Private tales have taken heart stage in reproductive rights advocacy. The nineteenth shadowed three ladies who took their tales to the Hill — and hoped their Republican lawmakers would hear.
By Grace Panetta, The nineteenth Information
Yolenna Regmi was on a mission.
The 19-year-old faculty scholar from Nebraska was on the Capitol to foyer her representatives—all of them Republicans—for reproductive well being. She cares deeply about complete intercourse schooling and needs extra entry to abortion, together with in purple states like hers.
“I’m here, and I’m very passionate about what we’re doing,” she mentioned.
Regmi spoke to a few Republicans’ workplaces all through the day. Some staffers actually listened, she mentioned, whereas she felt others condescended to her.
She wasn’t too nervous moving into. Her advocacy journey started with serving on the Teen Council at her native Deliberate Parenthood and over time, she mentioned, she’s gotten way more snug speaking about intercourse schooling. If youngsters can communicate overtly about these subjects, she reasoned, so can grownup policymakers.
“In the past, that would have been so scary, but it pushed me to come out of my shell,” she mentioned.
Regmi was amongst 17 advocates and storytellers from a dozen states who, by means of a program run by Deliberate Parenthood, got here to the U.S. Capitol for a day of lobbying and advocacy rooted in their very own experiences.
Private tales have taken heart stage within the legislative debates, marketing campaign adverts, and the broader public discourse about abortion, particularly for the reason that Supreme Courtroom ended a federal proper to abortion almost two years in the past. Three storytellers from purple states, whom The nineteenth interviewed all through the day, had the added problem of speaking to employees for Republican representatives whose opinions on abortion differed from theirs. Whereas the Supreme Courtroom despatched the difficulty of abortion again to the states, Congress nonetheless holds large energy to form reproductive well being coverage, together with by means of federal funding.
The advocates hoped that direct conversations with congressional employees would put a human face to the complexities of abortion—and if not change minds, no less than transfer the needle.
They got here to the Capitol representing Iowa, Nebraska, and South Carolina—states the place the autumn of Roe v. Wade paved the best way for Republican lawmakers to go new abortion bans. The three ladies additionally hail from the suburbs, representing demographics vital to the 2024 election.
However how a lot, they questioned, would their elected representatives hear?
Elizabeth Feldman, who got here from Nice Hill, Iowa, started her day within the workplace of her congressman, Rep. Zach Nunn, a first-term Republican representing a aggressive swing district.
“Politics in general kind of bore me,” mentioned Feldman, 35. However her ardour for reproductive rights has pushed her to talk up in her neighborhood and earlier than state lawmakers in Des Moines.
“This is a turning point in our country. History is being made,” she mentioned. “And I think it’s really important to take a stand.”
Feldman has written and testified about her spiritual upbringing, which included a time volunteering at an anti-abortion counseling heart on the path of her mom. In her 20s, she acquired pregnant and had already determined to have an abortion when she discovered the being pregnant was ectopic, which is life-threatening if not handled.
Feldman mentioned she was considerably nervous about having a extra direct one-on-one dialog with a congressional staffer, which was a unique format from her earlier legislative testimony. The Nunn staffer she met with, she mentioned, heard her out, telling her that tales like hers “add dimension” to the abortion debate.
“He was very receptive to what I had to say and very polite,” she mentioned.
Iowa lawmakers handed a six-week abortion ban in 2023, which is at the moment blocked pending a ruling from the state’s highest court docket. Feldman says abortion is a frequent matter of debate in her neighborhood and amongst her associates, and he or she’s particularly involved about assaults on entry to contraception.
“I just want them to know that we’re out here, and we’re going to keep showing up,” she mentioned of the message she hoped storytellers would ship to lawmakers. “And whether you like it or not, you represent us.”
The Deliberate Parenthood Nationwide Storytellers Program, based in 2018, at the moment has 131 members across the nation.
“It can be scary, a little bit nerve-wracking. But the experience has been incredibly empowering,” Feldman mentioned. “It makes me feel very much validated to be able to take the experiences that I’ve personally had and potentially make any kind of a difference with them.”
June 13, the day the 17 storytellers got here to Capitol Hill, was already busy—the Senate voted on a Democratic invoice on fertility therapy; throughout the road, the Supreme Courtroom launched a choice on treatment abortion; and Donald Trump returned to the Hill to satisfy with Republican lawmakers.
