for a student’s abortion travel, says Harris, it could leave the institution susceptible to a similar legal threat.
These questions of liability, Harris explains, may prevent many schools—especially public institutions or those with religious affiliations—from paying. “A lot of colleges are very risk-averse when it comes to this,” she says. “There is a whole lot of fear.” Paying for students’ travel could fall under the category of aiding or abetting abortion, an action that civilians can now be rewarded for reporting in certain states.
That fear may also affect a college’s medical providers or counselors. Telling students abortion is legal in neighboring states has little risk, but Harris believes that providing a direct referral could be riskier. “I think it will be more hinted at,” she said. In other words, a pregnant student could ask their school for support and be turned away—not only without medical care or travel funds, but without any clear advice.
THE CHAOS IN STATE ABORTION LAW—AND HOW IT AFFECTS SCHOOLS
As the answers from schools came in, I felt outraged thinking about the students who would have no institutional support if they needed an abortion. But I also noticed that these schools were just as confused as the students applying to them. Many gave me unclear or placeholder statements, likely because this is uncharted legal territory for them. Beyond travel, colleges are facing an onslaught of questions about abortion in a post-Roe world: How will they protect students' privacy given that, as Jessica Valenti has reported, college students are often not covered by medical privacy laws? Will lack of access to abortion impact other reproductive or medical care at college health centers? And will health centers themselves understand how to respond to the new laws? (A Chronicle of Higher Education survey implies they may not.)
Even the use of emergency funds raises questions about records left by financial transactions, which could serve as legal evidence. And it’s unclear whether students on campuses with funds are even aware those resources exist; colleges generally have an alarming track record when it comes to helping their students put emergency funds to use.
The outlook is grim. But as I spoke to representatives from the schools surveyed, I began to feel sympathetic toward each party involved. Administrators are creating plans with incomplete legal information and an unclear sense of what the ramifications could be. College students are coming to campus unsure of where their school stands or what to do if they or someone they know needs an abortion.
But one thing is clear: This fall, in every state, students will show up on campus and they will, for a variety of reasons, seek out abortions.
What is less clear is what colleges will do to protect them.
WHAT THE SCHOOLS SAID
The 61 colleges and universities in this list are located in 21 states which have either enacted abortion bans or are among those considered likely to do so.. (We also included Florida, which constitutionally protects abortion but has enacted a 15-week ban likely to impact students.) These schools are a mix of the most highly attended schools from each state and smaller, highly-ranked liberal arts schools. Like the American college landscape in general, they include public, private, and religiously affiliated institutions.
I asked each school: Will you pay for the travel expenses of students who need to seek abortions out of state? (Note: I categorized as a “yes” any school with a fund or support that would allow this travel, even if the school itself stopped short of explicit support of abortion travel or made clear that its policy is not to inquire about how the funds are used.)
Agnes Scott College
Decatur, Georgia
No comment.
A spokesperson from Agnes Scott College stated that “there is no comment at this time.”
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona
No.
If abortion were to become illegal in the state, Arizona State University told us it will not pay for the travel expenses of students who seek access to abortion.
Auburn University
Auburn, Alabama
No response.
Auburn University did not respond to requests for comment.
Baylor University
Waco, Texas
No response.
Baylor University did not respond to requests for comment.
Berea College
Berea, Kentucky
No response.
Berea College did not respond to requests for comment.
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah
No response.
Brigham Young University did not respond to requests for comment.
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio
Under review.
Case Western Reserve has not stated whether it will cover students’ travel expenses. A university spokesperson stated that the school is “carefully assessing the situation and has convened a task force to assess all aspects of the decision and its implications for our faculty, students and staff.”
Centre College
Danville, Kentucky
Under review.
A spokesperson for Centre College said the college is “studying the legal restrictions and requirements, and they are in flux until the courts in Kentucky make final decisions on what bans are actually in place.”
Clemson University
Clemson, South Carolina
No response.
Clemson University did not respond to requests for comment.
College of Wooster
Wooster, Ohio
Yes, through an emergency fund.
