The decision—which is expected in June—could put access to the "abortion pill" in jeopardy. A method that many people rely on for reproductive healthcare: A recent study published in JAMA found that nearly 28,000 additional medication abortion pills intended for self-managed abortion use were issued in the six months following the end of Roe v Wade.

But as the Justices listened to arguments, workers and volunteers for Aid Access, a non-profit organization that provides access to medication abortion by mail, deployed so-called "roe-bots" to dispense mifepristone outside the Supreme Court. The robots were operated remotely by Aid Access providers residing in "shield law states," where they are legally protected from anti-abortion laws.

"The main point of the robots, in addition to calling attention to the shield laws and legal loopholes we can leverage, is that it literally does not matter what happens at the Supreme Court or in the future: We will get people the care they need," says Mira Michels, researcher and volunteer at Aid Access. "We don't ever want people to feel alone. It is extremely scary to realize you have an unwanted pregnancy. We just want people to know that by robot, in-person, mail—it doesn't matter—we will be there."

Based on Tuesday's arguments, the Court appeared "skeptical" of the case levied against the FDA (largely that mifepristone is unsafe and has not been properly studied), according to observers.

As Joyce Vance, former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst, wrote on X: "the Mifepristone case looks like it will be dismissed on legal grounds, no standing, as it should be." Adds Nancy Cárdenas Peña, director of the Abortion On Our Own Terms campaign: "This case should never have made it this far—mifepristone has been on the market for over 20 years and has been used by millions of Americans. My sincere hope is that the Supreme Court will follow the science and decades of evidence, instead of advancing a political agenda that aims to ban abortion nationwide."

But if the Supreme Court does decide to ban mifepristone or adds barriers to access it—while it will "certainly make it more challenging" and "increase the legal risks" for those who need the abortion pill, according to Cárdenas Peña—those in the movement are ready to step in and help.

"What will be important is that anyone considering self-managing with pills has the information and resources they need," Cárdenas Peña adds. People can call or visit If/When/How’s free Repro Legal Helpline for legal advice, get medical support from the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, and logistical support from Reprocare.

"There is an incredible legacy of women and people who've made this work happen and will continue to make this work happen," Michels says, adding that Aid Access has lowered the cost of medication abortion, provides additional aid to those in need, queer- and trans-inclusive care and even offers what is known as "advanced provision of abortion care," meaning people can obtain the pills whether or not they're currently pregnant. "I guarantee you, me and other volunteers and so many people I've met today are going to work tirelessly to make sure that, no matter what, abortion care will always be there."

Britt was likely chosen not only to assure the nation that there is room in the Republican Party for women, but also as an antidote to the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump. A tall order, given that Trump is a twice-impeached, four-times indicted ex-president who has been found liable (twice) for defaming a woman he sexually assaulted.

Her remarks were met with widespread criticism—particularly regarding a story she told about a woman that Britt insinuated had been sex trafficked as a result of President Biden's immigration policies—but her rebuttal also contained a quieter, sinister message: If you want to be a woman of value in our version of America, be a trad wife.

A "trad wife" is a type of emerging social media influencer that performs a more "traditional" role of wife and mom. With their hair perfectly coiffed and their homes immaculately maintained, "trad wife" influencers espouse the joys of making organic baby food for their children and washing their husband's clothes with homemade detergent.

"Trad wives" are almost always white, cis, thin, able-bodied, and devout Evangelical Christians, who, with a full face of makeup and '50s housewife-inspired ensembles, maintain their homes, care for their children, and feed their husbands.

While the trend is still considered niche, Noam Shpancer, a professor of psychology at Otterbein University in Ohio, told TODAY.com in a 2023 interview that it likely gained popularity in part because it serves as a response to cultural and social progress. He claimed that "trad wives" and those who champion them are "seeking to return society to what some people see as a simpler time with fewer individual freedoms."

By all accounts, Britt is profoundly accomplished. At 40, she became the youngest Republican woman elected to the US Senate. During her rebuttal, she spoke passionately about her own "American dream" that took her from small-town rural Alabama to the Senate floor.

Yet, unlike her male counterparts, Britt did not leave her immaculate kitchen in order to speak to the nation. "This is where our family has tough conversations," Britt claimed. "It's where we hold each other's hands and pray for God's guidance."

As Scarlett Johannson said during her SNL spoof of Britt's speech: “Republicans want me to appeal to women voters, and women love kitchens.”

Britt appeared on camera perfectly poised and soft-spoken—and wearing a carefully placed cross necklace—to make an “appeal to the parents out there—and in particular, to my fellow moms." After introducing herself, she noted, "It's not the job that matters most ... I am a proud wife and mom of two school-aged kids."

The message: You can work outside the home—as more women do than ever before—and even become a member of the U.S. Senate, but that should not supersede your innate desire to be a wife and a mom.

Even the state of the kitchen itself—which seemed devoid of actual cooking equipment—spoke to the Republican version of femininity and motherhood that hides and denies the inherent demands of motherhood while refusing to offer any structural, sustainable support.

As Lyz Lenz writes in her book This American Ex-Wife, so-called "trad wives" are often able to create and share their content because they have help—a housekeeper, a nanny, a family member other than their husband—and rarely are audiences shown the difficult parts of motherhood in the United States. Like, say, the inequitable distribution of labor inside the home, the rising maternal mental health crisis and the forever-present fear of gun violence at schools.

"The videos she makes take time. Promotion takes effort," Lynz writes of "trad wife" influencer Brooke Raybould, who has 325,000 Instagram followers. "Her performance of home and family takes an investment. She's not just 'mama'; she's a business woman selling you an image, a lifestyle that doesn't exist."

The GOP has a white-knuckled grasp on that fictional lifestyle, Britt's rebuttal shows, and they're not going to let it go as the nation careens towards another presidential election.

Despite its apparent support for mothers, the party has historically called for repeated cuts to programs that have supported women and their families, including food stamps and affordable housing. Today's Republican party rallies against free lunch, workplace protections for minors, and universal child care.

