Abortion access is a top issue this election cycle. Women are increasingly speaking out about abortion bans and encouraging family and neighbors to be prepared to vote. (Photo: Clayton Henkel)
At 15, Janice Robinson had a “back-alley abortion.”
It was 1975, two years after the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutional right of abortion in Roe v. Wade, but Robinson’s family wasn’t aware of how to access safe, legal abortion in their rural South Carolina town.
Robinson recalled going to a doctor’s office in the dark. After getting sent home, she started bleeding profusely to the point where she passed out. Instead of going to the hospital, her mother nursed her back to health in their home.
The process was a “nightmare” and she could’ve died during the procedure, Robinson said.
“I don’t want any other woman, a young woman, a young girl to have to go through anything like what I experienced,” Robinson said. “It horrifies me that we are moving backwards on reproductive freedom and that women today have fewer freedoms than their mothers did.”
Almost five decades later, Robinson is a reproductive rights advocate in North Carolina. She joined other advocates and elected officials in a virtual press conference on Wednesday to condemn former President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Florida’s near-total abortion ban, and to raise alarms on his Project 2025 agenda that would strip away reproductive freedom.
Trump voiced his support for his home state’s extreme abortion ban last Friday, a measure so comprehensive that it would take effect before many women realize they are pregnant.
“We’re already living under a Trump abortion ban right here in North Carolina, and he will go even farther,” state Sen. Natalie Murdock, a Democrat representing Chatham and Durham counties, said.
In North Carolina, abortion is illegal after 12 weeks of pregnancy due to a ban that went into effect on July 1, 2023.
The proposed ban whizzed through the Republican-dominated state legislature less than 24 hours after its introduction in early May 2023.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the legislation, but the Republican-controlled legislature overrode his veto.
State Sen. Sydney Batch, a Democrat representing portions of Wake County, drew a comparison between abortion and her own medical experiences. Batch said she didn’t consult Trump or her legislative colleagues on the best treatment to save her life when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I relied on my doctor and the medical experts who could tell me what my chances were,” she said. “I had the right to make a decision about my own life and my own health.”
The women are speaking out on the issue as the state prepares to begin mailing out absentee ballots to eligible voters for the 2024 general election.