A College of Wooster spokesperson stated that “if a student needs health care services that are not available locally, the College will support them in accessing care as nearby as possible. For some types of reproductive health care, such as abortion, that may mean assisting a student in accessing care in another state, for example. As for all medical care, students are eligible to apply for emergency funds from the Dean of Students’ office to support urgent reproductive healthcare, including abortion.” In a follow-up statement, the spokesperson said, “Students are able to request emergency travel funds from The College of Wooster for any reason. We will not require documentation of the specific need out of respect for the privacy of the individual.”
Cornell College
Mount Vernon, Iowa
No response.
Cornell College did not respond to requests for comment.
Denison University
Granville, Ohio
Under review.
Denison University has not explicitly stated whether it would cover students’ travel expenses. A spokesperson stated, “We are still assessing both our existing resources and potential new resources. We do anticipate expanding our resources to ensure our campus community members have access to the health care they need.”
DePauw University
Greencastle, Indiana
No response.
DePauw University did not respond to requests for comment.
Earlham College
Richmond, Indiana
Under review.
An Earlham College spokesperson said that the school is “evaluating all of our options to support a woman's right to reproductive healthcare” but could not provide an answer yet on whether it will reimburse students for travel expenses.
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia
Unclear.
Emory University has not explicitly stated whether it will cover students’ travel expenses. A spokesperson pointed to a statement by Student Health Services, which reads, “Students should contact EUSHIP [Emory University Student Health Insurance Plan] directly to learn what support resources are available when a medical procedure is not available locally.”
Florida State University
Tallahassee, Florida
No response.
Florida State University did not respond to requests for comment.
Furman University
Greenville, South Carolina
Unclear.
Furman University has not stated whether it would cover students’ travel expenses. A spokesperson for the school pointed to a statement from President Elizabeth Davis, which says, “For our students, Furman will continue to provide education about and access to contraception and other healthcare services, as well as counseling for students who have pregnancy concerns, including providing information about prenatal care and available options for terminating a pregnancy.”
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia
No response.
Georgia Institute of Technology did not respond to requests for comment.
Grinnell College
Grinnell, Iowa
No response.
Grinnell College did not respond to requests for comment.
Hanover College
Hanover, Indiana
No response.
Hanover College did not respond to requests for comment.
Hendrix College
Conway, Arkansas
Unclear.
In July, a Hendrix College spokesperson said the school could not give an answer because the “policy review/revisions relating to the coming semester will take place over the next several weeks, as they do every summer.” They did not reply when asked for a follow-up comment in August.
Indiana University-Bloomington
Bloomington, Indiana
Unclear.
“Until state legislation is passed, it’s too premature for us to determine if or how IU might be impacted,” said a spokesperson for Indiana University-Bloomington in July. The state has since enacted an abortion ban, but the university told us in August that it is “still assessing the impact and assessing any steps we may need to take for our employees.”
Kenyon College
Gambier, Ohio
Yes, through a "Student Success Fund."
A Kenyon College spokesperson sent us a statement that the school’s senior staff had made addressing reproductive health. It reminds students of a "Student Success Fund that offers financial assistance to students for a range of circumstances. Students may apply for these funds if they are experiencing hardship of any kind, whether or not they qualify for other forms of financial aid.”
Louisiana State University
New Orleans, Louisiana
No response.
Louisiana State University did not respond to requests for comment.
Oberlin College
Oberlin, Ohio
Yes, through the use of emergency funds.
In a statement on reproductive health, Oberlin College President Carmen Ambar said: “We will also continue to work with the Oberlin Doula Collective, which provides support and community for those seeking abortions. And while we have never inquired about the exact purpose of a student’s use of emergency funds needed for health procedures, these funds will still be available to those who meet its criteria.”
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
Unclear, implied no.
Ohio State University “remains deeply committed to the health, safety and well-being of our students… and is closely examining the decision from the Supreme Court and changes in state law,” said a university spokesperson. “If necessary, Ohio State and the medical center will make adjustments to services, course offerings or resources to be in compliance with the law…” The spokesperson also mentioned the University's health care plan for its faculty and staff, which cites the Ohio law that public funds can not legally be spent on elective abortions—amounting to an implicit, if not explicit no.