However similar to another day, the Capitol advanced was abuzz with exercise from lawmakers, employees, reporters and throngs of holiday makers who descend on the Capitol each summer season for excursions. A gaggle of senators and employees had been additionally observing the chamber’s annual sartorial custom of donning seersucker for the day. All alongside, congressional workplaces had been doing the day-in, day-out work of assembly with constituents and advocacy teams who hoped to seize the Hill’s most treasured useful resource: time and a focus.
Regmi, a scholar at Loyola College in Chicago, grew up in Papillon, Nebraska, a suburb of Omaha as a multiracial girl—“a minority amongst a minority.” In highschool, she noticed how her classmates and associates “suffered” from abstinence-only intercourse teaching programs. In lots of instances, these packages obtain federal funding, one thing Regmi needs to alter.
“It’s not realistic to keep pushing this abstinence-based program federally or statewide,” she mentioned whereas sitting in a shady spot of the courtyard within the Russell Senate Workplace Constructing between conferences.
She views complete intercourse schooling as a strong device to forestall undesirable pregnancies—and a gap into broader conversations about reproductive well being with those that might disagree along with her on abortion.
“Getting away from abstinence-based programs is the doorway in people aren’t thinking about,” she mentioned.
In 2023, Nebraska lawmakers enacted a 12-week abortion ban that additionally included restrictions on gender-affirming care. Nebraskans might see as much as three competing poll measures on abortion entry within the 2024 election, during which the state’s 2nd Congressional District additionally accounts for a vital vote within the Electoral Faculty.
Along with intercourse schooling, Regmi was advocating for extra exceptions to Nebraska’s abortion ban to incorporate deadly fetal abnormalities. “Even just expanding on exceptions is better than nothing,” she mentioned.
Regmi mentioned the staffer she met with from the workplace of Nebraska’s senior senator, Deb Fischer, was “condescending at times,” extra targeted on arguing along with her on factors of morality and ethics and debating her on hypothetical situations.
“I think that Nebraska has wonderful people, but on certain issues like this, it just really disappoints me and saddens me that they can’t be more supportive to women and their rights,” Regmi mentioned.
Regmi nonetheless hopes Nebraska could be the state she needs it to be and that teenagers will obtain higher intercourse schooling than she did. Regmi, who’s double majoring in political science and felony justice, aspires to be an elected official herself and hopes to be a “guiding light” for different younger folks.
“I think that people shouldn’t be scared to say what they believe in, when you never know who’s listening,” she mentioned. “You never know what opportunities are going to come to your door if you just say your values and speak up for people.”
On the opposite facet of the Capitol advanced, Lacey Layne had a day assembly with a staffer within the workplace of her congressman, Republican Rep. Ralph Norman.
Layne, a 40-year-old college counselor from Fort Mill, South Carolina, was anticipating her second baby, whom she’d named Evan, in 2017 when she acquired a life-threatening fetal prognosis. After getting that devastating information, Layne selected to finish her being pregnant and obtain “compassionate end-of-life care” for the fetus—a selection she might not have the ability to make in the present day below her state’s abortion legal guidelines.
(Grace Panetta for The nineteenth)
“Any decision I would have made, it would not have changed; I would not have had a living baby at the end,” she mentioned. “So it’s hard when people are politicizing a health care decision.”
Within the years following, as lawmakers tried to go new abortion restrictions, Layne noticed warning indicators of what was to come back and commenced sharing her story with legislators.
In 2023, her fears got here true when South Carolina lawmakers handed a six-week abortion ban, a part of a major erosion of abortion entry within the South. The ban permits abortion with restricted exceptions, together with a risk to the affected person’s life and a fetal prognosis “incompatible” with life.
“I just think about all the moms out there that are receiving those devastating reports on their anatomy scans, and they have to figure out where to go or what to do,” she mentioned. “And some of them have the privilege to travel for health care, and some of them do not.”
Layne mentioned she appreciated speaking one-on-one with a staffer from Norman’s workplace, versus the extra impersonal setting of committee testimony.
The staffer, she mentioned, was empathetic to her story however nonetheless emphasised that Norman is against abortion, partly due to experiences inside his household and his personal spiritual beliefs. As a constituent, Layne mentioned she discovered it “concerning” that her congressman’s faith informs his policymaking.
Nonetheless, Layne sees worth in sharing her story and utilizing her expertise to bridge gaps between folks’s perceptions of what abortion is and the way it utilized to her, a married mom who was carrying a wished being pregnant.
“I’m unfortunately well practiced in South Carolina. I believe I’ve testified about five times for this particular cause,” she mentioned. “And I would say have grown confidence; there’s some empowerment there to know that I’ve had this experience, but I’m fortunate enough to be on the other side of it and able to share in a way that can hopefully make a difference.”
