795: Nine Months Later
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Prologue: Prologue
Ira Glass
It happened nine months ago in Georgia.
Taylor
I was at work. And I ate a Reese's cup, which is what I usually eat. And I don't know. I just felt really sick immediately.
Ira Glass
Taylor was pretty sure-- not totally sure, but pretty sure. It was the same with Kae in Ohio. She suspected, but it was confusing.
Kae
Yeah. Yeah, I had COVID the same time. So it was just like, is it COVID? Is it not? I had a little bit of nausea. But honestly, I just chalked it up to not really feeling the best.
Ira Glass
Ashley in Texas, she was nauseous too. But her kids had just had a stomach bug.
Ashley
And so I had been feeling sick, but then everyone else felt better. And come the morning of Fourth of July, I just threw up so hard. I don't know if this is too much information, but I wasn't puking out my food from last night. I didn't have stomach poisoning. I was dry heaving. It was a pregnancy, hormonal, morning-sickness puking, which, if you've puked for entire pregnancies before, it's very specific.
Ira Glass
Katie was one of many women whose boyfriends insisted on multiple tests. Her boyfriend did not believe it.
Katie
When he saw it, he was like, no, it could be wrong. Take another one. Take another one. It could be wrong. And it was one of the digital ones, so it wasn't like we read the lines wrong or anything. It was a digital one, and it came back quick. I was like, there's no way it's wrong.
Ira Glass
It wasn't wrong. She was pregnant. They were all pregnant. And they all did not want to be pregnant. But they all lived in states that had just banned abortion. Taylor in Georgia.
Taylor
I was very naive about it. Because I had totally forgot-- I think Roe v. Wade was maybe in May.
Ira Glass
It was June. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that made abortion a constitutional right. That happened the week before Taylor got pregnant.
Taylor
Yeah. So it was new, but it also wasn't something that was important to me on the regular day to day so I got on the phone and I called. And they were super rude to me at Planned Parenthood. I was like, well, I don't even think I'm 6 weeks. And I really wasn't understanding what she was saying because she was saying it doesn't really matter. We're just not going to be able to do it.
And that's when I was like, oh. I totally forgot that this is this new thing where I can't go and get it done. I have to go somewhere else.
Ira Glass
Kae in Ohio was also looking for a clinic. She started calling immediately.
Kae
They didn't have anything for-- I think it was a month or two. And, yeah, it was so backed up. And it was like that pretty much everywhere I had checked. It was either a few weeks to a couple of months.
Ira Glass
They'd have to wait. It's been nine months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And to mark that fact, on today's show, we're going to look at what these last nine months have been like for people who discovered they were pregnant right when the laws changed in their states. They came up against a wall trying to find an abortion. These are people who, nine months ago, found themselves waiting for an appointment, waiting to get together money to travel, to make a plan, just to get somebody on the phone.
And in that waiting, there was time for other things to happen. For instance, Kae in Ohio and Taylor in Georgia were both waiting for an appointment. And one day, Kae and her boyfriend walked to Dairy Queen.
Kae
It wasn't until the walk back that we started to talk about it. And we were both kind of joking about the fact that, oh, I wonder what our baby would look like. And so we were like discussing like, oh, what color eyes do you think they would have? What color hair?
We got to talking about what we were like as kids. And then we were like, yeah, that could be fun to have our own. I was watching us talk about how we were. And I was like, yeah, that would be awesome to have a baby with this person. Talking through it, I was like, oh my gosh, am I changing my mind? Am I going to keep it?
Ira Glass
Taylor started wondering the same thing. She'd been certain until she waited, first for the ultrasound appointment and then for the abortion. It was weeks and weeks.
Taylor
I just spent a lot of time thinking what I wanted, if I felt like-- do I want to have a kid or not? I think it was the first time-- for someone like me who's very sure of themselves, that was the first time I was ever stumped.
Ira Glass
If Kae and Taylor had been pregnant weeks earlier, they both would have gotten abortions at nearby clinics. But now this new reality set them both on very different paths as they tried to find their way to an abortion. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's show, Nine Months after the end of Roe v. Wade.
Today's episode was inspired by the excellent reporting of Caroline Kitchener, who covers abortion for the Washington Post. If you've ever seen her stories, Caroline's reporting just gets inside people's lives in this way that feels very unusual, intimate and very real, and you see how not black and white people's feelings and situations can be. She'll be with us for the hour. Stay with us, OK?
Act One: First Trimester
Ira Glass
First trimester. So we start today's show in those first few months right after the Court's decision and how this played out for Kae and Taylor, who had both just found out they were pregnant and both wanted abortions. 14 states have banned most abortions since Roe was overturned. And for some people, that's it. They won't get abortions. But others, of course, like Kae and Taylor, they're still going to try to get one. And for them, the state bans are a hurdle that slows things down as they try to figure out how.
The anti-abortion movement is aware that there's this new window of time where maybe they could reach these people and persuade them to change their minds. Since the fall of Roe, there's been a big push to do just that, to increase state funding for crisis pregnancy centers, which already get millions of dollars from taxpayers. These are clinics whose whole mission is to convince people to not get abortions.
Meanwhile, online, anti-abortion folks are trying to connect with people who are looking for information about abortions. An anti-abortion activist reached both Kae and Taylor during the first trimesters. And each responded very differently. Caroline Kitchener watched this unfold for each of them in two separate states, week by week.
Just a quick note that we've changed some names in today's show for people who requested that for privacy, though Kae and Taylor are their real names. Anyway, here's Caroline.
Caroline Kitchener
Kae was in Ohio. Taylor was in Georgia. Both states had just banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. That leaves a super short window to get an abortion.