Ohio Wesleyan University
Delaware, Ohio
Under review.
Ohio Wesleyan University has not explicitly stated whether it would cover students’ travel expenses. A spokesperson said that the school is “considering options to assist students, faculty, or staff who need access to women’s reproductive services that may be more inaccessible as a result of the recent court decision. We will be providing more information to our community when it is available.”
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana
No response.
Purdue University did not respond to requests for comment.
Rhodes College
Memphis, Tennessee
Under review.
Rhodes College has not stated whether it would cover students’ travel expenses. A spokesperson said, “President Collins has assembled a task force to help the college address critical issues and questions resulting from the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision. They will begin meeting soon.”
Rice University
Houston, Texas
Under review.
Rice University has not stated whether it would cover students’ travel expenses. A university spokesperson highlighted a statement that former President David Leebron had made, which says that the school is “exploring how we can best continue to appropriately support the reproductive rights of our community, including access to abortion services. We…will share relevant information in as timely a manner as possible.”
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, Texas
No response.
Southern Methodist University did not respond to requests for comment.
Southwestern University
Georgetown, Texas
No.
Southwestern University told us that the school will not pay for the travel expenses of students seeking access to abortion.
Spelman College
Atlanta, Georgia
No comment.
Spelman College declined to comment on whether it would cover students’ travel expenses. A university spokesperson stated that the school is “closely monitoring the Title IX proposed rules and will make necessary updates based on the final regulations. Title IX has always provided protections regarding pregnancy and parenting. We will continue to assist our community members in accordance with the Title IX regulations and the values of Spelman College.”
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas
No.
Texas A&M will not pay for its students’ travel expenses when seeking access to abortion. According to a spokesperson for the university: “Student Health Services does not supply funding for travel or medical care outside of our health center. It is only for on-campus medical needs; no surgeries are performed there (nor have they ever). So, for example, if a student had cancer, they would have to seek treatment elsewhere.”
Texas Christian University
Fort Worth, Texas
No comment.
Texas Christian University has not stated whether it would cover students’ travel expenses. A spokesperson told us they did not have information to share.
Transylvania University
Lexington, Kentucky
No comment.
A spokesperson for Transylvania University said that, to their knowledge, the school has “not held any discussions on the topic.”
Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana
No response.
Tulane University did not respond to requests for comment.
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
No response.
The University of Alabama did not respond to requests for comment.
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
No response.
The University of Arizona did not respond to requests for comment.
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Unclear.
The University of Arkansas has not stated whether it would cover students’ travel expenses. A spokesperson for the university stated, “The Pat Walker Health Center on campus is dedicated to supporting the health and well-being of the campus community and will abide by state and federal law.”
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida
No.
Asked whether it might cover students’ out-of-state travel, a spokesperson for the University of Florida said that they were “not aware of any such plans.”
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia
No response.
The University of Georgia did not respond to requests for comment.
University of Idaho
Moscow, Idaho
Yes, though only through the use of donated (not school-provided) emergency funds.
A spokesperson from the University of Idaho said that the school “does not provide money specifically for students to travel for an abortion. The university does have emergency funds available to students. These small allocations of donated dollars (typically a couple hundred dollars) are given out without verification of need or use. While it is possible a student could use it for this, the university does not get involved in the medical decisions of our students….We provide information and resources that allow students to make informed and independent decisions.”
University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
No response.
The University of Iowa did not respond to requests for comment.
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Unclear.
A spokesperson stated, “UK’s insurance plans do not cover elective abortions. We are in the process of analyzing the impacts of the Supreme Court’s decision as we move forward in compliance with state law.”
University of Miami
Miami, Florida
No response.
The University of Miami did not respond to requests for comment.
University of Mississippi
Oxford, Mississippi
No.
The University of Mississippi will not pay for the travel expenses of students seeking access to abortion.“The university only covers travel expenses for students when they are traveling on university-related business,” said a spokesperson.
University of Missouri
Columbia, Missouri
No.
The University of Missouri will not pay for the travel expenses of students seeking access to abortion. A spokesperson provided further context, explaining that “prior to the Dobbs decision, Missouri state law that was already in place prohibits university funds, employees and facilities from being used in any way to perform abortions.”
