Why these 2024 candidates are telling their abortion stories on the campaign trail

Before Eva Burch and I walked into her house in Mesa, Arizona, and she checked on the birds nesting right outside her door. Still wearing clean clothes from her job as a nurse and not having much time before her night shift duties as the mother of two boys, she sat down at the kitchen table to talk to me about her second shift. My father – is a state senator. In March, she made national headlines for launching a fiery speech on the legislative floor about her current pregnancy and plans to have an abortion for medical reasons. “I don’t think people need to justify their abortion,” Burch, who has a long history of pregnancy-related health complications, said while surrounded by other lawmakers , many of whom are women. “But I choose to talk about why I made this decision because I want us to be able to have meaningful conversations about the reality of the work we do in this body that impacts people in the world. What the real world is like.”

Over the past two years, regulations about when and how pregnant people can have abortions in Arizona have changed repeatedly. Before Dobbs, former governor Doug Ducey signed a law banning abortion after 15 weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest. But the state never officially enacted its 1864 law banning abortion and criminalizing those who performed abortions, so the Civil War-era law took effect after its enactment. donate by the state Supreme Court in April, before eventually being replaced by the current 15-week ban. Pregnant people seeking abortions in the state also have to wait 24 hours from the first appointment, during which the patient undergoes a mandatory ultrasound and counseling, until the second visit, when the abortion takes place. pregnancy takes place. However, with Limited clinic Across the state, that wait can sometimes take longer.

During that wait, Burch, who represents District 9, spoke with his colleagues on the floor of the statehouse. “The timing of it was extremely important,” Burch told me. “Even people who may not fundamentally approve of abortion will sympathize with what I went through — that this was a wanted pregnancy, that I had miscarried before, that I had experienced traumatic complications from miscarriage before, and that’s the only reason I’m still pregnant is because I was forced to.” Within just a few days, she was interviewed by Related press, cutAnd Washington Post, quickly taking her local candidacy to a national scale.

Now she’s running for office. She is sharing the vote with one initiative that would establish a “fundamental right” to abortion care in Arizona until approximately the 24th week of pregnancy or later if a health care professional decides that it is necessary to “protect life or health.” physical or mental health of the pregnant person”. Burch is part of an unofficial group of women running in the 2024 election cycle and telling their abortion stories on the campaign trail. Their lived experiences collided with a unique and difficult time in American history. This is the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022. And with a significant turnout intending to have an abortionDemocratic candidate for president, Kamala Harris, has not been silent about her views on reproductive freedom and abortion access, even reminding listeners about Call her dad podcasts She recently became the first sitting vice president to visit a reproductive health clinic.

The emergence of this new group of candidates follows a long history of women embracing their particular gendered experiences, which often involve sharing the harsh realities of motherhood in What will America be like? United States Senator Patty Murray, who represents Washington and is currently third in line for president, ran decades ago as the “tennis shoe mom” after a male lawmaker gave her the nickname there. 2018, Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate Krish Vignarajah and Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kelda Roys both breastfeed their children in political ads. And when Elizabeth Warren Running for president in 2020, she made universal child care one of her key campaign promises after detailing how her Aunt Bee came to watch the children while She teaches law.

Afterward Donald Trump elected in 2016, the way women run for office has changed, Erin Vilardi, CEO and founder of Vote Run Lead Action, told me. “Women can no longer silence parts of themselves and parts of their lives when they run for office, and that includes abortion care,” she said. “Because you have to be able to speak to voters about this great national issue both in terms of your expertise on the issue as well as the realities of your life. That makes you a really good person to legislate on this issue.” Vote Run Lead Action trains women how to run for office and stay safe while doing so. A core component of the program includes storytelling training. “If you’re not ready to tell that story, then you’re not ready to tell that story. It’s okay, don’t use it on the campaign trail,” Vilardi said. It is the vividness of these stories that can create collective change because the emotional resonance is so strong, she added. “For voters, you have a lot of noise to cut through.”

I spoke with three women who told their abortion stories while campaigning for state congressional seats. They all come from states that have stricter abortion bans since Dobbs decision, and all three had medical abortions during unwanted pregnancies. Their stories—which they have now told countless times—turned what could have been local elections into startling public affairs. They told me that, with increased exposure, there was increased women’s solidarity across the country, access to chambers of national importance, and increased fundraising—along with harassment. harassment, verbal abuse on social media, and the magnifying glass are perhaps the most vulnerable moments of their lives. life.

“We knew my story would attract media attention, but I anticipated the local media attention,” Burch told me, joking, “I would wear what something else that day.” After her speech went viral, messages immediately poured in from people wanting to share their own stories and those with hateful comments. Burch “was invulnerable to those attacks,” she told me, noting that it was “because I was so proud of the way my story turned people around and it made so many other people feel seen, feel brave, and care about the political process more than they did before.” She added, “I know that there will be some people who will never believe me when I tell them that an abortion ban would hurt people in my situation. Those people will never vote for me and they will probably never care what the truth of the situation is.”

When Marilyn land run after, and finally flippeda seat in the Alabama House of Representatives in a special election, she didn’t know who she would tell about the abortion she had decades ago. That was until she heard it Alyssa Gonzalesstory of. Gonzales, also from Alabama, discovered she was pregnant just three days earlier fish eggs has been overthrown. “I just gave birth to a baby boy just three months ago. My body had barely recovered from my previous pregnancy, and my fiancé and I were not ready to have another child,” she said. wrote in HuffPost. The two decided to continue with the pregnancy anyway: “With the same excited energy we felt with our first son, we again started thinking about names and dreaming about who we would be. can become”.

Months later, she received bad news. Her fetus was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a genetic disorder. According to Gonzales, additional testing showed that “it was impossible for this fetus to survive.” “Less than a year ago, the next step would have been clear: We needed to terminate the pregnancy so that what was clearly not viable would not cause further complications for my own health,” Gonzales wrote. . “But I would soon learn that this basic and obvious health care decision was no longer mine.”