From the beginning, Kate tried to approach her pregnancy the way she approaches other things in her life. She's methodical, organized. Kae is 25 years old, white, owns her own pet-sitting business.
She kept track of her periods on an app. And when she missed one, she took a pregnancy test. It was positive. She started calling clinics to try to get an appointment for an abortion. Kae wasn't completely sure she wanted one. Ever since that walk with her boyfriend to the Dairy Queen, she'd started going back and forth, wondering if maybe she should keep the pregnancy after all. She made a pro/con list. She really wasn't sure.
Her boyfriend kept telling her that he'd support her no matter what. That wasn't exactly helpful. She pressed him, trying to figure out what he actually thought.
Kae
Because I was like, well, OK, I'm making up my mind. I'm going to have an abortion. How do you feel about that? That's fine. OK. Well, I changed my mind and now I'm thinking about keeping it. How do you feel about that? That's fine. And I was like, dude, what the hell? Come on, give me something more.
It was just kind of like wanting almost, like, somebody to tell me what to do because I felt so out of control of the situation that like I just needed somebody, almost, to help me make the decision.
Caroline Kitchener
Finally, Kae found a Women's Center online that offered free ultrasounds and abortion consultations. They had an appointment right away.
Kae
I remember my first thought was like, wow, this is super purple.
[LAUGHTER]
Caroline Kitchener
What was purple?
Kae
Pretty much everything-- the walls, some of the decor. I just remember it was very calming and quiet. I remember them offering me ginger ale. And I was just like, yeah, I'll take ginger ale. I'm super nauseous.
Caroline Kitchener
The Women's Center was actually a crisis pregnancy center. Those are places where staff are specially trained to talk people out of having abortions. But Kae didn't know any of that. She was there to get an answer to a question. Could she get an abortion in Ohio at all? Was she still under six weeks? The crisis pregnancy center gave her an ultrasound.
Kae
I was like, OK, well, how far along am I? And they were like, too early to even tell. It's too early to say anything.
Caroline Kitchener
A trained ultrasound tech should have been able to give her some sense of how far along she was starting around five weeks, which is right where Kae thought she was.
Kae
Obviously, I'm not a doctor so I'm not going to argue argue with somebody. But I was looking at it. I'm like, there's nothing you can tell me, absolutely nothing? And I was just like, is there anything, any type of estimate? And she was like, I can't say. We'll just have to reschedule another ultrasound about a week from now. The only thing that kept going through my head was I'm going to be past six weeks.
Caroline Kitchener
Here is something I've heard from abortion providers. Crisis pregnancy centers will sometimes delay telling people how far along they are-- or they'll misinform people about how far along they are-- until abortion is no longer an option. The doctors tell me they've heard this from patients who come in to see them after going to a pregnancy center. Kae had wanted someone to help her decide what to do with this pregnancy, and she'd walked into a place that was specifically set up to do just that.
Meanwhile, Taylor could not get an abortion in Georgia because she was too far along. She had to fly to Florida for her appointment, but the soonest one she could get was weeks away. Taylor is 27 years old, Black. She studied film in college, ended up working an office job at a financial services company. She just got in her first apartment.
Also, she's a little bit nerdy, big Reddit user. When she hears something that piques her interest, her first move is usually to scout around for the relevant subreddit. So when she learned that her abortion procedure would use a suction tool, Taylor wanted to know more.
Taylor
I actually went home and looked it up. Because I think a lot of times, the only images we have are of people who are pro-life, who want to show you pieces of gutted fetuses. So I didn't look up anything like that. But I was able to see an animated version of what it looks like when the actual surgical tool is in the body and it pulls the fetus out.
Caroline Kitchener
A tube would be inserted inside her uterus, a pump, and then the suction.
Taylor
And it made me wonder if the kid was alive or not and if it's going to hurt him if they use that tool. I just thought that there would be a more advanced way to do it that wouldn't be that gruesome. And it made me wonder if it's too barbaric or too archaic or too violent.
Caroline Kitchener
Taylor had pretty uncomplicated feelings about abortion up until now. To the extent she'd ever thought about it, she always figured that if she did get pregnant unexpectedly, she'd go to the Planned Parenthood clinic down the road from her apartment, and that would be that. But now, she wasn't sure what to do. She called her aunt, and she said--
Taylor
I don't know if I'm comfortable doing this. And she was just like, listen, you cannot afford a kid. That's just the end of the day. It doesn't matter if you think the procedure is barbaric. They do it every day. This is a very common procedure. This is not anything you need to be alarmed about. You'll be just fine.
Caroline Kitchener
Her aunt reminded her that she didn't have a lot of savings. Her new job wasn't a done deal. She still had to pass a big exam to keep it. And she didn't know how to drive. Taylor says it was kind of insulting.
She called her boyfriend. They were long distance. He had just moved to Florida, and the clinic she'd picked for the abortion was near where he lived. Now, on the phone, she told him she was having doubts. He assured her that was totally normal. And he had his own theory to explain her feelings.
Taylor
What he was saying was that he felt like, because he was so far away, maybe the baby was a way for me to feel more connected to him. Then I was just like, what the-- I just immediately was like, you're not that important to me. I think I'm pretty sure I'm still in control of how I feel. If I was having second thoughts, it would 100% be because of me and no one else.
You know, a baby is not something that you use to feel closer to another person. It was just such a weird thing to even suggest, me wanting to emotionally connect with him through the baby. And that's when I went out for other people's opinions.
Caroline Kitchener
Taylor found herself in the exact same spot as Kae in Ohio, asking other people what she should do. Like Kae, Taylor would soon find herself face to face with the anti-abortion movement, people who were ready and eager to influence her decision.