Simultaneously, the party will clutch its proverbial pearls over declining birth rates and the so-called "destruction" of heterosexual marriage—not because both are threats to democracy (like, say, a candidate who promises to be a "dictator on day one" and release insurrectionists from prison) or because foregoing having children or getting a divorce is bad for the country (they're not) but because both run afoul to the type of woman the GOP wants us all to be.

That type of woman is happy to live in a country that has stripped her of the constitutional right to abortion care, threatens to deny her access to IVF or birth control, yet simultaneously refuses to offer her social programs or safety nets to help her care for her children.

She's a woman that dares to dream, yes, but not too much—who can even become the youngest GOP woman senator, but must always lead with "wife" and "mom."

But not all of us are or want to be that woman, and perhaps the near-universal backlash Britt has received is indicative of that. That criticism is not limited to the erroneous things she said, or even for the awkward and at times comical way she spoke: Britt received backlash because she symbolized the GOP's vision of life in America for women.

Yet, while the party's version of "ideal femininity" is not sustainable or even exists, a fear Britt shared in her rebuttal—that the "next generation will have fewer opportunities and freedoms than we did"—is very real.

In fact, for half of the population, it has already come true.

Okay, he texted. I'll go.

The plan was the meet the woman at a small regional airfield the next day at 5 a.m. Clyde would fly the woman from her home state, where abortion was illegal, to a state where it wasn't.

Except she didn't show. Clyde texted, asking where she was. Clyde texted, confirming the directions. Clyde texted, a selfie so she could find him even though there was no one else around. The image showed a white man, thin, the age of someone with investment accounts and a paid-off mortgage.

Eventually, after some back and forth, two headlights appeared in the thicket of darkness. From the corner of a parking lot, a car slowly drove forward, an older woman behind the wheel, staring straight ahead. Another woman in her early 20s got out, tucking a small cloth bag under her arm. She was nervous. Clyde could see it in the way she looked at the ground while approaching him; the way she held her shoulders tight and tense.

It dawned on him that she probably wavered about getting out of the car because she was fearful it was all a trap. He got emotional thinking about it. How the woman had to meet a stranger, alone in the dark, in the desperate hope that he was there to help, not hurt her. It upset him, and got him thinking about how society had turned against so many people and made them feel unworthy. Clyde thought, Why do people want to treat women like this?

As they flew off into the sky, purpling like a bruise with early-morning light, the woman fell asleep in the back of the plane. By that afternoon, she wasn't pregnant anymore.

Post-Roe, roughly 27 million people, or one out of every three women of reproductive age, live in a state with an abortion ban, according to a January 2024 White House briefing. Fourteen states criminalized abortion. And just last year, over 300 pieces of legislation were proposed that would restrict access even further.

But as anti-abortion legislation continues to grow, so too do the methods and services being created to help people obtain access to reproductive healthcare, from start-ups aimed at distributing mifepristone by mail, often referred to as "the abortion pill," or "medical abortion," to funds working to connect people to resources, medical and financial. Among them is Elevated Access (the organization Clyde flies for), a network of volunteer pilots created to help people travel for the healthcare they need. In addition to those flying to get an abortion, they also provide flights for those in need of gender-affirming care.

"When we talk about people leaving their home or people leaving their state to access healthcare, we are talking about a large percentage of the U.S. population, geographically nearly one quarter of the country," says Elisabeth Smith, the director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights. "And we're also talking about people who don't just have to travel one state over, but they may have to travel as far as 1,000 miles. They have to leave the South or they have to leave the Midwest. They have far to go." Sometimes the distance so vast, it becomes impossible.

In May of 2022, three days before the Dobbs decision was leaked—the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade—Mike was at his home in Illinois launching Elevated Access's website.

Mike was new to the abortion movement. In 2021, he was working in technology when his wife suggested that Mike—a white, cisgender man—take a workshop in systemic racism and bias.

By the end of the workshop, Mike was changed. He wanted to get more involved in social justice work, which eventually led him to the Midwest Access Coalition, an organization that offers travel support and financial resources to those in need of reproductive healthcare. He began volunteering; mostly using his tech background to help maintain the website. While there, he saw the struggles women faced in order to get an abortion, even before the fall of Roe. In many states in the South and Midwest, abortion access was already meager. To get to a clinic, women often had to travel long distances, sometimes having to make multiple trips, which meant lost income and the challenges of reliable transportation and childcare.

Women were supposed to have agency over their bodies. Women were supposed to have choices. They were supposed to have equal rights. But for the women Mike learned about through his volunteering—mostly low-income and from marginalized communities—those basic tenets did not seem to prevail.

But maybe he could help. Mike had grown up flying planes with his dad, and about a decade before had gotten his pilot's license. What if, he thought, people in need of abortion didn't have to sit in cars or buses or trains for hundreds of miles? What if it didn't take days to get to where they had to go? What if they could get in a private plane and fly to get the care they needed?

While the idea of private plane travel sounds like the ultimate luxury, there are also practicalities: The majority of the country lives within 30 minutes of an airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. At most small airports, there's no security, no one asking to see your ID. You walk up to a plane, get in, and go. It's discreet. And "air care" is not a new concept. There are already services that fly people long distances for specialized treatments, like chemotherapy; others fly pets that aren't allowed to go commercial or deliver supplies after natural disasters.

Knowing he was only one guy with one plane, Mike pitched his idea to one such organization since they already had the infrastructure in place. But he kept being told the same thing: Pilots are too conservative. They don't want to help people get abortions. Committed to the cause, Mike decided to get things off the ground himself, with the help of two pilot friends and the Midwest Access Coalition who referred people in need of abortion to Elevated Access. Just a few weeks before the Dobbs decision, Elevated Access made its first flight, taking a woman from Oklahoma to Kansas.

