The Daily - Pregnant at 16

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

This episode contains strong language and descriptions of an abortion.With the end of Roe v. Wade, Louisiana has become one of the most difficult places in the United States to get an abortion. The barriers are expected to disproportionately affect Black women, the largest group to get abortions in the state.Today, we speak to Tara Wicker and Lakeesha Harris, two women in Louisiana whose lives led them to very different positions in the fight over abortion access.Background reading: The Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe, far from settling the matter, has kindled court and political battles that are likely to go on for years.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

I dated the same person in high school my whole time. So I was at public school, and it was during that time that I met my boyfriend. And there were two 16-year-olds in the house together. And I started having sex with him. And, you know, by the time I was 16, I was pregnant. At 16 years old, for the first time in my life, I had sex. And the very first time I had 16, I was pregnant. At 16 years old, for the first time in my life, I had sex. And the very first time I had sex, I got pregnant. And how did you sort of discover that you were pregnant?

I was sick. I was sick for like, I want to say two weeks. I just remember being very, very sick. Like I had a really excruciating pain on my side to the point that I was walking down the hallway at school and I was bolted over. I couldn't move. And my mom thought it was the flu.

And I thought it was the flu. She was like, this is going on a third week and you're really sick. I'm going to take you to the doctor because I thought that this would pass. And so I called my sister and I said, something is terribly wrong. And so she picked me up from school, took me to the doctor. And I think my mother had an inkling by that time that it wasn't the flu. But I didn't, you know. I had no idea.

I wasn't thinking about being pregnant. And they did the pregnancy test. And sure enough, that's when she found out that I was pregnant. But I was. Yeah. So that's what happened. And what did you think when you learned that? What came through your mind

oh shit oh oh shit i was just very afraid you know in a 16 year old's mind i was an active athlete and i remember thinking i can't play ball anymore what What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I don't have no money. Like, I had McDonald's, but it was part-time. I wasn't going to take care of no baby. It barely took care of me. And everything unfolded from there, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

With Roe v. Wade now overturned, Louisiana has become one of the most difficult places in the country to get an abortion, not only because the procedure has been banned there, but because it is surrounded by other states also banning it. Those barriers are expected to disproportionately impact Black women, the largest group to get abortions in the state. in the state. Today, my colleague, senior producer Lindsay Garrison,

has the story of two Black women in Louisiana and how their experiences with unwanted pregnancies led them to opposite sides of the state's fight over abortion. It's Thursday, August 11th. Hi. Back in June, I went to meet Lakeisha Harris on an evening at her home in New Orleans. Lakeisha? Yes. Hi.

She was dressed in all white from head to toe, white skirt, white blouse, her round face half hidden under her white sun hat. She kind of looked like an angel. We quickly escaped the heat and went inside her house to talk. Tell me a little bit about your upbringing and your childhood a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your upbringing and your childhood a little bit. So I am from, I say Chicago, but, you know, back and forth between Chicago and Kankakee. Lakeisha was born in 1975. She spent a lot of her childhood in a small city called Kankakee, about 60 miles south of Chicago.

It's always been like poverty. It was nothing but poverty that is there. And even right now... Over 40% of the population in Kankakee is Black. And while Akisha was growing up, the city had high poverty and crime rates. She said even David Letterman joked about Kankakee in a segment one night. Kankakee, Illinois, as the worst place to live in North America. I was like, oh, this is so bad. Like, we're such a small town.

She grew up with her mom and little brother. And what did your mom do? My mother was, my mother was, so there was part of the time where she spent like in factories, but also she was a sex worker. And she did whatever she needed to to survive and make sure that we survived. And did you know that as a child? Oh, yeah, I knew that as a child. I understood it. I was very wise, as most children existing in poverty are very aware. So, yeah, like her family was not very supportive.