When Kae left her appointment at the pregnancy center in Ohio, she still didn't know it wasn't a regular, abortion-friendly medical clinic. The staff handed her a gift bag. It had a nail file, many, many pamphlets, spearmint gum to help with nausea, and prenatal vitamins, which she did think was a little bit weird. She'd told them that she was planning to get an abortion.
Kae
It was the way that they described them that made me think that they weren't completely listening to me. Because they were like, well, this is for the health of your pregnancy, moving forward. And, well, the pregnancy isn't moving forward.
Having somebody give me these options and almost push the option I wanted to the side like it wasn't even really like a choice, that really just irked me. And I was like, well, this is what I want, and you're not even listening to me. I would expect this from a man or something, but to have other women disregard what I was saying was one of the most irritating things to me.
Caroline Kitchener
Crisis pregnancy centers have carefully thought through all these moves to push people away from abortion. But for Kae, it actually seemed like it was backfiring. It was making her more sure that she wanted an abortion. When she left, she looked up abortion pills online and found Aid Access, an organization based in Europe that sends pills to all 50 states, even states where abortion is banned. They operate in this kind of legal gray area. That made Kae nervous, but she put in the order anyway.
She still wanted to know how far along she was, so she went back for another scan at the crisis pregnancy center. People who work at crisis pregnancy centers, they see their work as saving lives. That's what they're there for. I talked to several staffers at centers who told me they find immense fulfillment in convincing even just one person to keep their pregnancy. And part of that is making the best case they can for not having an abortion.
Kae got on the ultrasound table for a second time. They asked if she wanted pictures, no, thank you, she said. They played her something they called a heartbeat. Technically, doctors say, this is not a heartbeat. Kae did not want to hear it.
Kae
I hadn't changed my mind. Hearing that was just another sound for me. And the ultrasound tech, who knew that I did not want to keep this pregnancy, asked me if I wanted to take pictures home with me. And I immediately was just like, no, I don't want that. And she was just like, well, are you sure? I was like, yeah, pretty sure.
I was already angry. And then having her question me, I was just like, you guys really just aren't getting this. Again, are you sure you don't want pictures? And I was like, yes, I am very sure. I plan on getting an abortion still. I got my pills from Aid Access. I bought those. I'm just waiting for those to get to my house. She immediately just had this change of demeanor to being completely defensive. And that--
Caroline Kitchener
In what way, when you say defensive?
Kae
Her first thing was, oh, well, you should be careful because you never know what kind of grade pill you're going to get.
Caroline Kitchener
To be clear, there's no such thing as different grade abortion pills. And Aid Access has been around for years and is a widely-trusted source. The crisis pregnancy center told Kae how far along she was, six weeks and three days.
That meant a couple of things. First, Kae could have tried to get an abortion in a clinic in Ohio right after her last appointment, had she known. It also meant that the week before, a trained sonographer should have been able to give her some sense of how far along she was.
With Kae's permission, I reached out to the Women's Center. It's called Bella Women's Center. They wouldn't give me an interview, but they said in a statement that they don't talk about individual patients because of confidentiality. They did say they are aware of the timeline pressure that comes with a six-week abortion ban. And they added that they are committed to, quote, "full disclosure of the patient's options."
But as far as Kae was concerned, her options were dwindling. Kae wanted to take the abortion pills by the time she was 10 weeks pregnant because that's what the FDA advises. She was probably right around six weeks, and the pills could take up to a month to be delivered. She was running out of time.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, while Taylor waited, she fixated on one particular question. She couldn't find a satisfying answer, no matter how many people she talked to or how much research she did online. Would the abortion hurt the baby?
Taylor
And the only people who have ever said abortions actually physically hurt babies are people who are pro-life.
Caroline Kitchener
She found an anti-abortion forum online and wrote a public message.
Taylor
OK. Hi. OK, let me not. Hi, I'm pro-choice, weirdly having second thoughts about my appointment next week. Advice, question mark, question mark.
Caroline Kitchener
She writes that she is now 11 weeks pregnant.
Taylor
I've just gotten used to being pregnant, and I have to fly to another state to get an abortion.
Caroline Kitchener
And then what happened?
Taylor
A lot of people commented on that post, just like, flooding. A lot of them were telling me I could give my baby away for adoption. Any option is better to them than to "murder," quote, unquote, your baby.
Caroline Kitchener
Anti-abortion advocates online use all sorts of different strategies to sway people away from abortion, to do everything they can to ensure that pregnancies are carried to term.
Taylor
I actually had this lady ask me if I would do an open adoption.
Caroline Kitchener
Oh, wow, like, to give it to her.
Taylor
Right.
Caroline Kitchener
How did you feel about that?
Taylor
There's no way I would do that. I think it was probably a little over 200 comments. People were offering me money. People were just super involved in making sure I didn't go to my appointment.
Caroline Kitchener
How did it feel to read those things?
Taylor
There's always a tone of coercion, in my opinion. But it was nice to read them because you just want to hear other people's opinions. So just hearing that, it was nice to hear the other side of it versus just, like, the answer is the abortion. But I had no one else that was actually excited for me. Because I will say that in the moment, I really needed somebody to connect with me about how I was feeling.
Caroline Kitchener
When I first started talking to Kae and Taylor, it looked to me like they could be swayed by people who desperately wanted to sway them. Kae was trying out different decisions, auditioning them for her boyfriend. And Taylor was seeking out guidance from people she didn't even know.
But then I started thinking, they actually were actively deciding what voices they wanted to let in, who exactly they wanted to be influenced by. In the middle of one of the most polarized debates in America, Kae and Taylor were trying to suss out what was right for them.