Now, 18 months later, Elevated Access has helped many, including one woman, a domestic violence victim from the South, whose abuser destroyed all of her identifying documents so she could never escape his grip. They've done over 700 flights, have over 1,300 volunteer pilots who can fly to any of the 50 states, and have partnerships with dozens of abortion funds and clinics who utilize their services. "Elevated Access was born out of rage," says Fiona, a volunteer who handles media relations for the organization and prefers we use her Elevated Access pseudonym. "People were so angry about Dobbs, we got hundreds of pilots volunteering to fly within the first few months, which blew us away. And I think our pilot roster is diverse. We have a number of veterans, doctors, lawyers, clergy; several married couples."

Pilots are put through a careful screening process that involves combing through their social media, talking to references, and making sure they have the proper requirements to fly. While not often, a few pilots have been rejected, for a variety of reasons.

The way it works: A referral comes in from one of Elevated Access's partners. The organization then puts out a call to their pilots in the area, asking if anyone is available to take the flight. The details—the person's first name or pseudonym, dates needed for travel, pickup and destination locations—are all that's provided. Unless information is offered by the person themself, pilots aren't told anything about why the person is traveling, to protect the passenger's and pilot's safety and privacy. The day of the flight, one of Elevated Access's flight coordinators monitors the trip using online tracking, and is available to make sure that once on the ground the person makes it to their final destination.

"In a perfect world, an organization like Elevated Access shouldn't exist," says Sophie Drew, a consultant for the New River Abortion Access Fund in Virginia who has referred dozens of people to Elevated Access. "It's absurd that people need to fly to get basic healthcare. In a perfect world, people could just walk down to their primary care doctor, but because we are in a world where that is not the case and people need to travel wild distances to get to the closest clinic, we are super grateful to have Elevated Access. It's definitely been a game changer for us."

Livi Bivens, a communication and development coordinator at the Fund, adds, "Elevated Access really shows that justice has no heights."

On a Saturday in November, I meet Clyde at a small regional airport in the deep South for the final leg of a multi-flight journey. His third "mission" for Elevated Access, as they're commonly referred within the organization. On the tarmac sit rows of small aircraft, empty and parked. It's quiet and remote. There's fog as thick as cotton, but not enough to prevent us from taking off.

After a final inspection of the plane—fuel levels checked, wings and propeller inspected—we are cleared for takeoff from runway eight. We climb to an altitude of 8,000 feet, high enough to sit above the winds blowing out of the west. High enough that the sky turns blue and the landscape turns metaphorical; stretches of brown desert blend and blur and become borderless. An illusion that we are all in this together.

We're flying to the Southwest, where Clyde is returning home after the latest flight. This time, a woman with two children accompanying her, a teenager and a toddler. Star-shaped crackers litter the floor. Empty granola bar and Rice Krispies Treats wrappers are stuffed in a Ziploc bag. The night before the flight, she had texted Clyde and asked if there was room on the plane for a Pack 'n Play. Clyde, who is married but has no kids, didn't know what a Pack 'n Play was, but he had hauled plenty of bikes and rafts in the back of his single-engine Cessna. (An outdoorsman, he had gotten his pilot's license decades before, so he could pirouette into remote areas to camp and spend time out on the river.) Surely there would be room. He texted her back, It's no problem.

Our flight is four hours. We stop to refuel at a single-runway airport along the way that warns of rattlesnakes and there's not a soul in sight. There, Clyde tells me about how he considers this work a higher calling. In many ways, he's always been committed to the arc of justice. He protested the Vietnam War. He tried to unionize while working as a river guide decades ago and got fired. His friends and family know about his work with Elevated Access and describe it as heroic. He would describe it as necessary and not enough.

With just under an hour left in our trip, we hit turbulence, our plane flapping in the breeze like a kite. It blows the door closest to Clyde open, just a crack. Something he needs to get fixed, he tells me, as he pulls it shut. It's fine.

It is fine. But it also puts into focus how tenuous this all is; the reality of the seemingly Sisyphean task that so many people are forced to face to get the healthcare they need. While easier than other options, it's still laborious and comes with a lot of uncertainty.

Most pilots I talk to, including Clyde, tell me that the passengers do just fine. They mostly aren't bothered by the bumps. It strikes me that the alternative for these women is far scarier.

There is a story of a woman who, after her Elevated Access flight was done, got out of the plane and declared, "I feel like Beyoncé." Likely because the pilots go out of their way to treat the people they're flying with dignity and humanity.

"Before a flight, I contact the passenger ahead of time by text or call," says Robin, a pilot for Elevated Access in her early 40s. "I say, 'Hey listen, I am so proud to fly you...I'm a great pilot. I've done tens of thousands of miles in the air. I care about you. You are my number one priority for the day. Nothing else matters. We're going to get you there and we're going to get you home.' And you hear this big sigh of relief that they don't have to explain themselves."

Usually the person has never been on a commercial flight, let alone a private one, so Robin is intentional about centering the flight as an experience. "I tell them they can come sit with me and be my co-pilot or I tell them they can hang out in the back, look at their phone, sleep, listen to music," Robin says. "This is their flight. And every single time their eyes light up and they want to be in the cockpit. So this is how we turn what could be a difficult, scary, embarrassing thing into something cool and remarkable."

With no previous background in aviation, and certainly no plane, Robin decided to get her pilot's license so she could fly for Elevated Access. "I've been in the arts my whole life, on stage and off," Robin says. "I had my own business in New York City."

But during the pandemic, Robin was listless. Her livelihood depended on Broadway shows, in-person entertainment, which had halted. She was feeling low.

And then worse after she heard about Dobbs. "When the court ruling came down ending Roe v. Wade, something in me just broke," she says. While researching ways to help, Robin learned about Elevated Access. It felt like an "aha moment," she says. "Access to women's healthcare is going to require an overground railroad and that's what general aviation affords us. No one can touch us up there," she says. "I dropped everything, closed up shop and moved to the Southeast. I called a flight school in Atlanta and said, 'Put me in the air.' I've been flying three to four, sometimes five days a week since, towards this achievement." Since becoming certified as a pilot, she's done around 10 flights for Elevated Access.