Sometimes we were on the outs with them because she was essentially the black sheep of the family. Right. And she was surviving with two kids and not married. So in those ways, I watched her have resilience and ingenuity. Even when we were living in our car, my mama still took good care of us, you know. Lakeisha said that when she was around nine years old, her mom came up short on the rent money. So Lakeisha, her mom came up short on the rent money. So Lakeisha, her mom, and little brother,

they moved into their car, a maroon Chrysler. And Lakeisha's mom went back to sex work. That rough patch lasted for about a year. It wasn't a very long time, but it was a time. I remember thinking, like, how are we going to go to school or how are we going to wash up? And then we would go into restaurants or, you know, sometimes we would be sleeping at my grandmother's house and we couldn't always sleep there, you know. Or sometimes mama would make enough money and it would be a hotel room. Then it would be back to the car, you know.

a hotel room. Then it would be back to the car, you know. Lakeisha said that while her mom was out working, she and her brother would be in the car. They wouldn't have that much to do. And so Lakeisha would read to him. Oh, Charlotte's Web,

Aesop Fables, The Babysitter's Club. I remember loving Judy Bloom's books, the Ramona Quimby books. Until he would eventually doze off. Then I would read them, you know. She'd read for hours and hours. You know, if I got my hands on the newspaper. Sometimes Lakeisha would look in the classifieds for apartments.

Look for apartments. She would circle ones that caught her eye that maybe they could live in one day. That she would show her mom later. Even though it was a beautiful childhood, it was a hard childhood. You never knew what you were going to get that day. It's part of the reason that when Lakeisha was around 14, she got a job at McDonald's. And so I have been working ever since. She was working there when she started dating her boyfriend.

And she was working there when she discovered she was pregnant at 16. So I'm thinking about like, I'm scared. I don't want to be my mother. I don't want to like have my kids be homeless. But here I was going to be my mother. I was going to raise another child in poverty. And I knew I didn't have the money or anything. Was abortion? It was not even talked about. It wasn't even given to me. I had heard whispers about abortions, but I knew that we didn't have those services. And all I knew is I was going to have this baby, you know? I wasn't given any option.

To Lakeisha, getting an abortion almost existed in this realm of fantasy. Taking a train the roughly 60 miles to get to Chicago, she told me it might as well have been outer space. It felt that unrealistic to her. So it was kind of on your radar, but nothing in reach? No, nothing in reach. It was what, you know, people that could access it, I guess, got. And I didn't get to get that. I didn't get any of that as a choice.

I got, like, sex, and then I got got pregnant and I got to raise that child in poverty. And I don't want like my daughter, because it's my daughter, to be like, oh, mom regrets having me. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I didn't get a say. I didn't get a say. Hi. So what's it like here to meet you? About an hour away in Baton Rouge,

I met Tara Wicker in her office for the first time. Give me just a moment. It's good to meet you too. I'm Tara. She was busy and juggling meetings when I walked in. She clearly had a lot going on. So we got right to it. Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood here, your upbringing, any memories that you have? Sure. I was born and raised here in Baton Rouge. Sure. I was born and raised here in Baton Rouge. Tara was born in 1969. She grew up in a little house in what's now called Mid-City Baton Rouge.

Her neighborhood was predominantly Black, low to middle class, and bustling. Krispy Kreme donuts right down the street. She has really fond memories growing up. Mom went right down to the corner to Mr. Joe Cavaruso's gas station to get gas every morning before she headed off to her teaching job. Her mom was a schoolteacher and her father was a truck driver. She had an older sister named Melanie. It was a great neighborhood to raise kids. But when Tara was five, her father left. I remember when I recognized that he was gone.

He left one thing in the house, which was a green bottle of his brute cologne. And I was in the bathroom one day and I guess really missing my dad. And I saw his bottle of cologne on the shelf. And that was the only thing that I had left of him. And I took the cologne and put it on my baby doll just so I can smell it. And yeah, so powerful. Wow, still. And with her father gone, Tara said she became fearful that her mom might leave her too. So much so that if she was in a room and I couldn't see her, I would make sure that I would position myself to see her, you know, because I didn't know she was going to leave. So when they divorced, it really became more of a survival for me and my sister. We just survived. And survival sometimes meant navigating the mostly white spaces that Tara's mom would put her in.

Tara said that when she was about nine years old, her mom enrolled her in a Catholic school. There were only a handful of Black students. And Tara was sometimes reprimanded for not knowing enough about Catholicism. One time she made the sign of the cross with the wrong hand. Man, one of my teachers yanked me out of line. And I'm terrified. I'm of line. And I'm terrified. I'm traumatized. And I'm like, I thought I had crucified Jesus.

