I remember the first time I told someone about my abortion. The weather was gloomy — which was fitting, as it was the day before the United States Supreme Court officially decided abortion was no longer a federally protected right, and a few months before Florida passed its 15-week abortion ban. Surprisingly, though, I didn’t feel gloomy. I felt a lot of things that day: I felt the shake of my hands as I held a microphone and gave my speech at the Dobbs Decision rally. I felt myself getting distracted by wondering what other decisions the Supreme Court might overturn (I particularly fretted about Brown v. Board Of Ed). And TBH, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the Florida humidity and rain.
But none of those feelings trumped the empowerment I felt as I stood amid a crowd of people who didn’t shy away from saying the word “abortion” — and saying it so loudly that even the busy traffic outside the Florida Supreme Court was quiet. Maybe that’s why, after the rally, I felt comfortable speaking to a virtual stranger — an organizer for Planned Parenthood named Ally — about my own abortion. I blurted it out before I talked myself out of it; I told her how I’d had an abortion and would love to help out with her cause. I don’t remember her response exactly, but I do remember her giving me validation, without pity or shame. In that moment, I knew I was safe, and this opened the door for me to feel comfortable talking about my abortion to even more people.
Fast-forward to 2023: Florida’s near-total abortion ban (six weeks) had passed in the fiscal Senate committee, getting ready to replace the 15-week ban. The state of abortion access was looking incredibly bleak, but on a personal level, I felt a not-insignificant sense of victory, as I was no longer ashamed of my abortion. In fact, I’d begun talking about it often. It turned out, my family was more upset that I’d hid my abortion from them than they were about the fact that I’d actually had one. I felt loved and supported by my community, which in turn encouraged me to continue speaking my truth as the battle for rights in my state raged on.
One day, I walked into a local business and spoke with the owner, a lovely older Black woman who I’ve met before — but this time, it was different. “Oh, I saw you on the news,” she said. It turned out, the local news outlet had aired a clip of a comment I made at a hearing about the six-week ban.Â
“I have never seen a Black girl do that before,” she told me.Â
I asked her to clarify if she meant seeing a Black girl talk about having an abortion, or just talking about abortion in general.Â
“Both,” she said.Â
Her words made me emotional; I remember crying in my car after. Despite having been advocating for abortion access for almost a year at that point, I still sometimes forgot how the words “I had an abortion” leaving the lips of a Black woman is inherently revolutionary.Â
Abortion, and other aspects of reproductive health (such as maternal health, sexual wellness, and more), are Black issues that affect Black people. Black Americans are statistically more likely than white Americans to receive abstinence-only sexual education, to live in states with some form of an abortion ban, and to die in childbirth. Because of this, Black communities are bearing the brunt of the abortion bans and policies that have been taking effect across the country — and we have also been bearing the brunt of the country’s ugly history with reproductive health care for generations. And yet, no one seems to want to discuss this.
For a variety of reasons that stem from Black history, culture, and oppression, there is a stigma attached to Black reproductive health. I feel like I am constantly bringing up the topic of reproductive health care, especially abortion, in Black organizing spaces to ensure it is included in conversations around Black liberation. Similarly, in reproductive advocacy spaces, I feel called to bring attention to the specific struggles of Black individuals that sometimes feel like a mere footnote in the larger narrative about abortion in the United States.
But we must discuss it. We must confront the ugly truth of how Black enslaved women were experimented on for gynecological research. We must recognize how Fannie Lou Hamer, and many Black women like her, were forcibly sterilized by their doctors. We must acknowledge the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments and its victims. We must understand that even the ubiquitous term “reproductive justice” came from Black people — it was actually a critical framework made by 12 Black feminists in the 1990s in response to the lack of nuance and intersectionality around the topic of abortion access and reproductive health care.
We must talk about both the past and the present of reproductive rights intersecting with the Black experience. This is how we will make reproductive health care safer and better for Black people. And in the meantime, it’s how we can feel empowered in the fight for Black reproductive justice. That is why I’m so passionate about sharing my own abortion story. What started as my own journey to overcome fear and shame has now become something much bigger than that. It’s one of the ways I’m contributing to a better future.
So, how will you contribute? While I urge everyone to vote in favor of abortion rights and the political leaders who champion it in this upcoming election, I also challenge you to think and plan beyond Nov. 5: How will you hold your politicians accountable? How can you get more involved in organizing? And how can we create a world where it is the norm to hear Black people talk about their abortions?Â