"When you're flying, you look out and you're like, What's everyone fighting about?" Robin says. "There's no signpost in the air that says you're now leaving Kansas. You just go. You're going where you're going and you've collapsed all of the spaces in between."

As of now, Elevated Access has been able to operate without any issues. "We've not had any government interference, knock on wood," Fiona says. "One reason, we're careful. We're not out there trying to pick a fight. We try hard to stay off the radar."

But that might not matter. Recent abortion "trafficking" laws—a term that many in the abortion movement find to be offensive—have been proposed, and their goal is not just to go after the people who are getting abortions, but the people helping them.

"Before the Dobbs opinion was issued, we knew states like Texas would not be satisfied with criminalizing abortion within their borders, but would want to make abortion inaccessible or illegal for people in other states," Smith says. "When the Dobbs opinion was issued, we were also on alert about states trying to prevent people from traveling."

Recently, Idaho enacted an abortion "trafficking" law, and states like Tennessee and Oklahoma are following suit. The bills would make it a felony to "help" a minor access reproductive healthcare, and would come with a prison sentence of a decade or more. "If enacted, it would create this new crime and the crime would apply to adults who helped a young person access abortion care, regardless of where that care occurs," Smith says. "The bill is really expansive. It's expansive enough that a prosecuting attorney could make the argument: Well you gave them money. You gave them the name of a clinic out of state. You provided a website address." You flew them in your plane.

"While these bills are focused on young people, that is not to say that adults will not become the focus at a later date," Smith says. "If you can normalize not helping young people, then later you can normalize not helping adults."

At the local level, some cities and counties are introducing ordinances that would make abortion illegal within their borders, including in states where abortion is legal. The goal is to prevent people from coming across the border to seek care or to leave to seek care. In Amarillo, Texas, a proposed ordinance would make it a criminal act to use roads to leave the county to get an abortion elsewhere. "There is a real question about whether these are enforceable if they were to be passed," Smith says. "But the goal, really, is to scare people; to stop people from helping."

This all comes at a time when the need to travel to get an abortion may become more necessary than ever. Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case involving the use of mifepristone, the most commonly used drug to end pregnancy in the U.S. The lawsuit wants to block mail-order access to the pill and impose restrictions on its use, even in states where abortion is legal.

Clyde is unfazed. He's done two more flights since I've last seen him, and is eager to do more. Just days before, he got a text about another woman in need of a ride. He wanted to help, but he couldn't. He got the message as he was traveling out of town, on a cycling trip with friends. Normally he would rework his plans, but this time the logistics weren't in his favor. "Whenever I say, 'I can't,' I really question myself," he says, wistfully and with a hint of disappointment in his voice. Because he knows as long as abortion access is up in the air, he needs to be, too.

*First names used to protect privacy

This story appears in the 2024 Makers issue of Marie Claire.

The consequences of the decision have rippled throughout the state, devastating people and couples who were counting on IVF to have biological children or have frozen embryos but are no longer allowed to do with them what they wish. “This ruling is extremely alarming,” says Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Granting legal personhood to embryos could have disastrous consequences for the use of IVF—a science many people rely on to build their families. Providers of IVF may stop offering IVF altogether or leave Alabama now that they could face penalties. This is part of the chaos we knew would ensue if Roe v. Wade was overturned. With politicians at the helm instead of doctors, reproductive health care is in crisis.”

In the wake of the ruling, three women share their stories with Marie Claire.

I had my first IVF consultation in October 2022. I was single at the time but I knew I wanted to freeze my eggs. I was told it was better to freeze embryos. Especially being in the LGBTQ+ community, I knew it was something I needed to do. My first round [of egg retrievals] was in January 2023 at University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). I did a second round in July at Alabama Center for Reproductive Medicine. It went very well and I now have six frozen embryos of top grade waiting for me. 

I met Kandis, my fiancée, in February of 2023 when I was already on my IVF journey. It was somewhat humorous. Like four months into our relationship as a lesbian couple, we were going through IVF together. We got engaged at the end of November. We’re definitely a team on this. She’s been my rock.

Obviously, the biggest fear is IVF treatment being banned altogether or having something happen where I won’t be allowed to transfer my embryos out of state. This week has been hell on earth. The past couple of days, I’ve been glued to my computer and making phone calls. We called my clinic in Birmingham to ask what we needed to do for them to release my six embryos, but they don’t know when the paperwork will be ready. So even if we were to find somewhere to ship them, we can’t do anything yet.

All of the rules are changing so fast here in Alabama. I’m afraid Alabama will say you can’t transfer your embryos out of state. We had a company who was ready to transfer our embryos to Connecticut when the clinic had the paperwork ready, but we just got an email saying they are pausing shipments out of Alabama [for fear of being prosecuted if something happens to the embryos].

I broke down yesterday, a full-blown meltdown. I am so tired. These are my children, according to Alabama, and I have zero access to my six embryos. They’re my children but I can’t touch them. I can’t see them. I can’t say let’s get in the car and go for a ride. I have seen a couple of companies and clinics offering free services for shipment, but honestly, I worry that they're going to keep shutting down.

It’s not just about gay and lesbian couples. This affects every couple who has fertility treatment or needs assisted reproductive technology. Other states could follow suit, which is a scary thing.

My husband and I started trying for kids two years ago, and we tried for a year without any success. We went to see a reproductive endocrinologist at UAB, one of the clinics that’s shut down now, and were diagnosed with unexplained infertility in August 2023. We did three rounds of Letrozole, which is an oral medication to help increase the odds of pregnancy. We were very lucky because it worked the first time. But then we miscarried in November. It was absolutely one of the hardest things we have gone through. 

We did a second round of Letrozole, then a third round, and then we started doing IUI [aka intrauterine insemination, which is a procedure that places specially prepared sperm directly in the uterus] in January. Our first round didn’t work. We did our second round in February, and we found out that didn’t work the same day we found out UAB was pausing their IVF program. That was a hard day.