I'm like, what did I do? And there were worse times. You know, when I was at school, I was called the N-word. Tara was an extremely shy child, but her mother wasn't having it. She didn't allow us to be intimidated very easily. And so she would tell us, you know, you don't be intimidated by anyone. If you're there, you're supposed to be there. That nun puts her underwear on one leg at a time, just like you. But she also intentionally put us

in positions where we were the only girl or the only Black. So all throughout my life, I was the only one. But when Tara was 15, her mother encountered a new parenting challenge. Melanie, Tara's older sister, had gotten pregnant. Melanie told her that their mom had tried to induce an abortion. She gave Melanie Epsom salt to drink. She never did it. And then she told her to move around heavy furniture, thinking the straining would cause a miscarriage. But Melanie didn't want to cause a miscarriage, so she carried the pregnancy to term. The family had basically just gotten through that when Tara discovered that she was pregnant at 16. I remember being very out of sorts in terms of, I can't believe this. Then the embarrassment of walking through

school pregnant. And I just remember just the horror of, oh my God, that's going to be me. I'm going to be walking through school with a pregnant belly. And I remember my mom asking me the question, what did I want to do? And I said, I don't know. I don't want this. I don't want any of this to happen. And she said, don't worry about it. We're going to take care of it. That was the end of the conversation. The next conversation was that she had made an appointment and I was in the car headed to the clinic. And did you have any idea what to expect? Were you nervous? I was numb.

It was kind of like I wasn't even there. I remember being really, really sad, but I also felt like I probably didn't have much of a choice. And so I ended up having the abortion. And I remember the doctor, he just left the room. He didn't say anything. He just left me in the room and I was in there by myself. And I happened to turn to the right and sitting there on the table next to me was this clear plastic container. And in that container was my baby. And the only words that came out of my mouth was,

Mommy, sorry. I'm sorry. And, yeah. I called the doctor who performed Tara's abortion to see if he remembers this taking place. He didn't return my calls. But the other abortion providers I've told this story to have said that, while this is certainly not the norm nor official protocol to leave the fetal remains or any pregnancy tissue in the same room as a patient, especially without consent. It is possible this could have happened. Tara says it's a memory that has stayed

with her forever. And I remember going back to school, even though no one knew about it, I felt like everybody knew. It was almost like I felt like this light was shining on me as I was walking down the hall. And I knew that I was harboring this secret that I couldn't voice to anyone else. I couldn't say, oh, well, you know, last week I was pregnant and, you know, now I'm not. So I just kept it. Tara said that at 16, she didn't fully comprehend the procedure that her mom had arranged for her. They had never talked about what taking care of it actually meant. In hindsight, she wished she had more information about what abortion actually was, whether there were any other options. But at that time, her mom didn't give her any options.

Only silence. And did you ever ask your mom why she took you to the abortion clinic? Like, why was that her instinct right away? My mom and I, to this day, have never had a conversation about it. I remember the horrific time that my mom went through when my sister got pregnant and she went through. Oh, gosh, this is hard. She went through so much ridicule.

As a single mom, and I remember her, I think that she felt like she was such a failure when my sister got pregnant. that she felt like she was such a failure when my sister got pregnant. And I remember my mom just really feeling like she was not a good mom. And so I think for her having to face her family, having to face everybody that was in her world, it was more than she could bear, I think. But, you know, we just never, we never talked about it. I was just silent. I was silent. In some ways, Lakeisha and Tara's stories are similar. Both raised by single moms whom they loved and admired.

Both getting pregnant at 16. And both feeling like they didn't have a choice when it came to how to deal with those pregnancies. But just like the negative of a photograph, their stories are also complete inverses of each other. Because how they deal with not having a choice hurls them in radically different directions. Tara's experience in the abortion clinic made her believe that abortion should never be an option. But for Lakeisha, who didn't have that option,

having a choice becomes most sacred. She learns this in high school as she becomes the girl walking down the hallways with a pregnant belly. That was a little bit of an awkward situation. People looking at you, staring at you. Of course, they know you've had sex. Lakeisha eventually gave birth to her daughter in 1992.

And around that time, Maid, what she can remember, was her first choice around her pregnancy, that she would breastfeed. It was the first time she felt she had any control over her pregnancy, that she got to decide what kind of mother she wanted to be. And that decision made her realize she never got to decide whether she wanted to be a mother at all.