Taylor
So I would read those comments all day. I would read those comments at night. I would read them at work. I would read them when I left work. And some of them didn't mean anything, but most of them actually meant a lot to me. But just being able to speak to someone freely and not feel like they're pushing you to a certain place-- I mean, they were pushing me, but they were also giving me what I asked for, which is a valid reason to not have an abortion.
Caroline Kitchener
Ultimately, Taylor did go to Florida. She got on a plane to another state for an abortion. Her boyfriend picked her up from the airport at 11:00 PM.
Taylor
And the next morning, it was probably 6:00 AM, but my appointment was at 8:00. And he was just sleeping away, no problem, no whatever. But I was up. So I woke him up a little bit, and we talked.
Caroline Kitchener
And they kept talking, about their parents, how they were raised, what they would want to do the same if they became parents, and what they would want to do differently. Her boyfriend said he worried his kid would struggle in school the same way he had. They wondered how much of that was genetic. They kept talking and talking.
Taylor
Yeah. I kept looking at the clock because it's like, all right, it's 6:30. Unless we throw our clothes on right now, we're going to be right on time. All right, it's 7:00. So when it started to get 7:10, 7:15, 7:30, it just kind of worked out in that way, where we just blew through the time and just ignored it.
Caroline Kitchener
Taylor never went to the appointment. Kae's pills arrived when she was eight weeks along. When Kae took them, she was in pain, more than she'd been expecting, which was scary because with all the new laws, Kate didn't feel safe calling a doctor. She didn't want to get in trouble.
Kae
I was in a lot of pain. I was cramping. I was bleeding. I went into this little bathroom. And I remember being so hot. Because I had the light on in the bathroom, the door was closed, so this heat was just building up from the light. And the only thing that I could think of to help the pain was a warm shower, even though like I was so hot.
And I turned the shower on, and I contemplated getting in for a few minutes. Because I was like, oh my god, what if it doesn't help and I'm just roasting myself alive? And I ended up just getting in, and it was immense relief.
Caroline Kitchener
It was done for Kae but not for Taylor.
Ira Glass
Caroline Kitchener, as we were putting this story together, the legal landscape changed a few times in many states, including Ohio, where Kae lives. Ohio's abortion ban was challenged in court. And right now, there's a temporary injunction, which means that abortion is still legal there for up to 22 weeks.
But abortion pills, like the ones that Kae took, may soon be harder to come by thanks to a decision just this week by a federal judge in Texas. That decision, if it stands, can make abortion pills harder to get in other states too. Coming up, what happens next with Taylor and how a video arcade can make almost anything feel better. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
It's This American Life, I'm Ira Glass. Today's show, Nine Months Later, it's been nine months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Our program today is about people who discovered that they were pregnant and did not want to be.
Right when that ruling came down and made abortions largely illegal in their states, we're following what's happened to those people in the first trimester, and now, in this next part of our show, in the second trimester.
Act Two: Second Trimester
Ira Glass
Back before Roe fell, the vast number of abortions did happen in the first trimester. But now, because it can take so long to figure out what to do or for abortion pills to come in the mail, doctors say they're seeing an increasing number of people seeking abortions in the second trimester. There's a hotline, the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, which was started to help patients who are taking abortion pills at home. And it's been getting a lot more calls from people who are taking pills later in their pregnancy than the 10 weeks the FDA has approved.
Now, to be clear, the pills are still safe after 10 weeks, but there can be complications. And the whole experience can be more intense.
Linda Prine
People call a lot to just say, does this sound like it's going OK? Because I'm so afraid that if I need to get medical care, I'll get arrested.
Ira Glass
Dr. Linda Prine, who helped start the hotline, talked with us and with a medical storytelling podcast called The Nocturnists about what she's been seeing. She says she used to answer questions from people in first trimester abortions about how much bleeding is normal, how do they know if the pills worked. But now she says at least once a day, she'll get a call that's very different.
Linda Prine
It's taken them so long to get their pills that by the time they use them, they're 14 weeks, 16 weeks, 20 weeks. And we get calls about-- the fetus just came out, and I don't know what to do about the tissue that's stuck. How do I do this? There's the cord.
Or I think the placenta stuck in my cervix. Or sometimes they don't have the vocabulary to explain what's happening. But they're just like, I can tell there's more tissue, and I don't know how to get it out. And what should I do?
At that point, she has to walk them through a second-trimester abortion over the phone. This is part of what the second trimester looks like now, more complicated, more frightening. And the people we talked to felt very alone. We spoke with nearly a dozen people who were looking for abortions in the weeks after Roe fell. And so many of them could not decide who to trust, who to ask for help. And there's one other thing that people talked about when they talked about what they were afraid of.
Katie
I don't know how I would tell my mom.
Ira Glass
Katie had to travel out of state for her abortion. The only appointment she could get was the same weekend as her college orientation.
Katie
And there was no way of rescheduling it because I wouldn't know how to tell my mom of why I wanted to reschedule it.
Ira Glass
Moms, there's no figure we heard about more than moms. People did not want to have to talk to their moms about their abortions. It was hard. Their mom called all the time or asked how they were. But they needed their mom to drive them across state lines, like Brianna, who says she heard over 12 hours in the car of--
Brianna
It was like, I don't think you should do this, but it's your life. And so I was like, you're not helping.
Ashley
I wish I didn't have to say anything to my mom at all, but I needed the childcare. We needed the help for the weekend.
Ira Glass
Ashley had to figure out what to say about why she needed to leave town.
Ashley
We just lied. She was extremely helpful that weekend as far as-- I think she took the kids one day so that my husband had to work Saturday. But I had to yeah, lie.