We had planned on doing a third IUI in March and then probably going straight to IVF in April. But that’s all on hold now. Technically we can still do our third IUI, but the statistics of successful IUIs go down significantly after three rounds.

We had never planned on telling everybody about our whole story. But like everyone in Alabama…we’re overwhelmed, we’re tired, we’re sad. We are absolutely terrified. What happens next? We’ve talked about transferring our care to other states like Tennessee or Georgia, but it’s very scary to even think about going out of state because what if the same thing happens there? We even thought about moving but it’s so scary to even think about uprooting your whole life for something that is no longer a guarantee where you go. Also, we really love our physician here. You build such a rapport and I don’t want to give that up. 

This ruling is having a much bigger effect than people realized. I am also so worried—not just about the one in six couples who are struggling with infertility—but also that we are going to lose some of our incredibly gifted physicians. Not just our reproductive endocrinologists, but our neonatologists who take care of our tiny, tiny preterm babies, and OB-GYNs. Those physicians are so valuable to all of the women in Alabama because they provide all of the referrals from mammograms, they provide pap smears for cervical cancer screenings. They provide so many of those preventative health things. They might not want to practice here anymore because of the liability.

It could do things to our economy, too, because we may not recruit people to move to Birmingham or Huntsville because it’s going to be a lot harder to make a family here. I wish we could go back and have those discussions before the Supreme Court ruled without thinking about the ramifications.

I have a condition called endometriosis. I struggled with fertility, even in my 20s, and was told that due to my condition I would need fertility help. But I conceived my first child naturally at 21. My daughter is now 12. Then I was put on birth control to suppress my endometriosis. Ten years later, my doctor told me my endometriosis was not suppressed. They said, “Your insides look like a complete mess and the only way, if you want to conceive, is through IVF.” 

I started the process with CRM here in Mobile. I consider the clinic family. It was a very hard journey. I had four miscarriages. We transferred one frozen embryo each time and I lost four embryos the first four times. For the second egg retrieval, I got four more embryos. We transferred two on the fifth transfer to get one baby, and I got twin boys. The doctors say I got double for my trouble. But without science, those doctors, and God, I wouldn’t have my babies.

I can’t do another transfer because the hormones for the egg retrieval overstimulate my body. When my boys turned a year old, we donated my embryos to science so I don’t have any frozen embryos anymore. A lot of women have hormone issues with endometriosis, so it’s hard for them to get good embryos. Because I was able to get good embryos, I wanted them to be able to research that and help another mom.

In my opinion, if the people who made the [ruling] truly understood the science behind all this, they would understand that the embryos, even once implanted, still have to grow. They don’t have a heartbeat. They don’t have anything. Just because they’re frozen does not mean they can survive. Like I said, I had two implantation failures, and two that did implant but didn’t make it past the first six weeks.

If I still had frozen embryos or was going through IVF, I would be devastated. It’s so hard to get to that step of freezing your embryos and hope that this is it. For that to be snatched away is heartbreaking. You’re telling these moms who want children, who have spent a shit ton of money, who went through all of these procedures, took all this medicine, did a lot of work mentally, emotionally, and financially that they can’t have children. It’s heartbreaking. It removes all hope for them to possibly have their own biological child.

“The last six months have been wild—but thanks to incredible health care providers and the support of family and friends, I’m doing really well. I’ve felt lucky all my life, and I feel lucky now: to be here, doing this work, alongside all of you,” Richards, 66, wrote on X.

Six months ago, after finding she had trouble writing, Richards checked into the emergency room at New York University, where doctors discovered a brain tumor. Her discharge from the hospital closely coincided with the birth of her first grandchild. 

Other women’s advocates rushed to express their sympathies and thank Richards for all she's done for women’s rights. Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, formerly the Marshall Plan for Moms, posted on Instagram, “She’s supported and pushed our leadership and shared her wisdom generously. She’s fought for women’s rights and changed history. Even as she is staring death in the eyes, she is brave and inspiring and focused on how she can make an impact.” 

Saujani pointed specifically to Charley, a secure abortion chatbot Richards cofounded with Tom Subak. Charley was developed with medical experts and policy advocates shortly after the reversal of Roe, and is designed to tackle the misinformation crisis and restrictions that have emerged since the Dobbs decision in 2022. The chatbot went live last September and has gained more than 17,000 visits since launch. 

But Richards was fighting misinformation long before the rise of mainstream artificial intelligence. During her tenure as president at Planned Parenthood between 2006 and 2018, Richards navigated a contentious media and political landscape. In 2012, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure nonprofit announced it would cease donations to Planned Parenthood. The decision spurred Richards to launch a campaign that, two years later, led to the Komen foundation reinstating its grants. 

In 2015, Richards testified before Congress, where she had to fight for ongoing federal subsidies. During the hearing she had to defend the organization after false videos of Planned Parenthood employees illegally selling fetal tissue circulated—content that was later discredited. “The outrageous accusations leveled against Planned Parenthood based on heavily doctored videos are offensive and categorically untrue. I realize, though, that the facts have never gotten in the way of these campaigns to block women from health care they need and deserve,” Richards told the committee.

In 2018 Richards stepped down as president of Planned Parenthood. That year, she released the memoir Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead. In 2019 Richards cofounded Supermajority, a women’s organization that encourages political activism and supports women running for office; it continues to operate. 

In 2021, Richards joined the board advisers of American Bridge 21st Century, an organization that deploys research, video tracking, and fact-checking to hold conservative lawmakers accountable. The organization is the creator of Repro-files, a research hub that reports on Republican candidates and their stances on abortion, especially in key states. Richards currently serves as co-chair. 

Despite her prestigious titles, Richards is very much a grassroots advocate. “She wants to document what’s happening on the ground in abortion-ban states. She still talks to politicians and activists and organizers and organization presidents,” The Cut writes.  

In between twice-weekly treatments for cancer, The Cut also reports that Richards is still talking to movement leaders about strategy for the 2024 elections. As Richards said, “Why should your life only be about you?”