And around that time, she made another decision. Hey, we have this new birth control on the market. Her gynecologist offered her a new kind of birth control called Norplant. It had just hit the market and was made up of six tiny hormone-releasing cylinders implanted in the upper arm and could prevent pregnancy for up to five years. Lakeisha immediately said yes. If before her daughter's birth, she felt like she didn't have a say, now she was beginning to. Deciding to breastfeed, deciding to get contraception,

gave LaKeisha a feeling of control. It solidified for her how important choice is, no matter what that choice is. So after I was, like, gave birth, I... After that, Lakeisha continued going to high school, juggling jobs at Arby's, McDonald's. But she needed a better plan. Because I had this baby, and I was like, what am I going to do?

So she studied to become a certified nursing assistant, a CNA. And she passes her final test while working at a gas station. I got my own place, and I started working as a CNA and she passes her final test while working at a gas station I got my own place and I started working as a CNA She got an apartment started to work but it was very little money It wasn't a lot of money

She says around $9 an hour So she started working double shifts but it still wasn't enough Plus, she was exhausted from work, exhausted with caring for a newborn. And because of all of that, Lakeisha's fears of becoming her mom, raising a child in poverty,

inch closer and closer to reality. And like my mother, I did sex work in the in-between. You know? Yeah. And did you pick up sex work when times were hard, kind of in the way of your mom? Yeah. Yeah. Intermittently, you know. The one thing that I'm very proud of is that I've never was homeless with my children in the way that my mother was. So then, you know, each generation gets a little bit better. What happens after that in your life?

Oh, shoot, all of the magic. I can't tell you the whole story, but to sum it up. of magic. I can't tell you the whole story, but to sum it up. To sum it up, Lakeisha eventually moved to Chicago and came in contact with doulas at the hospital she was working in. I was like, what do y'all do? And that inspired her. Y'all with the babies, y'all with the mamas, and we're the doulas. I was like, oh, okay, well, let me look at the doulas. What do y'all do? Oh, oh, okay, well, let me look at the doulas. What do y'all do? Oh, we help the women with pain management and giving birth.

I was like, oh, y'all do. I love that. I would love to do that. She felt like in becoming a doula, she could help support women through the kinds of questions and decisions that she was confronted with at 16. And so I became a doula.

She started training as a doula, then became a doula, eventually settled down with a partner. They raised six children together. Six beautiful children. And all the while, she was slowly chipping away at her education. I would go to school and then stop going to school and go to school and stop going to school, you know. I said that it took me like 14 years to get a two-year degree all the time. After her associate's degree, she started pursuing a bachelor's degree in women and

gender studies. And it's around this time that she was reading a book called Killing the Black Body by Dorothy Roberts, a professor and sociologist. And inside, she came across something that sounded very familiar. It's Norplant. Oh, holy hell. I had no idea. That contraceptive that she was put on back in 1992. I was a part of the introduction to the Norplant. She learned that when Norplant hit the market in 1991, the contraceptive was seen as an innovative way

to curb high teen pregnancy rates in the country. But as the birth control spread, Norplant fell under a cloud of suspicion. Many Black Americans thought it was being used for population control because of its marketing to young Black women and teens. Then women started reporting all of these side effects that they said they were never fully warned about, like headaches, nausea. Some women reported excessive menstrual bleeding after the capsules were inserted into their arms. And eventually, the maker of Norplant agreed to offer cash settlements to about 36,000 women. I was definitely angry, but I was more taken aback. Lakeisha recognized those side effects.

I was passing out. She told me that she, too, had passed out from Norplant. One of the capsules actually did break in my arm. And eventually had it removed. And like many of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits, Lakeisha said no one told her anything about the side effects. Until I read Dorothy Roberts killing the Black body, and the lawsuits, Lakeisha said no one told her anything about the side effects. Until I read Dorothy Roberts killing the Black body,

that was when I knew. But learning this didn't make Lakeisha regret saying yes to birth control. She wanted birth control. She just wanted to make that choice with all the available information. And the fact that she wasn't

given that information, it felt like a pattern. Like how she didn't know about abortion back when she was 16. Okay, so getting back to the point and why you're here and talking about abortion, right? When you don't give people all of their options, when you don't give people all of their resources, when you don't give people the health care that they deserve and need, you limit their life, the possibilities, you limit everything about them. We'll be right back.