Jessica
I could not tell my mom.
Ira Glass
This is Jessica in Texas.
Jessica
Telling her that I was pregnant and was not sure if I was going to keep it would have probably devastated her.
Ira Glass
There was one post Roe second-trimester pregnancy that especially drew Caroline in, Caroline Kitchener, the reporter from the Washington Post that we're doing today's show with. This particular pregnancy was in Oklahoma, a teenage girl named Lilly, who couldn't get an abortion without pulling in her parents-- in this case, her dad. Again, here's Caroline.
Caroline Kitchener
I met Lilly a few days after she got her positive pregnancy test. She was 17 years old and well into her second trimester. I liked Lilly right away. She was silly, made me feel old, but in a super endearing kind of way. Lilly told me she'd known this boy for a while and they had an on-again, off-again thing since sophomore year.
Lilly
I don't know how to explain it. He's very funny, and he's very sweet and very caring. He's a little stupid, but that's OK. And yeah, we had just started hanging out again, I think. Because we had been going to lunch and stuff because at my school, we had gotten 15-minute lunches.
And then he was like, hey, what you doing? And I was like, oh, dear god . And then it all kind of just restarted.
Caroline Kitchener
Lilly had no idea she was pregnant through the entire first trimester. She had just graduated from high school, still riding high off prom. She was making her own money working at a sandwich shop, staying out late with friends. Somewhere down the line, she thought she might go to culinary school. Or she had an idea for a business that combined her two favorite things, tattoos and food. She would call it Pies and Pokes.
Lilly's the youngest of five. The older siblings have all moved out already, so it's just her and her dad in the house together.
Lilly
You know what you picture when you picture a single, divorced dad? [LAUGHS] Like, he doesn't know how to decorate. We shop nightly for meals. He won't go shopping for a lot of things to keep the fridge or the pantry stocked. We'll just go as we need, or we'll go buy food at fast-food places or go to restaurants. And I just think it's hilarious.
Caroline Kitchener
Here's how Lilly found out she was pregnant. She was at work, and she called her dad with really bad stomach cramps. They ended up in the ER, where they took Lily's vitals and took some urine. And the doctor came in the room with this weird look on his face. He asked Lilly if she was OK talking with her dad in the room. Lilly was like, yeah, of course, talk about what? He told her, you're pregnant.
Lilly
And I looked at my dad. And I remember him getting all shocked and looking at me. It was-- good lord. He looked like he was definitely panicking but trying not to show me because he knew I was panicking. Because I was visibly panicking.
Caroline Kitchener
How were you-- what do you think you were doing--
Lilly
Oh, I was crying. I was crying immediately. I literally, instantly started just sobbing.
Caroline Kitchener
It turned out she was about 19 weeks along. The doctor handed her the test results and told her that she could put them in her baby book. He kept talking, but Lilly was just staring at her dad, studying his face.
Lilly
I just remember being scared. I felt shaky. And I kind of wanted to know if he was mad at me or really just what he was thinking about, honestly.
Caroline Kitchener
He said nothing. But at one point, he did reach out to hold her hand. They left the room, walked to the car in silence. As they were driving home, Lilly said he asked her right off the bat--
Lilly
Do you know whose it is? And I was, like, yeah. And he was like, well, whose is it? And I was like, um-- because I didn't want to tell him because he knows the guy. And I was like, oh god.
Caroline Kitchener
And did you?
Lilly
Yeah. Then he was like, oh my god. I should have your brothers kill him, da, da, da, da, da.
Caroline Kitchener
She rolled her eyes, and then the conversation was very much over. They drove home. She went to her bedroom. He went to his.
The next day, Lilly sat in her room while her dad went to work. And it really started to hit her. She was pregnant, and abortion was now illegal in Oklahoma. There was no doubt in Lilly's mind, she wanted an abortion.
Had she found out earlier in her pregnancy, before Oklahoma banned abortion, Lilly could have driven 30 minutes to a clinic to get one. But now she had to find a different way. First, she tried clinics in Kansas, but the clinic she called told her that she was too far along for them to see her. Then she tried New Mexico. They didn't have appointments for three to four weeks.
I talked to Lilly a whole bunch right around this time. She was terrified. One clinic told her she was so far along, they would have to induce labor to end the pregnancy. Lilly told me she couldn't imagine pushing a baby out of her 95-pound body.
Caroline Kitchener
Do you think you sounded scared on those calls?
Lilly
Probably, yeah. I was very nervous, and it was not fun to say on the phone repeatedly.
Caroline Kitchener
She kept calling and calling. Eventually, she found one clinic in New Mexico with an appointment the following week. She knew she wouldn't be able to get there on her own. She knew she was going to need her dad.
Lilly's dad is former Air Force. Now he works in IT. He loves music Lilly likes to describe as dad rock-- AC/DC, Bon Jovi. He has five kids, three boys and two girls. He grew up in a conservative family, believing it was wrong to have an abortion. Lilly didn't know what he would think about her wanting an abortion.
Lilly
I was just nervous to tell him, honestly. I was nervous to see his reaction.
Caroline Kitchener
What were you worried about?
Lilly
I just didn't want him to be disappointed, I guess.
Caroline Kitchener
A few days later, her dad finally asked her, so what are you going to do? She told him, I'm not going to have a kid. He said, you know how hard that's going to be now, right? Lilly knew.
Then her dad walked out. He said he needed a little time to process that information. Lilly decided, in her head, that what her dad was not saying was that he wanted her to keep the baby.
Lilly
It was kind of hard. Because I can handle my dad being mad at me. Him being disappointed in me is a whole different story.