It was one of two defamation suits Carroll filed (just last year, Carroll also won a civil suit against Trump, in which that jury found Trump liable for the sexual abuse of Carroll in the mid-1990s and for defamation against her) citing comments that Trump made between 2019 and 2022 which she says negatively impacted her reputation and opened her up to a slew of verbal abuse, including threats to her safety. Trump’s statements included comments that she was a “whack job” and that her claims were “absolutely ridiculous.” Carroll argues that, in addition to putting her life at risk, the statements destroyed her prolific career as a writer for outlets such ELLE, Esquire, and Outsider. 

The New York Times reports that after the verdict was delivered, several of Carroll’s friends and family members, who were in attendance, could be seen wiping away tears. This trial brings to an end the lengthy, highly publicized legal battle that Carroll has been fighting over the last two years. The trial has thrust Carroll into the spotlight as Trump has battled numerous other legal battles and attempted a second run at the presidency, but Carroll and her lawyers say that they’d like the suit to simply “make him stop” his public remarks about her. 

"This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down," Carroll said after the trial.

Trump, meanwhile, was informed about the verdict while on his way to LaGuardia airport in New York ahead of a Las Vegas campaign rally when he was informed about the result. On his social media site, Truth Social, he called the jury's decision "absolutely ridiculous."

It's important to note that chatbots are far from perfect; it's an evolving field where many bots have been found to reflect biases and inaccuracies due to the data on which they are trained. And creating a chatbot in the complicated landscape of reproductive rights in America, where restrictions continue, calls for users to still exercise caution. The creators of Charley state that "while users should feel safe using Charley to do research and get more information, users should practice private browsing habits by removing the page from their browser history or using incognito mode."

On the 51st anniversary of Roe, Tipton outlines the realities of reproductive rights in the country, and how intentional tech will still play a pivotal role in equitable and safe access to abortions, especially for women living in states where abortion bans continue to escalate.  

I was 20 the first time I helped a friend get an abortion. We were in college in Texas, and after separating myth from fact online, navigating legal restrictions that felt deliberately difficult and confusing, figuring out where she could go for care, and scraping together the money to pay for that care, the process of getting an abortion seemed much harder than it should have been. 

That was before Texas’ draconian abortion ban went into effect, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended 50 years of a national right to legal abortion. This week marks what should have been the 51st anniversary of Roe, with 25 million women of reproductive age living in states that raced to ban or severely restrict abortion since the Court’s ruling, I’m haunted by one thought: If my friend and I were in the same situation today, what would we do?

Since Roe was overturned, online searches for information about abortion have surged. Abortion seekers are desperately looking for answers to urgent questions: How do abortion pills work? Where can I get an abortion? What’s legal where I live? How much will it cost? Between the constantly changing legal landscape of new abortion bans and restrictions, justified fears of digital surveillance, and disinformation running rampant, trying to find even the most basic information can be overwhelming.

Charley, a private, secure online chatbot, was built in the post-Roe era to meet critical reproductive healthcare needs and provide personalized, accurate, up-to-date information about abortion options (whether it be abortion pills by mail, a procedure, or care in another state). 

So how did it start? After Roe was overturned, Charley cofounders Cecile Richards (former president of Planned Parenthood) and Tom Subak (a social impact leader) set out to learn more about the needs of abortion seekers, especially in banned and restricted states. After six months of field research and expert interviews, they created the rapid response tool post-Roe. For the design phase, they teamed up with reproductive health experts and abortion advocates including INeedAnA.com, Plan C, and the Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline.

The resulting chatbot, Charley, offers users (who remain completely anonymous) expert advice that fights misinformation. The bot has reached 17,000 users since its launch last September. And the number one location for Charley users? It’s Texas, followed by Florida. 

Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned, I saw how a system, built without equity in mind, presented numerous barriers to access. Sadly, my experience with my friend wasn’t unique: Abortion bans disproportionately hurt underrepresented groups: people of color, people with low incomes, young people, and immigrants—many of the same groups that already have the hardest time accessing health care. While driving or flying hundreds of miles to the closest state where abortion is still legal may be the best option for some, others face enormous hurdles: the challenges of finding childcare and taking time off from work or school, the cost of gas or a plane ticket on top of the cost of a procedure, the risk associated with travel if you’re undocumented.

Over the last year and a half, people all over this country have been confronted with the heartbreaking impact of losing Roe. The stories are straight out of a dystopian nightmare; I can’t stop thinking about Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick, a young woman in Texas who would almost certainly be alive today had she been offered abortion care. Like so many other Black women, I was heartbroken but not surprised to witness the pain and grief of Brittany Watts, prosecuted for having a miscarriage in Ohio. That we’re celebrating the fact that she won’t be charged with a felony is a sad commentary on where we are as a country. These stories are increasingly the norm, not the exception.

At the same time, I’ve been blown away by the resilience and creativity of young people who are taking the lead in the movement for tech's role in reproductive freedom. They've harnessed the power of innovation to build community with like-minded peers; share their stories, hopes, and ideas; and call their communities to action. Spend a few hours scrolling on TikTok or Instagram and you’ll see brave storytelling, networks of activists working hard to connect people to care, and grassroots efforts to shatter abortion stigma and reinforce the truth: Abortion is safe, normal—and no matter what the Supreme Court says—it is your fundamental right. 

As is the case for so many social causes throughout history, young people are leading today’s abortion rights movement, and unapologetically empowering people with the knowledge they need (including guidance on how to get pills in the mail) to make the choices that are best for them. We believe abortion seekers seek resources and facts, not because they’re downtrodden and helpless, but because they’re defiant and determined to get the information they know they deserve.

As an infant, my son attended more than a few pro-choice rallies with me, usually while strapped to my chest and drooling as he slept. The news is on near-constantly inside our home—the background noise of our lives—and he's heard his mother and father talk politics at the dinner table.

But as he continued to grow I knew we would need to have a more formal discussion about abortion. He was familiar with the anatomically correct names for his body parts. We had already discussed consent multiple times over. He knew where babies come from, so I wanted him—at a young age—to understand what happens when a pregnancy doesn't result in a baby, too.