After the abortion, how did that affect you afterward? Did you kind of carry that with you or what? Did you change at all as a teen? I felt very out of control of my own life and my own space. I felt really, really displaced. Tara Wicker said her abortion at 16 left her feeling choiceless. Choiceless initially about her pregnancy, but also the decision to terminate it. She said she wasn't the same afterward.

And so I think at that moment in time, my whole personality changed. I wanted to be able to control my own life. As a matter of fact, the funny thing is Janet Jackson had a song called Control. And I was like the poster child for that song. And I thought I was Janet Jackson because she talked about being in control of her own life. And I remember thinking how helpless I felt not being able to make my own decision to keep my own baby. That moment in my life where I felt so powerless, I apparently made some internal vows that, no, I need to be able to stand for what I believe is right for myself. And for me, it was becoming this new person. I created a whole new Tara. Yeah. Yep. That's what I did. So no longer pregnant, the new in-control Tara. She graduated from high school,

eventually went on to college, married that same boyfriend she had at 16. Six kids later. They, too, have six kids together. My oldest child is 26, and my baby is eight. She started a development company, worked in the mayor's office, ran for city council as a Democrat, served in city council. She worked on a hodgepodge of issues, like improving struggling neighborhoods, drafting ordinances, regulating Airbnbs, ensuring debris cleanup after storms in the city. But for over 30 years, abortion wasn't part of Tara's public persona. And she never betrayed that secret she held inside. I locked it away into a place where I just pretended like it never happened. She never talked about it. Until Jonathan Burton called my husband.

In 2019, when Tara was 49 years old, her husband, a pastor, got invited to a luncheon by an anti-abortion advocate. Her husband was sick and couldn't go, but Tara was asked in his place. And I did. I went and I had convinced myself I was just going to go kind of do the elected official thing. I was going to come in the back. Hi, how you guys doing? And sit in the back. And I literally, I was an hour late for the luncheon because I literally was just going to show my face. She walked in, ducked down,

kind of sat in the back. And then one of the organizers spotted her. He said, you know, we have counsel on theicker here in the back and would you like to say a few words? And I remember thinking, no, I don't want to say anything. She didn't intend to speak, but... At that point, I started walking up to the podium. All of a sudden, she felt her feet moving toward the podium. And it was the slowest walk.

Everything kind of went in slow motion and it took me what seemed to have been forever to walk up to that podium. And it was the slowest walk. Everything kind of went in slow motion and it took me what seemed to have been forever to walk up to that podium. And I remember as I'm walking up to the podium, my heart was beating so fast. And I'm like, what in the world? Am I about to die? Am I about to fall out? And I remember just hearing the voice of God say, I want you to share your testimony about what happened because it was a pro-life event. And I'm sitting here like, I don't know these people. I've never talked. It's been 30 years. I've never had a conversation with anyone about this. I am not sharing my story with a bunch of strangers. By the time I got to that podium, I don't even remember how it happened, but I started to share with them what happened to me when I was 16. And just like that,

Tara told her secret in public. She told the people there about her pregnancy at 16, how she didn't know what all of her options were, how the whole ordeal left behind this horrific hole made her feel isolated and alone. And she felt like she could never really talk about it until that moment. And when I shared it, it was as if my whole life had sailed. Everyone in the room was standing to their feet. Everyone was clapping

and there was not a dry eye in the room. And I had pastor's wives that would come up to me afterwards that said, that happened to me. I had an abortion and I've never been able to talk about it to anyone. I think that, you know, especially growing up here in the South, I think that Blacks speaking out on particular issues, for whatever reason, there's this mode of silence that we know bad things happen in our communities. We know bad things happen in our families, but you don't talk about it. But I knew that luncheon changed my life forever. Forever.