Caroline Kitchener
Was he actually disappointed? Did he actually not want her to get the abortion? What was he thinking when the doctor told them she was pregnant? When they drove home that night, Lilly hadn't asked him. So I did.
Justin
The first thing was, who is this kid? Because there's a butt kicking coming.
Caroline Kitchener
You mean, who is this person who impregnated her?
Justin
Yeah, yeah. And when she told me, it kind of infuriated me a little bit more.
Caroline Kitchener
Why?
Justin
Well, because-- so the guy, he'd already gotten another 15, 16-year-old girl pregnant and had a baby with her. So yeah. The next thing in my mind is I'm calling the three brothers, and this is getting handled. That was the immediate, you've ruined your life. You're 17 years old. You're going to have a baby now.
A, how are you going to take care of this baby? You don't even have a job. No, I think she was working at that point. You're working at Jersey Mike's, making minimum wage. I have just gotten out of finally paying off your medical bills for your broken leg, which was also the result of a horrible decision on your part. What were you thinking?
Caroline Kitchener
When Lilly told her dad, Justin, that she wanted an abortion, she imagined he was angry or upset. But he told me he wasn't. He was really just surprised.
Justin
I didn't think, knowing Grace, that it was going to be an option for her.
Caroline Kitchener
Grace is his nickname for Lilly. He's always called her that.
Justin
I don't know why. That was my first instinct, was she's going to have his baby. I don't know why--
Caroline Kitchener
Why, why?
Justin
--I thought that.
Caroline Kitchener
Because when she talks about it, it's like there was no room for that. So it's interesting that, knowing her as well as you do, that's where your mind went.
Justin
This may sound terrible, but it probably was a result of how nurturing she is. She doesn't even like to step on spiders, you know what I'm saying? So I just never thought that that would be an option for her.
Caroline Kitchener
But Justin quickly moved past shock and into action mode. He assumed that this was something that he needed to make happen for his daughter. The day Lilly told him she wanted an abortion, Justin went to work and researched. He looked up clinics. He had no idea that Lilly, his baby-- now his anxious and somewhat irresponsible teenager-- she was way ahead of him.
Justin
Didn't really hear from her much that day. And I get home, fully, she's laying on her bed. She's got her little notebook out. And she's got some kind of gangster rap going on the freaking-- on the Alexa. And she's called 14 different places. She's called the Roe v. Wade fund. She's called everything, and she's basically got a plan in place. And I'm like, oh, wow.
Caroline Kitchener
So you thought you were going to be the one making the phone calls.
Justin
I did. I absolutely did. It amazed me because that is not a trait she had displayed before. And her calmness during it, that's what really stood out. She didn't panic. She wasn't like, oh, Dad, help me. She was like, OK, well, I got to call this guy. I got to call this guy.
Caroline Kitchener
What did you want her to do? What decision did you want her to make?
Justin
That's a great question. Hm. I think if you had to say what was your top choice, I would have said, yeah, I wanted her to keep the baby.
Caroline Kitchener
Why do you think your top choice was for her to keep it?
Justin
That probably is very psychologically deep. And it probably has to do with Grace getting to the point where she's going to leave and feeling all my children are out. Kinsie has her own kid. Michael is out there in the world, doing his thing. Christopher and Brady are out in the world.
So Grace is all I have left that I know needs me. Her daily survival, to some degree, depends on me. And I've gone almost longer in my life with that than without that. So I don't know how to be the me before the kids. For the last 27 years, I always had somebody that needed me.
So I know if Grace has this baby, I got another at least 18 to 20 years of being needed. And that may be purely selfish, but I hope that my concern for her outweighed my selfishness in that situation.
Caroline Kitchener
Justin wasn't sure he could trust his own impulses or his own feelings. That's why he didn't talk to Lilly. To her, it seemed like disapproval. But Justin was really just trying to give her space, not share too much of his own complicated thoughts. He knew Lilly would have a hard time ignoring anything he said.
When Lilly asked him to drive her to New Mexico for the abortion, Justin said yes. She'd gotten the funds. She'd made the appointment. She had a plan.
Lilly was 20 weeks pregnant when she and her dad loaded up the car to drive to New Mexico together. They stocked up on her favorite road trip snacks, Pringles and pudding cups. It was their first road trip together, just the two of them. And Justin told me, with everything Lilly had been through, he wanted to make sure they did something fun along the way, which was funny because Lilly told me this about heading out on that trip with her dad.
Lilly
I wanted him to have at least some sort of fun while he was out here. I thought it was really sweet that he was trying to make me feel better. And obviously, it's not fun for me, but I know it's not fun to have to see your kid-- I wanted him to have some good memory.
Caroline Kitchener
When it was time for the procedure, it took two days. Because she was so far along, the doctor had to insert dilation sticks to soften and open her cervix. Then Lilly and her dad went to the hotel. Then they went back to the clinic in the morning, and the doctor used suction to empty the uterus for about 20 minutes until the fetus was entirely out.
Lilly said the nurse woke her up and told her, you're done. You are no longer pregnant. She immediately noticed that her stomach didn't feel full anymore. She said it felt flat again.
Afterward, Lilly told Justin she wanted to go to the arcade in the mall. She wanted to try the DDR machine. But mostly, she wanted to go because she thought her dad would love it.
Lilly
But I was incredibly nauseous and in a bunch of pain but we still went because ball out.
Justin
So she was she was sick in the car in the parking lot when we pulled up in the mall, but she was determined that she wanted to go to the arcade. So I'm like, all right, well, we'll go.
Caroline Kitchener
Was there any part of you that was like, really? Like, why do you want to do this when you're like actively sick and throwing up?
