On January 31st we interviewed New York Times Journalist, Linda Greenhouse. She told us about her time sitting in the court when Roe V Wade was ruled in the 70s. She also talked about how upsetting it was to see it overturned recently. Linda also talked about the multiple books she has written on our topic.

One of the most interesting things Linda talked about was how abortion used to be a much less two sided topic. She talked about how Ronald Reagan used abortion as a political strategy and it made abortion become more two sided. Hearing from someone who was in the court when Roe was ruled was very interesting and made me more passionate about the topic.

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Last week we visited a Planned Parenthood. On the outside the building looks very unwelcoming. We started our tour by seeing the part of the Planned Parenthood that provides other services besides abortions. This included vasectomies and screenings for cervical cancer.

After that we went to the second floor where we looked at the process of having an abortion. The first thing that happens is you check in and decide how you are going to pay. You can either use insurance, pay with cash, or use medicaid. After you decided how you were going to pay you were given a pregnancy test then an ultrasound. After they see how far along in your pregnancy you were, they give you options for sedation. You can either have deep sedation or medium sedation. Then the procedure is done. After it is finished you go to the waiting room and recover.

Seeing the planned parenthood gave me a very up close experience of what it is like to get an abortion. This helped me connect with the topic more and gave me more passion for the work I have been doing.

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We met with Tara Haelle. She is a journalist in Texas and used to be a high school teacher. She talked to us about her experience in a school where there was no sexual health class, and how her high school had the highest rates of teen pregnancy in Texas. She told about one experience she had where she had to teach a pregnant student what a uterus was. I think that hearing this story really shows the importance of sexual health class in school.

Another thing she talked about was an ex-student of hers who was living on the streets and became pregnant do to sex work. Her ex-student was addicted to drugs and the baby would have been born with many birth defects. Tara was trying to find any way to be able to get her ex-student an abortion, but her ex-student ended up having a miscarriage. She also mentioned an old friend that she had who’s husband is a state legislator in Texas and he wanted to pass a bill to put any women who got an abortion to death. Hearing this really shocked me and made me more inspired to do this project.

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On January 20th, my group interviewed Jane Kaufman. Jane Kaufman is an abortion provider in NYC, and has been for almost a decade. She spoke to us about her experience providing abortions and her experience after Roe V Wade was overturned. She told us that she wanted to work as an abortion provider because reproductive rights was a topic she cared about and she said that if you care about a topic and have the ability to help then you should. One of the most shocking things she mentioned was that the youngest person she had to give an abortion to was an 11 year old. She also said that most of the abortions she provides are for people who have already had one child. This is different from the usual narrative that abortions are mostly done for teenagers. She talked about how the overturn of Roe V Wade was devastating for her and very hard on abortion providers around the country.

This interview was super helpful and gave us an inside look into what being an abortion provider is like.

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