After that, Tara is catapulted into Louisiana's anti-abortion movement. And it's at a really big moment. Justice Brett Kavanaugh had just recently been confirmed to the Supreme Court. And states were passing an unprecedented number of laws trying to chip away at Roe. And Louisiana was among them, trying to pass through a law that banned abortion after six weeks. And Tara was swept up in that momentum. Look, we're having this pro-life rally. She was asked to speak at a Louisiana Life March. Sure, no problem. I'd love to. And then it dawned on me what I had just committed to. And I'm like, oh my God, what did

I just do? It was in the media. It was in the newspaper. Her abortion story was resonating. There was no hiding anymore. And then she's offered a job as state director for Louisiana Black Advocates for Life, an initiative under Louisiana Right to Life. And I remember being at the pro-life rally and my daughter, Trinity, she looked at me and she said, Mom, she said, I thought

that you told me that the bulk of people that were getting abortions were Black people. And I said, it is, baby. That's the statistics. And she looked around and she said, well, why are we the only ones here? Where are we? And I said, well, that's why we're here. They helped break the silence. When Tara got underway in her new job, she deepened her knowledge of abortion. She learned that 65% of abortion patients in Louisiana are Black. And then she learned some history. She researched Planned Parenthood, the part of its history where its founder, Margaret Sanger,

aligned herself with the eugenics movement in the U.S., the belief that the human race could be improved through selective breeding. She learned how eugenics often targeted poor people, those with disabilities, and people of color. All of this motivated her. So she starts visiting Black churches, Black communities to talk about abortion, to tell people what she's just learned, and bring it out from the shadows. She tells them that the high percentage of Black abortion patients is eroding the Black population. She tells them that Black Americans used to be the biggest minority in the U.S. Now they're the second largest after the

Hispanic population. And with that erosion in population, Tara argues, is also the erosion of Black culture in this country. And to Tara, it all amounts to a genocide of the African-American race. Do you see this as a civil rights issue? Yep, I do. I think that when you talk about the value of human life and the contributions of a race, it does become an issue of civil rights. And do I have even the right and the ability to make decisions that would be beneficial to continuing the legacy of the African-American race? I looked into this. And while Margaret Sanger did align herself with the eugenics movement, scholars say there's no actual evidence that she tried to control the Black population. And while it's also true that the birth rate for Black Americans has been steadily declining since the 90s, the Hispanic population would be larger than the Black population regardless.

the Black population regardless. And that's largely because of high birth rates and high levels of immigration among Hispanic people in previous decades, not because of abortion rates among Black Americans. Still, Tara finds the high percentage of Black women in Louisiana getting abortions to be alarming. And while she's not alone in thinking this, her views are not the norm. An overwhelming majority of Black Americans, 68%, think abortion should be allowed in most or all cases, significantly more than white Americans. So Tara gets confronted about her position a lot, like recently, when a Black man approached her. I was at a community meeting and I was standing at the door and I was giving out flyers for the pro-life summit. And I remember this man came up to me and he said, so let me get this right. He said, so you're a Black woman? He said, but you're pro-life. And I said, yeah. And he said, well, I'm not really sure because, you know, there was a point in time in history where African-Americans did not have the opportunity to have a choice and have their own decisions about things and things were forced on them.

And so I really see it as you taking away a person's right. Tar looked at him and went straight to the fetus inside the womb. Then we started having the conversation about the reality of the baby and the straight to the fetus inside the womb. Then we started having the conversation about the reality of the baby and the voice of the baby. That this was not about the rights of Black women. This was about Black fetuses not having any. He got quiet for a moment and I remember he was reflecting and he kept saying, okay, well, yeah, that makes sense. Oh, I never thought about it that way. Being able to highlight that to him helped him understand the difference.

And Tara says that the recent dialogue around Black Lives Matter after police killings like Alton Sterling in Louisiana and George Floyd on a national scale have only helped her get through to people. You know, there's been so much conversation out there about celebrating and protecting Black lives.

And, you know, Black lives matter until we're having a conversation about in the womb. So the reality of it is, do Black lives really matter? You want to start with a Black life? Start with the person that's going to give birth to the Black life. What does that person want, right? What does that being want? Does that being want to have a child? No.

That life matters. That life matters. Absolutely. The life that's here. Her life, their life matters. While Lakeisha Harris was working as a doula in Chicago helping support pregnancies she decided she also wanted to help support people who didn't want to be pregnant

So she decided to volunteer at the abortion clinic in Chicago I do remember the first time I was an escort at the clinic in Chicago and the anti-abortion activists had these pictures that was blazing of dismembered fetuses and would come up to the cars. And I remember them being so angry with me because I was a black woman defending abortion access. And like, you are committing genocide against your own people. And this is eugenics. And these are white protesters. And I was so stunned by that. I remember being so stunned and didn't have the language, right? I hadn't, that was the first time of me even hearing the word eugenics. So I had to go home and study.