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota
No.
The University of North Dakota will not pay for the travel expenses of students seeking access to abortion. The school “does not have any policies in place to cover the cost for travel,” said a spokesperson.
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana
No response.
The University of Notre Dame did not respond to requests for comment.
University of Oklahoma
Norman, Oklahoma
Unclear.
The University of Oklahoma has not stated whether it would cover students’ travel expenses. A spokesperson said the school’s “top focus is supporting the needs, aspirations, and well-being of our students. While the university must and will comply with all applicable laws, we remain unwavering in our commitment to serve our students to the fullest extent possible.”
University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
No response.
The University of South Carolina did not respond to requests for comment.
University of South Dakota
Vermillion, South Dakota
No response.
The University of South Dakota did not respond to requests for comment.
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee
No.
The University of Tennessee told us that it will not pay for the travel expenses of students seeking access to abortion.
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas
Unclear.
The University of Texas at Austin has not stated whether it would pay the travel expenses of students seeking abortion care. A spokesperson noted that University Health Services “does not dispense abortive medications, provide abortion services or obstetrical/prenatal services.”
University of Texas at Dallas
Dallas, Texas
No response.
The University of Texas at Dallas did not respond to requests for comment.
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
No.
The University of Utah told us that it will not pay for its students’ travel expenses when seeking access to abortion.
University of Wyoming
Laramie, Wyoming
No response.
The University of Wyoming did not respond to requests for comment.
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee
Yes, through a “Student Critical Support Fund.”
A Vanderbilt University spokesperson pointed to a statement from the school, which explains that students will have the opportunity to apply for financial support from the “Student Critical Support Fund, formerly the Student Hardship Fund, that aids with unexpected expenses, including costs related to any medical procedure not available in Tennessee. Details on how to apply will be shared in the coming weeks.”
Washington University at St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
No comment.
Washington University at St. Louis declined to comment beyond a statement made by the school’s Chancellor Andrew Martin and Dean David Perlmutter, which reads that “we must keep our focus squarely on the mission of the university — research, education, and patient care.”
Wofford College
Spartanburg, South Carolina
No response.
Wofford College did not respond to requests for comment.
Don’t see your school on this list, but wondering what its policy might be? Call the Dean of Students—or the department in charge of student life—or the President and ask. Here’s the wording I used: Will [insert college] cover travel expenses for students who travel out of state to seek an abortion?
If you do reach out to your administrators, send us an email at [email protected] and let us know what they say. As abortion laws change, we’ll be updating this list—with more states—this fall.
Emily Ladau: Disability is part of the human experience
I was born in 1991—just a year after the Americans with Disabilities Act became law—with a genetic joint and muscle disorder called Larsen syndrome. My mom has it, too. My disability has always been part of my life—a natural state of being.
As the only kid with an apparent disability in my elementary school, I learned quickly what it meant to exist in a body that’s considered “wrong.” I’d often shy away from talking about my disability, and the biggest compliment you could pay me was that you didn't think of me as disabled.
But at age 10, I found myself heading in the complete opposite direction, beginning to embrace myself and opening up about my experience as a disabled person in a very public way: by appearing on “Sesame Street.” Hanging out with Big Bird, Elmo, and Oscar the Grouch was a whole lot of fun, but the best part was beginning to find my voice as an advocate. The experience of educating about disability on a national platform showed me the power of storytelling and communicating as a way to break down stigma and debunk stereotypes.
Though I’d planned to become a high school English teacher, the sparks of disability advocacy that started when I was young began to turn into flames. Midway through college, my plans began to shift as I realized that I wanted to pursue advocacy as a career. So, a week after graduation, I went to Washington, DC, to complete an internship program led by the American Association of People with Disabilities. But I gained so much more than work experience. I gained an understanding of disability as an identity and a sense of belonging to something so much bigger than just me. In finding the disability community, I began to find myself.
As my passion for activism grew, so too did my realization that if we want the world to be accessible to the disability community, we must make disability accessible to the world. That's not to say I believe disabled people exist simply to be teachable moments, but rather that I believe in meeting people where they're at in a world where disability remains so unfamiliar to so many.