Our conversation was simple enough: I told my son that sometimes people get pregnant when they don't want to be. When that happens, oftentimes people will choose not to stay pregnant and, with the help of a doctor or medicine, they end their pregnancies on purpose.

I then told him about my abortion, and why abortion access made it possible for me to one day be his mom.

"Not every pregnancy will end with a baby," I told him. "And that's OK."

After a slight beat, he replied: "Makes sense. OK thanks mom, I'm going to go play!"

In the wake of the Dobbs decision, which overturned the constitutional right to access abortion care, entire generations are growing up without the right to full and complete bodily autonomy.

It's up to us, then, as the grownups in the room, to talk about abortion with young children, especially when the majority of people who have abortions are parents with at least one child at home. Studies have shown that media depictions of abortion are egregiously inaccurate, and even politicians who support abortion rights are often afraid to say the word out loud—it took Biden 468 days into his presidency to say "abortion."

And while some people may assume that a topic as "controversial" as abortion (the majority of Americans support access to abortion care) would be difficult for a child to understand, Dr. Jessica Zucker, a psychologist specializing in reproductive and maternal mental health, says the opposite is true.

"When something like abortion, or a miscarriage, or any other reproductive outcome is discussed with young kids in age-appropriate ways, they’re more than capable of comprehending the reality of reproduction," Zucker says. "And that reality is that it is unpredictable."

According to Zucker, every abortion conversation an adult has with a child "will be different based on their own family."

"But when an adult discusses the topic appropriately and is patient, empathic, and straightforward," she adds, "those conversations can be incredibly beneficial."

Steph Herold, 36, told her oldest child about abortion when the now 5-year-old was 4. Herold, who lives in New York and works in abortion-related research, had just given birth a year prior and says her son was "on a strong campaign to have another sibling."

"When I explained that the mama gets to decide if the baby keeps growing or not, he thought about that and seemed unfazed," she says. "He was, and still is, very much into being the one who decides what he does, when he does it, how he does it, so I think the idea of being in control of your body and deciding what happens with it made sense to him."

Herold says that after that first discussion she doesn't think "he totally got what abortion is or means," but adds that it's OK because her son is still little and she plans on having this conversation "over and over."

"Abortion encompasses so many of life's big issues and questions—love, sex, death, religion, power, family," she says. "All of those are complicated topics to talk about with adults, much less children, so I'm just hoping that it was the start of lifelong conversations about these issues, and an open door to discuss it all together."

Zucker says that discussing abortion with a young child can help to "eradicate the silence, stigma, shame and fear that surrounds this reproductive outcome." While the majority of people who've had an abortion say they felt relieved after terminating their pregnancy, and 95 percent say they do not regret their abortion even five years later, nearly two-thirds of abortion patients believe people will "look down on them" for ending their pregnancies.

"The child will know that they can come to you should they ever need to—a dialogue can be established and can be revisited at any time," Zucker explains. "These are all profound gifts to give a child, especially when they grow old enough to navigate and receive reproductive health care themselves."

Opening up an ongoing dialogue and fostering an environment of empathy and inclusivity was top of mind for Mallory McMaster, 37, when she talked to her now 6-year-old son about abortion.

"I'm an abortion activist, so abortion has always been part of our lives," McMaster, who lives in Ohio, says. "It's just something that he's used to hearing us talk about all the time. I take him to public events with me. He's marched in the Women's March with me. He's heard me speak publicly about my abortion."

McMaster says she had an abortion 10 years ago, before her son was born, and says terminating her pregnancy is why she is the healthy, present mom and business owner she is today.

"That shapes the way I talk to him about it," she adds. "I don't talk to him about it like it's a medical procedure or a political thing. I just tell him an abortion means a woman can decide if she does or does not want a baby and what she can do with her life. That's pretty much the extent of what he knows about it."

My son, now 9, will periodically ask about abortion, usually when he hears it being discussed on the news. We have had so many powerful conversations as a result of that initial "abortion talk"—from talks about consent and bodily autonomy to sex, periods, and menopause. And when I recently miscarried a wanted pregnancy, it was my son's understanding of abortion that made it much easier for him to comprehend pregnancy loss, too.

So while a post-Roe world, where nearly 21 million girls and women of reproductive age no longer have access to abortion care, is terrifying at best, I find solace in the fact that my son will grow up knowing abortion isn't a bad word. My son knows, without question, that the people who have abortions are people like his mom, and that for many of us it's because we had access to abortion care that we were able to start and expand our families.

"It's our job as parents to shape the worldview of our children, and if we want them to live in a world that is inclusive and welcoming then we need to build that world for them," McMaster tells me. "And it's such an honor to be able to share this sacred knowledge and pass it down to the next generation."

There was the woman who spent nearly a week in the ICU after she was denied an abortion for a nonviable pregnancy that left her septic and, as she described it, “on the brink of death.” The woman who was turned away from doctors in Oklahoma, despite learning her pregnancy was cancerous and likely to kill her. The 31-year-old mother of two living in Texas, who sued her own state to obtain an abortion for a nonviable pregnancy that threatened not only her health but her future fertility. The Texas Supreme Court ultimately ruled against the mom, who after multiple trips to the ER was forced to travel elsewhere for an abortion. 

The abortions in these cases are often described as “emergency abortions.” Somehow, the language suggests, these procedures are different—perhaps even more “moral" or "ethical”—than an abortion obtained by a pregnant person who is not suffering from a medical emergency but who simply does not want to remain pregnant. 

But now that the Supreme Court has agreed to take up a major medication abortion case that could eliminate access to what is often referred to as the “abortion pill”—the most commonly used type of abortion care in the U.S.—it bears repeating that every abortion is an “emergency” abortion. 

And while there are certainly instances in which an abortion needs to be obtained with more urgency—specifically because the circumstances are a matter of life or death—every time someone is denied abortion care the life they were living or had planned to live is put in jeopardy.