Like Tara, Lakeisha also learned about the history of eugenics. There are parts of our history that is inclusive of eugenics, right? That is a truth. And there's also part of our history of women, Black women, is that we never had a say in how our bodies were used, who utilized them for what. In 1992, I never gave consent to be part of an experiment about birth control, right? But also, I deserved birth control access. Those are the two truths that exist in my life. So while part of the narrative of eugenics is like a truth, the part of that narrative that other people get to decide

what to do with their body. And that is like, for me, a whole truth and whole reality. Lakeisha eventually moved to New Orleans and continued to advocate for abortion access. And in 2019, when the governor signed into law that six-week ban on abortion, Lakeisha helped lead a sit-in inside the Capitol building in Baton Rouge. The protesters were eventually let out of the building by law enforcement. LaKeisha was arrested. As an increasingly anti-abortion climate swept over Louisiana, at times even threatening to shut down its clinics,

LaKeisha continued to push for access for years, becoming a visible leader in the fight for abortion access. And then in June, she was named the co-executive director of LIFT Louisiana, one of the state's most prominent reproductive health organizations, lobbying and fundraising for abortion access across the state. It's kind of the rival to Tara's organization, Louisiana Right to Life. But right after she was hired, Roe v. Wade was overturned. We knew what was coming. We knew it.

Yeah. Yeah. And since that decision, Louisiana has been in a kind of legal tug-of-war over abortion. The state's trigger bans, laws on the books that would ban nearly all abortions in the state, were blocked by a series of rulings and temporary restraining orders, allowing Louisiana's clinics to stay open. But just a couple of weeks ago, an appeals court ruled that the bans could go back into effect, and the state's clinics had to stop providing abortions once again. And Lakeisha is worried about what that means for Black Louisianans in particular.

Yeah, we're in a state that is rife with poverty for Black people. So imagine what they're going to experience when they have to travel four states to get to Illinois to get an abortion. I always think of myself and imagine that young woman who was 16 when she got pregnant and thinking about Chicago was like a lifetime away. And that was like, what, 68, 70 miles? You're going to have to go thousands of miles to go to get an abortion now. And it makes me sad. It makes me, it makes me deeply sad. It makes me, it makes me deeply sad. What's your greatest concern or what are your greatest fears? My greatest fears is that there will be more criminalization. Like we live in a state that is already heavily criminalized. So my greatest fear is that they will not only criminalize providers,

because that's the language right now, but they will start to criminalize people who seek abortions. And they said that they won't, but they will. Eventually they will. If the trigger bans stay in place, providers could potentially face fines of up to $100,000 and up to 10 years in prison. But Lakeisha says the law's language is nebulous. Who is the provider?

It could be the mother that went and got the, because you can still get mail order medicine for abortions, right? because you can still get mail order medicine for abortions, right? So the mother that gets the package out of the mailbox and hands that medicine to their child could be a provider, right? So that language is so loose that anybody that's trying to help a person access abortion could be incarcerated. Are you worried that Black Louisianans in particular could get tangled up more often? Oh, that's who it is. That's who we'll be. That's who I'm talking about. More incarceration for Black people. So, yeah. Surely.

Ever since Lakeisha moved to New Orleans, she's continued her work as a doula. She does it for free, floating around from family to family, almost like a fly on the wall in people's homes. So what I'm seeing is, like, women really stress the hell out about every aspect of their life as a doula. I'm seeing the lack of resources,

the lack of family support, the lack of mental health care, just lack, lack, lack, lack, lack. Louisiana also has one of the highest rates in the nation when it comes to maternal mortality for Black women. So Lakeisha is worried about what all of this adds up to for Black people, now that more Black women may have to carry pregnancies to term. And as a doula, she's preparing for that. Do you anticipate an influx of clients who might... We anticipate it, yes, yes, yes. We anticipate that because that's going to be the reality.