But the disability experience isn’t just my story, or my mom’s story, or any one person’s story. It’s the story of one billion people around the world. And for so many of us, our stories are steeped in ableism, in a lack of acceptance of who we are. My hope is that my new book Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally, will help to shift the paradigm to a more inclusive world.
To do this, we first need to understand and recognize ableism and how it manifests in the world.
SO WHAT IS ABLEISM?
Ableism is discrimination and prejudice against people with disabilities, though that’s not quite enough to convey its full weight. So here’s the definition I use. “Ableism is attitudes, actions, and circumstances that devalue people because they are disabled or perceived as having a disability.”
To most of society, ableist beliefs and behavior don’t raise any red flags because they’re woven into the fabric of everyday life, simply accepted as the norm. For disabled people, though, ableism is always there—a part of our lives that never disappears, manifesting in endless forms ranging from broad, systemic discrimination to individual interactions.
HIDDEN DISCRIMINATION EVERYWHERE
Here’s an example. Less than 25 percent of New York City subway stations have elevators. This qualifies as systemic ableism, because the lack of accessibility limits the freedom of disabled people to get around. I do occasionally brave the subway, but it’s not uncommon for me to be the only wheelchair user on the platform. Strangers will express surprise, making individual ableist comments such as, “Wow, it’s amazing how you get around in that chair.” Of course, if every subway station had an elevator, it wouldn’t be considered anything special to see wheelchair users on the train. But many people operate on the assumption that disabled people don’t have full lives that might require public transportation. And if this assumption weren’t embedded in society’s thinking, making sure every subway station has an elevator would be more of a priority. See what I mean? Ableist assumptions lead to systemic ableism, which lead to further discrimination.
Think about it. There are still laws on the books that explicitly discriminate against disabled people. The nearly century-old Fair Labor Standards Act was created to be supposedly “fair” for everyone, but people with disabilities are the only population, as named in the law, who can legally be paid far less than the minimum wage. Even worse, this happens in segregated work environments known as “sheltered workshops” where disabled people are paid a few cents per hour to do repetitive tasks—the same tasks that nondisabled people would be paid at least minimum wage to complete in a regular workplace.
Advocates in favor of sheltered workshops and subminimum wages argue that such things are necessary because the disabled people who work in these conditions would otherwise have no job prospects. Organizations that run sheltered workshops (like Goodwill—sorry, thrifters) think they’re doing a good deed while getting a good deal on labor. But pennies for piecework isn’t acceptable just because the workers are disabled. It’s ableist. Instead of having such low expectations for disabled people, what if we finally left the past behind and demanded fair pay and inclusive workplaces for all?
THE WORLD I WANT
Fighting back against ableism in its many iterations feels like playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Most of the time it’s nondisabled people who take issue with my anti-ableism advocacy. If I speak up about a place that I can’t get into because I use a wheelchair, I’m called a complainer. If I mention that a line in a play I’ve just seen was, in my opinion, ableist, I’m told I’m overthinking things. If I think that a news story about a disabled person overcoming an obstacle is condescending and then comment on it, I’m accused of being bitter and coldhearted. But it’s not bitterness that drives me; it’s my passion to move toward a more accepting, loving, equitable world.
If you’re just starting the journey of figuring out accessibility, there will be a learning curve. After all, accessibility can take many different forms—handrails to hold on to in a bathroom; transcripts for a video or podcast; a website that can be navigated with software that reads text on the screen; using plain, clear language in a document. But I promise it’s not that complicated. A good first step is to do some research: Two of my go-to resources for finding answers are the ADA National Network and the Job Accommodation Network (JAN).
If you’ve been ableist, I don’t want you to feel dismissed for that out of hand. I agree with filmmaker, consultant, and streamer Dominick Evans, who tweeted about ableism: “It’s embedded in our culture, and I had to learn to be better, so how can I expect nondisabled people to know how to be better? What gets me is when people learn the harm they’ve caused, and double down about it.”
I believe that you can do better. We all can.