Justin
I was kind of proud. I'm like, all right, yeah, a little vomit ain't going to stop us from playing some games. And after she threw up, she felt better.
So we're walking around. And for a while, it was fun. And we're playing games. We're winning toys and such. And I think we ordered a pretzel or something, maybe, from the little snack bar or whatever.
Lilly
And we played a bunch of claw games, and my dad won me a little duck in a hoodie. It's really cute. I still have it. I named him Mr. Quacker.
[LAUGHTER]
Caroline Kitchener
But then Lilly started feeling sick again.
Justin
And so we're walking around, trying to find the bathroom. And she's like, I am not going to make it. And I'm like, well, then just go hide behind one of the arcade machines. And she, sure enough, made it to the side of one of the arcade machines and then she just launched it. And I'm like, yeah, we should probably go ahead and head home now.
Lilly
I was walking away to go find a worker to tell someone, hey, I just threw up on your ground. I'm so sorry. My dad, my grown-man dad, he goes, no, it's fine. They deal with this all the time. Let's just leave. And we just left.
Justin
She's like, do I need to tell somebody? And I'm like, I'm sure they're going to figure it out. [LAUGHS]
Caroline Kitchener
It was an eight-hour drive back to Oklahoma. They left at 5:00 AM the next morning. Justin drove. Lilly slept in the passenger seat. By afternoon, they were home, back to regular life, back to their routines, still just the two of them.
Act Three: Third Trimester
Ira Glass
Third trimester. Now that we're nine months out from the Supreme Court decision, this first group of people who wanted abortions, but they live in states with abortion bans, have had time to think about where they landed, how these laws affected them. People had very different takeaways.
One woman in Mississippi told us she thinks her abortion saved her life and the laws just stood in her way. She had a medical condition that made her pregnancy life-threatening. A woman in Texas said the experience made her swear off men. Another woman in Texas said it made her swear off Texas. The anti-abortion forces and laws in the state seem so menacing, she didn't even want to reveal that she was pregnant on the standard medical form that you fill out at the chiropractor's office.
Sarah
I didn't want to let anybody know I was pregnant. And I was afraid that I was going to be reported. I don't know how they handle it. People were afraid of period apps, for god's sakes, putting down that they were missing periods.
Ira Glass
She left Texas for months.
But a college freshman named Katie told us that the biggest aftereffect of her abortion and the new laws was that it led to a lot of awkward conversations with family and friends because she didn't want to tell everybody about her abortion. She wanted to be one of the millions of people who have had abortions and were able to put it away, move on, not think about it again.
This was not the year for that. Abortion was constantly in the news. People were talking about it all the time. And Katie's roommate talked about how annoying the anti-abortion protesters were in the quad. Katie wanted to agree but without disclosing too much about her own abortion.
Katie
And I told her that I had a friend that had to go to Louisiana and Washington and all this stuff because of Roe v. Wade got overturned. And if Texas didn't have all these laws, it would have been so much easier on her. But she had to wait so long just because of Roe v. Wade.
Ira Glass
For Ashley, the new laws dominated a lot of her last year. She was in the unusual situation that under the abortion ban, she left the state to get an abortion, and then, months later, she discovered she was pregnant again. Everything about how she felt about this new pregnancy was shaped by that first post Roe abortion. She'd had her mom watch her three kids when she went out of state but lied to her about where she was going and what she was doing, and she'd turned to an abortion fund to help pay for it last time around. Now, pregnant again and thinking about a second abortion--
Ashley
I felt selfish. I felt like I was taking the fund resources away from the 17-year-old who needed it way more than me. I just felt horribly selfish, and I didn't feel like it was a situation that I could put myself and my whole family through again. I can't travel another 1,800 miles and lie to my family and my kids about where Mommy is when I have a spot in my van. And we have a happy home. And we have space and love. So basically, I didn't feel like I could do it again and still feel good about it.
Ira Glass
So she was keeping the pregnancy, even though her reasons for the first abortion still stood. She still had three kids on Medicaid. Her husband still didn't make enough money. And she still did not want to be pregnant.
Ashley
Then it made me start to realize how many mothers of multiple children have to just pile another kid in there when they really didn't want to. Sometimes it's people that already have a minivan and have the space and have the love, which makes us feel even worse. But just because we have the space and we have the love doesn't mean we wanted to do that.
Ira Glass
Which brings us to the most consequential result of the new laws. The first group of post Roe babies, babies who never would have been born had the Supreme Court had not acted, are now coming into the world. One of those babies is Taylor's. You heard Taylor earlier, the Reddit nerd in Atlanta who flew to Florida for an abortion, but in the end, didn't go to her appointment. Caroline has been tracking what's happened since then, and that's where we'll end today's show.
Caroline Kitchener
By the time Taylor entered her third trimester, she was very alone. It happened week by week. When she was 13 weeks pregnant, coming home to Atlanta, Taylor's mom and sister wanted to celebrate. They asked, can we rub your belly? Can we throw you a baby shower? No and no. Taylor was not interested.
Taylor
I didn't want people to get me things I didn't want. I didn't want my family to feel responsible for something that I really didn't plan to do. If I was married or something, I'd have a baby shower. But this is not the same type of situation. So I didn't want to ask anyone for anything.
Caroline Kitchener
It was almost like she had decided this was her thing. She got pregnant without planning to, so she was going to deal with it all by herself. Taylor's family was offended, which made Taylor want to pull away even more. By the time she was around 16 weeks pregnant, Taylor and her mom were no longer speaking.
18 weeks, Taylor and her boyfriend were fighting. She wanted him to move back to Atlanta. He wanted her to move to Florida. They broke up.
