A new series from The Meteor reveals the reality of this hot-button issue.
Roe v. Wade, the historic Supreme Court decision that affirmed abortion as a Constitutional right, turns 49 years old today, and yet it’s never been more fragile.
Two upcoming decisions from the Supreme Court could potentially strike down Roe and the precedent its set, which would have wide-ranging repercussions for millions of Americans. The reality is that even though abortion may be treated as a taboo topic, you most likely know someone who’s had one, even if you don’t realize it.
The ubiquity of this procedure is the topic of a new video series from The Meteor, a collective of writers, filmmakers, organizers, and artists who are committed to moving the world forward against injustice. Below, you’ll see one of the installments, in which filmmaker Paola Mendoza explains how her mother’s decision to get an abortion radically influenced their family’s future prosperity.
“[My mom’s] abortion allowed her to be able to work,” Mendoza says. “It allowed her to be able to go back to school. It allowed her to be able to find us a house, and ultimately gave her the stability she needed to continue her life here and have her third child many years later.”
More powerful episodes of the series, directed by Honto 88, will be rolling out right here. One of the minds behind this project (and The Meteor) is Cindi Leive, an award-winning journalist and the former editor of Glamour and Self, who has been thinking critically about issues like this for years (and, as she shares below, had an abortion of her own at 18). I spoke to Cindi about this moving video series and what’s at stake right now in America.
Today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. You’ve been a vocal advocate of a woman’s right to choose for many years. Can you tell us why Roe is under threat of being overturned?
Cindi Leive: Basically, the Supreme Court is set to rule on laws in two states — Mississippi and Texas — and those rulings could either overturn Roe v. Wade completely or in part. Without any kind of hyperbole, it’s a pretty dire situation. The right to abortion has been eroded for years (there’s already only one clinic in the whole entire state of Mississippi), so this isn’t shocking to doctors, activists, or people who work in this world. But it WILL be shocking to a lot of people just trying to live their lives.
What will that mean for women across the country?
If Roe is overturned, it’s estimated that 21 states will either mostly or completely ban abortion. You’ll see “abortion deserts” across a lot of the South and the Midwest. Some states may try to become “sanctuary states” to welcome abortion patients, which is fantastic, but it’s still really expensive and time-consuming to go from, say, Mississippi to California. Women of color and low-income women, whose abortion access is already limited, will be most impacted. Plus, the majority of women who seek abortion already have at least one child — which makes it harder to just up and travel.
Abortion advocates will work hard to help people who need it, and they’re focused on how to make abortion pills (“medication abortion”) more easily and widely available, but it’s still really awful to think that this is what a person needs to go through just to make a decision that should be their business and no one else’s. It’s also a decision that many, many, many people have made before them! I’ve written about the abortion I had when I was 18. Being able to do that made my whole life possible. And now my daughter has less freedom than I did? It’s like history running in the wrong direction.
You have a series of abortion story interviews on your site, The Meteor. Before we talk about those, tell us what The Meteor is all about and why you created it.
A group of us started meeting just before the pandemic to figure out how to create a home for great creative storytelling about gender-equity issues. (We had our first ideas meeting in Gloria Steinem’s living room, which was kind of heavenly.) Now we’ve done podcasts, live events, and more. We produce Brittany Packnett Cunningham’s weekly podcast UNDISTRACTED, which I highly recommend listening to if you want to understand the world better! Anyway, it’s been a lot of fun.
What was your goal with these videos?
We wanted to show that abortion is an everyone issue. The activist Renee Bracey Sherman always says that everybody loves somebody who’s had an abortion. (And if you don’t think you do, they just haven’t told you yet!) If your mother was able to access an abortion and that allowed her to provide for you and your siblings — like Paola Mendoza’s story in our series — then abortion is your issue. If you’ve gotten someone pregnant, and they were able to make a choice that enabled YOU not to become a parent before you were ready — like one of the men in our series — then abortion is your issue. And we also wanted to help deflate some of the stereotypes people have around abortion: that it’s always traumatic, for instance. It just isn’t that way in reality.
What can women across the country do to make their voice heard?
First of all, if abortion HAS benefited you or someone you love, and you’re inclined to talk about that (which obviously is a very personal and not-for-everyone decision), it’s a great time to tell your story to people you know. The anti-abortion politicians have been very effective in creating such stigma around this basic health procedure — you’d think it was only done by a tiny handful of devilish fiends, rather than, you know, 25 percent of all people who can get pregnant! So that helps.
Beyond that, there are a lot of steps, but one great one supporting abortion funds; these are the places that are already doing the really hard, really important work of helping abortion patients get the care they deserve. Give to abortion funds!
Watch more episodes of The Meteor’s essential video series in the coming days right here.