Emily Ladau is a disability rights activist, writer, and speaker. She is the editor in chief of Rooted in Rights and co host of “The Accessible Stall" podcast and her writing has appeared in The New York Times and HuffPost. A founding member of The Meteor collective, her new book, Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally, is out now.
Excerpt from DEMYSTIFYING DISABILITY: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally.
Copyright © 2021 by Emily Ladau.
Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Illustrations by Bianca Alvarez
Mariane Pearl: Behind my ballot
Journalist Mariane Pearl can claim four nationalities—but the US is the one country she chose freely. Here's the intensely personal story of her American vote.
Photo illustrations by Debbie Millman
In June 2009, I was naturalized as an American. That day, on my last trip to Garden City, New York, to the now-defunct United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office, I spring-walked by billboards shooting their messages to the heavens. Becoming American felt like an accomplishment for me, a chance to review the ideals I held in a new light and commit to them. It felt like hope, a lifting in my chest, an aspiration to love a new country. This was the interview, the fifth and last test in the naturalization process. Sitting next to me were a man from India in a brown suit and a pale pink tie, and a young woman from Colombia with tiny sunsets on each of her nails. All three of us were about to become citizens of America—to raise our right hands, so help us God.
Eleven years in, it still means everything to me to be part of the only nation on earth that so thoroughly weaves all 194 other countries into its fabric. And in 2020, as I fill out my ballot from an ocean away, I feel more than ever before as if I am sending my heart by express mail.
America was the first nationality I actually chose, but it was my fourth overall. I was born in France, to a Cuban mother and Dutch father, and I look like everyone’s idea of an immigrant. Parisians take me for North African; Americans for Latina; and I certainly don’t look Dutch to the Dutch.
I realized the complexities of otherness early on. At nine, I went with my family to visit a Cuban friend of my mom’s in Algeria. I discovered then that North Africans were not only the grocery-store owners on our street, but a vast assortment of people, with languages and governments and cities. I was mesmerized and ashamed. Until then I’d been child enough to think that everyone had poor black relatives from Cuba and a rich white family from Holland. It was terrifying to realize the extent of my ignorance.
Back in France, where I was often assumed to be Arab, I sensed how tricky life was for Muslim girls there, tiptoeing their way between the expectations of dueling cultures. But when people found out I was half-Cuban, the generally hostile immigration mood turned to good-humored nostalgia. Was it true, people asked, that women who work in cigar factories roll tobacco leaves on their sweaty bare legs while listening to Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables read aloud? The sheer arbitrariness of xenophobia sent my head spinning.
At our rented flat in the XIXth arrondissement in Paris, there was a small manicured lawn outside with a few deserted benches. The grass was off limits, as were ball games, dogs, music and expressions of enthusiasm. We moved in when I was six; my father was still alive then and the flat was rented to him: a white-as-clay Dutch mathematician and Holocaust survivor with somber green eyes, a scientist who had brought a colorful family back, like pinned butterflies, from Cuba, where he’d been one of the first crew of foreigners drawn by the revolution.
By the time I knew him, my father was defeated, disillusioned by Cuba’s turn to dictatorship; he had given up hope in politics. He only emerged after dark. He liked our house motionless, undisturbed by the whistle of the dishwasher or the soundtrack of TV; my brother and I asleep and our voices quiet. And every night he turned more into a ghost, a negative version of himself. He died by suicide on a warm and lonely Sunday afternoon in Paris in August of 1976.
After he died, we stayed on in that building, though on a different floor and in a smaller flat in which rent was a monthly struggle for my unemployed, widowed mother. Yet our new flat on the first floor was life itself. There was laughter and loud conversations; the light in our one-bedroom home that sometimes slept eight was the last in the building to go off at night.
Until things became more complicated. As we grew up, my brother started walking the tightrope of identity and belonging, and struggled to find himself in French society. His last name is as Dutch as it gets, but his face said North Africa. I saw him come home with his head bleeding so much he could open neither his mouth or eyes; he’d had a short conversation with two girls who happened to be dating white supremacists with bats. Or he would arrive deflated from another humiliating job interview after a man expecting an Aryan-looking candidate found my brother instead.