At 22 weeks, Taylor was trying to take control of the situation. She would buy all the right baby things, line them up in all the right spots in her house, a mini fridge by the bed to store breast milk, small stacks of diapers in every room, so she could reach every little thing she needed when it was just her and the baby. This way, she thought, she could do this alone.
At 24 weeks, Taylor lost her job. She needed to pass a test to keep it. And with everything that was happening with the baby, she said she just couldn't focus. 25 weeks, Taylor asked her ex, what role do you want with this baby? He said, I want to be involved. But there's wanting to be involved and being able to. She took that to mean he's out.
So as she entered her third trimester, Taylor started imagining herself alone in the delivery room. She would Uber herself to the hospital. She scheduled a C-section. Four days before the date, I caught Taylor running around, getting ready. At that point, she said she didn't want anybody with her, especially her family.
Taylor
Yeah, because I don't want everybody crowding me right after the birth, and then I don't want everybody in my house at the same time. And these are going to be my first moments learning how to be a mom. And I don't want to do that in front of anybody either.
Caroline Kitchener
On March 24, Taylor gave birth to a baby boy, exactly, to the day, nine months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Taylor
It went so freaking well.
Caroline Kitchener
I called her when she got home from the hospital.
Taylor
Let me tell you something. The weirdest part about it is how fast it was. It was like 10 minutes that they pulled this kid out of me. I felt pressure. And then the next thing you know, there's a [BLEEP] kid. It was crazy.
I don't think there will ever be anything that will measure up to how surreal it felt to see a child come out of your stomach. It's just like, whoa, I created that. You're just in shock. Like, this is me? This is all me. I created this.
And he came out with his eyes wide open. He was very aware. He's beautiful. He's quiet. He's not a normal baby. He's just a super baby. Black, dark black hair. He's really perfect. If you wanted a kid, he'd be like the blueprint.
Caroline Kitchener
In the end, Taylor wasn't alone in the hospital. She asked her cousin to give her a ride to the hospital. The cousin stayed and took a video of the birth. And Taylor says the cousin must have called other people in the family, because the day she gave birth--
Taylor
My father came, same day. He also showed up the next day. My mom came the next day, and she stayed the night every night after that. And then I also had family that just won't leave. They're like, I won't say or do anything. I just want to be here.
So I've come down off of my high horse because it's such a huge thing. And I think I underestimated, probably, how huge it was. I had to really humble myself and be OK with people helping me. I'd get, like, two hours a night of sleep. So I just needed help.
[BABY FUSSES]
That's him. His pacifier came out.
[BABY CRIES]
Caroline Kitchener
The baby wakes up while we're talking, Cole Anthony. He's six days old.
For months, I've been thinking about Taylor and wondering about two things. Would she let people in once she had the baby? And also this question.
Caroline Kitchener
If these abortion laws were not in effect, if Roe had not been overturned, do you think you would have this baby now?
Taylor
No.
Caroline Kitchener
Wow. How does that make you feel?
Taylor
It makes me feel bad. It makes me feel bad. But I know for a fact that I've spent so much money on this kid, I've had so much anguish, I've lost relationships. I had to switch jobs. My body has changed. My mind has changed.
I underestimated what I would have to sacrifice to totally go through with it. And I feel like, although my baby is perfect, just because I have my baby doesn't mean that I'm happy that Roe versus Wade got changed. Because my life is never going to be the same. And I don't like that there's a piece of it that was impacted by a force that wasn't myself.
Like, if I just decided to do it, have a baby, it'd be one thing. But to know that any part of it was challenged by some outside force, it's so messed up. And although right now everything's happy, giggles, newborn stage, this is my life now-- my whole life, not just 18 years. But this is just-- things are really going to change.
Caroline Kitchener
There will be some moment, probably soon, when we'll all just get used to the idea that people travel hundreds of miles and cross state lines to get abortions. That'll just seem normal, if it doesn't already. It'll seem normal that people have second-trimester abortions at home, that some people will panic and not know what to do with the fetal tissue, or feel too scared to seek medical attention. At some point in the future, that fear will not be remarkable.
And we will also get used to this notion that, for many people, if you get pregnant in a state where abortion is banned and you do not want a baby, you may still wind up with one. We are rapidly moving into that future, where all of this is normal, which means right now may be the last time we can truly feel how much has changed. For the people who wanted abortions nine months ago, the gap between what was and what is is very clear.
Ira Glass
Caroline Kitchener, she's a reporter at the Washington Post.
["TWO ROADS" BY VALERIE JUNE]
Credits
Ira Glass
Well, today's program was produced by Chana Joffe-Walt and Valerie Kipnis and edited by Laura Starcheski. The people who put our program together today include Jane Ackermann, Elna Baker, Sean Cole, Michal Comite, Aviva DeKornfeld, Cassie Howley, Miki Meek, Alaa Mostafa, Stowe Nelson, Katherine Rae Mondo, Nadia Reiman, Ryan Rumery, Alissa Shipp, Lilly Sullivan, Christopher Swetala, Matt Tierney, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emanuele Berry.
Special thanks today to Peter Wallsten, Kainaz Amaria, Ali Block, "The Nocturnists" podcast, Kate Cole from The Northwest Abortion Access Fund, Elizabeth Nash, and Robert Marshall. Original music for today's show by Christina Courtin and Matt McGinley. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder Mr. Torey Malatia. He remembers when the Lord spake unto him-- which, judging from what happened to Abraham and Noah and Lot, does not always usually work out so great. Torey says God was like--
Lilly
Hey what you doing? And I was like, oh, dear god.
Ira Glass
I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of This American Life.
["TWO ROADS" BY VALERIE JUNE]