I think that when you when we have the conversation about it's going to be African-Americans that's going to suffer the most. The question that I would have is, you know, who's suffering the most now? I mean, these neighborhoods are suffering from basic needs, basic quality of life. I mean, it shouldn't be something basic that I have to have a car to be able to just get something as basic as eggs, bread, and butter just to make breakfast. You know, where do I go in the neighborhood to find a banana? In Baton Rouge, Tara also sees a lack of basic resources in Black neighborhoods, including hers. She still lives in the house she grew up in, same neighborhood,

except now it's no longer bustling. It's economically depressed. So when it comes to the lack of resources for Black Louisianans, on this, Lakeisha and Tara agree. But Tara doesn't see abortion as a solution to those inequities, only a symptom of a deeper problem. So we actually have identified 20 properties.

So Tara is preparing for a post-war world that caters to the needs of the most vulnerable. She says for too long, part of the anti-abortion movement has been pro-birth, not pro-life. So she's trying to get funding for homes, for moms and their babies, so that resources are less of a problem. are less of a problem. To me, that should never be a decision that a mom has to make, whether or not I can financially take care of my baby versus the only option I have is to kill my baby.

I mean, what a horrible decision to have to be faced with. Do you think abortion should ever be on the table? Are there any circumstances where you would see why someone would do that or cases where you think it could even be necessary for a person? I have a hard time thinking of a scenario where we should end a human's life just because they don't come here in the best situation and circumstances. What about the situation of the mother's life at risk? Louisiana has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. I think it's four Black women for every one white woman. So what about like in that case? So even in that sense, they've been so many times where the doctors have said, you know, if you go through

with this, you could die and the baby could die and both of you could die. And so there have been so many situations where God has intervened and that mom ended up having the baby anyway. She lived and the baby ended up living. So even though it may be a risk, and the doctors are wrong all the time. And if there's a risk that, hey, this baby may not live or you may die, I just don't think that we should be in a position of playing God in those scenarios. I think that ultimately, life and death is in His hands, and we should allow that to play out. Over the past several weeks, Tara has been busy going to court and following what happens with the court hearings

determining the fate of Louisiana's trigger bans. The decision that reinstated the bans was finally some good news. In New Orleans, Lakeisha had already been preparing for the day abortion disappears. She's planning a big rally of people who will travel from Louisiana to Illinois

to show how difficult that journey is. Even though the clinics aren't providing abortions right now, it's unclear what will happen in Louisiana. The attorneys who are fighting to block the bans tell me they could get another injunction, suspending the trigger bans once again. So it's possible the legal ping-pong could continue. While the state wobbles between two fates,

these women, whose lives are inverses of each other, like a photograph and its negative, are bracing. Bracing for either a Louisiana that mirrors what they want, or a Louisiana that mirrors where they've been. No matter what ultimately happens, only one of them will get the future they want. The future they've been running towards. While the other one might find herself, in a sense, back to where she began.

We've come to the steps again to make history. Back to seeing more realities like the one she experienced at 16. You have to reach deep inside until everyone has access, has full access to choice, the very foundation. No other 16-year-old has to be faced

with the understanding or the thought that she's alone in this, that you're not alone. You do have options. You do have choices, you do have a family, a community, a village that is here ready to support, love you, and provide all the resources that you have. So this work is not over. We have a lot of work to be done. And know that we are not giving up and conceding anything in Louisiana. We will continue to fight. I'm going to make a We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to Nitterday.

On Wednesday, during sworn testimony at the office of New York's Attorney General, former President Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer questions about his business dealings. The Attorney General, Letitia James, has been conducting a civil investigation into whether Trump improperly inflated the value of his assets in order to obtain loans and tax breaks.

In a statement, Trump said he invoked the Fifth Amendment because he believes that the investigation is politically motivated. And the government reported that inflation fell in July, with prices up 8.5% compared to 9.1% the month before, a potential sign that record-high consumer prices may be easing. that record-high consumer prices may be easing. Officials credited the lower inflation rate to the falling price of gas, airline tickets, and used cars.

Today's episode was produced by Lindsay Garrison, fact-checked and researched by Susan Lee, and edited by Paige Cowett and Lisa Chow, with help from Anita Badajoe and Ben Calhoun. It contains original music by Marian Lozano, Alicia Baitu, Ro Niemisto, and Dan Powell,

and was engineered by Chris Wood, with help from Corey Schreppel. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Campbell Robertson. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Bilbaro. See you tomorrow.