In a country that claims to uphold and protect the universal right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” any situation that leaves a pregnant person in need of abortion care is urgent—the inability to access that care, catastrophic. 

According to the United Nations and International Human Rights Law, every minute that a government forces someone to stay pregnant when they do not want to be is a human rights violation. And that violation causes both real and long-lasting harm. 

When I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant, my boyfriend and I were drinking way too much and attempting to navigate a slew of bonafide relationship problems—infidelity, an egregious inability to communicate, trust issues, fits of anger, you name it. Our decision to end the pregnancy was almost immediate, as if that positive pregnancy test shined a light on the myriad of reasons why we could not—should not— be together.

Every second that I was pregnant when I didn’t want to be felt like an affront on my person and a legitimate threat to my future. I had plans that did not include parenting in an unhealthy, toxic environment. I knew I could not be tethered to this man for the rest of my life via a child neither one of us were ready, able, or willing to care for.

But what if I didn’t have enough money for the procedure? What if I was turned away for some unforeseen issue I had not yet considered? I was anxious, depressed, and desperate to end the pregnancy as soon as humanly possible. An abortion was, to me, an emergency.

Thankfully, I was able to access the care I not only wanted but needed. And due to the dumb luck of simply living in a state that protects abortion access, I was no longer pregnant just a few weeks later. 

I am part of a privileged group that can obtain an abortion without facing unnecessary, cruel barriers to care—a dwindling group in a post-Roe world, where 24 states have banned abortion care or are likely to do so. More than 25 million women ages 15 to 44 live in a state where there are more restrictions on abortion than there were prior to the fall of Roe—about two in five women nationally. Now, nearly one out of every five women living in the U.S. are forced to travel out of state for an abortion.

And yet, according to the landmark Turnaway Study conducted by researchers at UC San Francisco, when a person is unable to access an abortion they’re more likely to experience pregnancy complications, more likely to stay in contact with a violent partner, and more likely to not have enough money to cover basic living expenses, like food and housing. 

The psychological harm of being denied an abortion is also undeniable. As the American Psychological Association (APA) asserts, decades of research shows that when abortion is outlawed or made more difficult to obtain pregnant people’s mental health suffers. 

“Rigorous, long-term psychological research demonstrates clearly that people who are denied abortions are more likely to experience higher levels of anxiety, lower life satisfaction, and lower self-esteem compared with those who are able to obtain abortions,” APA President Frank C. Worrell wrote in a statement after a draft of the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade ruling was leaked to the press in early 2022. 

Denying a pregnant person abortion care also harms their family members. The majority of abortion seekers have at least one child at home—they’re already parents—and according to the same Turnaway Study, when they’re denied abortions the children they already have show worse child development than their peers and are more likely to live below the federal poverty line.

For the children abortion seekers are already parenting, an abortion is an emergency. For the woman whose life is in jeopardy, an abortion is an emergency. For the overwhelmed mom of two juggling work and parenthood, an abortion is an emergency. For the couple who just wants to enjoy newlywed life before expanding their family, an abortion is an emergency. 

And for a young woman in an unhealthy relationship, an abortion was an emergency. 

Medication abortion is the most commonly used type of abortion care in the United States, accounting for 53 percent of all facility-based abortions in the country, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research and policy organization.

Earlier this year, a Texas U.S. District Court invalidated the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decades-long approval of mifepristone—a drug that blocks the pregnancy hormone progesterone, which is needed for a pregnancy to continue. When used with misoprostol—which softens the cervix and induces contractions—it is used to end a pregnancy up to 10 weeks gestation, or 70 days after the first day of a pregnant person’s last menstrual period. 

The ruling ordered the FDA to remove mifepristone from markets nationwide, demolishing access to medication abortion not just in Texas but states that protect abortion rights. 

In April, following the ruling, the 5th U.S. The Circuit Court of Appeals intervened, refusing to suspend the FDA’s approval of the medication but maintaining restrictions on accessing the pill, including preventing it from being sent to patients via mail. 

Shortly after, the Department of Justice and the Biden Administration asked the Supreme Court to step in. In April, the Supreme Court blocked the Texas U.S. District’s judge ruling in full, allowing the abortion pill to be widely available but also kicking the proverbial can down the road… because of course they did.

So now, here we are.

The Court’s decision to hear the case marks the first major high court legal dispute involving abortion care since the overtly anti-abortion, conservative members of the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v Wade, ending 50 years of legal precedent and rescinding a constitutional right afforded to Americans for the first time in U.S. history.

The justices will hear oral arguments early next year and are expected to issue a ruling by the end of June, 2024. If you’re a fan of debilitating anxiety and an impending sense of dread, mark your calendars. 

The current Supreme Court has been openly hostile to abortion access, despite pinky-swear promises from the conservative members to honor 50 years of legal precedent.

Justice Samuel Alito—who wrote in his decision to dismantle Roe that the ruling was “egregiously wrong from the start” and “its reasoning was exceptionally weak”—said during his 2006 confirmation hearing that Roe v Wade was an “important precedent of the Supreme Court.” 

Whoops. 

Justice Clarence Thomas claimed that “those of us who have become judges understand that we have to begin to shed the personal opinions we have,” in regards to Roe during his confirmation hearing. He also voted to overturn Roe, before turning his sites on Supreme Court rulings that established the right to same-sex marriage and access to birth control. 

I’ll give you two guesses as to what Donald Trump appointed-Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrtt said during their hearings versus their Roe v Wade decisions, but you’re only going to need one. (Hint: Trump promised to only appoint Justices that would overturn Roe v Wade. It’s one of the very few promises the man has ever made good on.)

At a time when story after story of women being denied abortion care after being diagnosed with a catastrophic pregnancy complication or fatal fetal abnormality—most recently in Texas, where a woman was forced to flee the state to obtain an abortion after being diagnosed with a non-viable pregnancy that threatened her life and future fertility—the horror show that is abortion access in the United States is not likely to end in 2024. Happy New Year, indeed.