Before his death, my father had asked me to accomplish what he had failed at. Those were literally his words: “Promise to accomplish everything I failed at.” I was nine. The meaning eluded me at the time, and I had nothing to hold onto from him—besides my name, which I knew he had chosen for its significance: a reference to Marianne, France’s national emblem, representing democracy and resistance to oppression since the birth of the republic on July 14, 1789, when starving people had taken over the lavish kingdom. My name felt like a message from my father, and as a teen, I took it seriously, and became a secret patriot. (Secret, because everyone I knew shared a cynical distrust of anything political.) But in the privacy of my mind, I aspired to my namesake’s democratic values. In one painting by Delacroix, Marianne stands on corpses, leading the way for the insurgents, her country dress ripped off by the claws of injustice, but with her light intact. The reality of France never quite measured up, but may we French continue to search for her.
By the time I added America to my little melting pot of a life, I had married (and lost) one American, and given birth to another.
I met my husband Danny while working as a journalist in Paris at RFI, French public radio, where I was hosting a daily show called "The Magazine of Migrations." Danny lived in London, but was reporting for The Wall Street Journal in Saudi Arabia about the plight of foreign workers there.
Among some journalists we knew, immigration and related matters were considered the worst possible beat. It meant ducking into tales of lost lives; it meant figuring out who people used to be back when they were the doctors, the nurses, the teachers, heads of their families, pillars of their nations. To me, though, the immigrants I met were modern-day adventurers (some by choice, some not), exploring the human condition. On the show, guests would share what France meant to them. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity actually had meaning to these forced travelers—these ideas meant the difference between life and death. My inner Marianne of the republic was thrilled.
When we got pregnant with our son, Danny and I were living in Mumbai, India, working as journalists. In our enthusiasm for diving into foreign cultures, we had selected a neighborhood where we were the only nonlocals. I’d been going through life as if tolerance was written in my DNA—it was not. We lived in a Jain building, which meant we were to respect every form of life as sacred. Residents walked with bare feet so as not to step on an ant. Meanwhile, right outside our flat, on the sidewalk, lived a family of six, the youngest a little girl I instantly fell in love with. The daily built-in injustice felt unacceptable to me. Every time I walked out of the house, I was forced to confront prejudices I didn’t know I had—over how we as people should live.
So in Asia, Danny and I worked hard at stretching the limits of our own minds. Danny had long asserted his worldliness by choosing a Dutch, Cuban, French, Buddhist girl as his wife. He was a Jewish kid from Los Angeles whose father was born in Israel of Polish origins and mother born in Baghdad. Adam, our son, was conceived in India and traveled to five countries before he was even born. We were in Asia, we hoped, to tell stories that could connect people and help us understand one another.
Then Danny was kidnapped and murdered by Al Qaeda terrorists—men who stood at the opposite end of the values that had cemented our relationship. Men who had trained to drain themselves of every hint of empathy and compassion. Men who kill puppies and other innocent creatures for practice. A generation of lost soldiers from discarded wars.
The night in Karachi when I realized Danny wasn’t coming home, I ran into the bedroom of the posh but soulless house where we had been staying—all beige marble and mirrors—and locked myself in to howl like a wild animal. It was almost Eid al-Fitr, the break of the Muslim holy fast, and I could hear the cries of sheep herded in the neighbors’ yards. I saw then how History leaves its deep, dirty footprint on your soul when you ignore its ripple effects.
Outside my door was an unusual mix of humankind. The people who had helped me try to save Danny were all praying for both of us. Everyone had overcome their limits to try to find him: Cops and journalists had agreed to work together; Pakistani with Americans; men with a pregnant woman. The prayers I heard that day were Jewish and Buddhist and Muslim, Catholic and secular—a litany that felt like the ultimate expression of our shared humanity.
In the days after Danny’s death, I went to visit then-President Musharraf to protect the man who had taken the most personal risks to save my husband: a Pakistani senior police officer who today is one of my son’s honorary godfathers. I listened to President Musharraf speak about how Americans were too arrogant. Then I flew to the U.S. and met with President George W. Bush, who complained to me that Pakistan was not trustworthy. Both heads of state seemingly sincere, and somewhat puzzled by the other’s behavior. I have never felt as lonely as I did that night, six months pregnant, in my hotel room in Washington, D.C.
