“We Are Having Abortions”: How Abortion Stories Illustrate Policy and Warn of What Is to Come

A pivotal moment in the post–Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization response was how abortion storytellers rose up in defiance of the laws. Of course, people continued to have abortions, but the way in which they did so openly, refusing to be silent and testifying before Congress about their experiences—potentially criminalized or still legal—was valiant. People who have abortions are experiencing an unprecedented level of visibility at a moment in which we've lost all legal protections. But that visibility and storytelling is one of the critical ways in which we will be able to tell the story of now and support each other as we build a vision for what's next: a world in which everyone is able to freely decide if, when, and how to grow their families and receive an abortion at any time, for any reason, anywhere. We are building it for ourselves, we are imagining it on-screen, and we are telling the stories of what we need to make that world possible today.