How were they ever going to understand one another?
Only immigrants, I felt, could achieve such a miracle.
If I hadn’t been so exposed to multiple identities early in life, I might have gleefully sought comfort in hatred after Danny’s death. I understand why people find it reassuring—a single-minded story, bare and righteous, that spares us the existential angst. But blind faith in my own view was not an option for me. Our world has managed to kill hundreds of millions of its own by relying on that perspective.
My father and mother saw that firsthand. One came from the Holocaust, the other from slavery—and they’d seen in Cuba that political systems inevitably fail you. Yet they still clung to a belief in people, ordinary ones, and especially immigrants and seekers as they were. By shifting their trust from politics to the people it is supposed to guide, they saved my soul. And when I sought my U.S. citizenship, years after that meeting with the president, it was not because I believed in the American government, but because I had managed to preserve a genuine and lasting faith in its people.
I still have that faith. As citizens of a country with vastly more immigrants than any other, we Americans have a unique history: Everyone has or had relatives who remember the war, the famine, the sexual or religious persecution, the ethnic cleansing, or the promise of growth that brought their families to the U.S. So we are the good and the ugly together, the oppressors and the oppressed, the terrorists and the freedom fighters, the dreamers, the refugees and the wild west capitalists. But in the U.S. as elsewhere, blood has spilled and is still flowing—that of Native nations, of slaves then and Black people now, asphyxiated or shot to death. This year it flowed anew, with the cries of caged children, the 140-character leadership, the recurring white extremism, George, Breonna, Atatiana, Stephon. It’s for them—and for myself—that I cast my vote this time.
This fall, and as elections loom, I have found myself thinking of a story I did back when I was reporting in Paris. Danny and I had just met, and I was working in the Pigalle neighborhood, next to a small local church that looked more like a store. Home of the famous Moulin Rouge, Pigalle was a hotspot for traffickers, a place that smelled of urine and sex. Every day, I would see people coming and going to that church, a United Nations of lonely people, most ordinary, usually women. They came for Santa Rita, the patron saint of abused people, parents, widows; those who are lonely, hurt, infertile, ill. (You could see why she attracted women.)
Inside the church, the statue of Santa Rita hovered over a large polished copper bowl filled to the rim with small notes folded several times over.
“There it is,” the priest said. “The vote of the voiceless.”
You mean voice of the voiceless? I asked him.
“Actually, I mean both,” he said, smiling.
The priest read a few messages to me. Abused women who wanted out, people fighting sickness and solitude, a transgender person in search of self. The priest was right—by filling the bowl with their most intimate wish, each person was voting for survival. The unwritten stories behind their votes were there too. The perilous clandestine journeys to Europe, the hunger, the cold nights, the lines at the soup kitchen, the violence around sex, the unfathomable past traumas, the betrayals. But gathered here they found a place where someone would listen, even if just a statue. The ballots they cast were for meaning and vision; they wanted a change, and also safety, hope, and justice.
As we all do when we vote. Don’t we come to the ballot with everything we are and everything we’d rather be? With our cultures, our traumas, our aspirations, our definition of home, our understanding of how the world works and how it should be?
Where I currently live, in Barcelona, Spain—yes, another place—people are engaged in the Independence struggle and showcase their support by hanging Catalan flags, yellow with red stripes, from their balconies. I am often asked by my neighbors here which of my countries I would display if I were to choose one. To their sometime surprise, I always say America.
And so, maybe strangely, does my son. Just as my father chose my name for its symbolism, Danny chose our son’s name—Adam, like the first man, a wish for the 21st century to get its act together and allow peaceful coexistence for its global citizens.
He is now 18, and on November 3, will be working as a translator in New York for Spanish-speaking voters who look like him. And like me, he will be voting—with our shared hopes for a country we still believe in.
Photo illustrations by Debbie Millman. Debbie is a writer, designer, educator, artist, brand consultant and host of the podcast "Design Matters." Follow her on Instagram @DebbieMillman
