My year at MSI
To all the women and girls affected by past, present and future gag rules: your struggles do not go unnoticed
The first time abortion became real for me was the day I stood at a pharmacy counter in Guatemala ordering birth control pills in Spanish.
What if they don’t work and I get pregnant?
My stomach sank at the thought of buying an early flight home and culling my money to pay for an abortion in my home state of Ohio. That is not how I intended my summer to end.
In reality, I stood in the incredibly privileged position of even having the option to travel for reproductive healthcare and pay for it out-of-pocket. Abortion is only permitted in Guatemala to save a woman’s life, and contraception can be hard to find.
In contrast to the uphill battle many women in the country face to access healthcare, my pack of pills cost just $3 and I was lucky enough to have the background knowledge to know exactly where to find and how to use them.
When I returned to Washington, DC later that summer, I felt different. I knew my career had to serve a new purpose.
My firsthand experience facing barriers to reproductive healthcare led me in the following years to campaign on Capitol Hill to end the Helms Amendment, recruit journalists to write about birth control access in the US and, eventually, to work for Marie Stopes International — United States just months after President Trump signed the Global Gag Rule and stripped our organization of millions of dollars in US Government funding.
I was commissioned as a storyteller, tasked with communicating to Americans why every woman deserves reproductive choice, no matter where she lives. Through this work, I came to know our clients’ stories on an intimate level. One in particular stuck out to me.
Fanirisoa
Fanirisoa lives in Madagascar, and met her boyfriend at just 17 years old.
The young couple fell in love right away, and like myself during a magical summer in Guatemala, Fanirisoa knew she needed to act quickly to avoid an unintended pregnancy.
But strict cultural norms can make it difficult for young unmarried women like Fanirisoa to have open, honest conversations about sex and contraception.
In October 2017, our team sent a photographer to visit our program in Madagascar, where the withdrawal of US Government funding had hit hardest.
Through the photographer’s interviews, we learned that a community health promoter had approached Fanirisoa and her boyfriend to offer a voucher for free services at a local Marie Stopes provider.
The voucher was a lifeline, according to Fanirisoa:
“I did not want to discuss my intimate relationship and sexual life with my parents, and the fact that contraception was free meant that I did not have to request their help to get it. I could go to the doctor on my own and still act responsibly.”
The voucher program in Madagascar closed in 2017 because of lack of funds under the Global Gag Rule, and Fanirisoa worries that one day she won’t be able to afford her contraceptive pills.
In US dollars, the pills cost approximately 30 cents per month.
I saw myself in Fanirisoa — young and in love and hopeful for her future. My heart still hurts at her struggle to afford the basic thing that would help her to decide how it turns out.
Unfortunately, as my earlier story illustrated, Madagascar isn’t the only place reproductive choice is under attack.
Since my 2015 summer in Guatemala, abortion has only become harder to access in my home state of Ohio, known for it’s outrageous and unconstitutional anti-choice regulations, and waning number of abortion clinics (fewer than 20, two closed their doors last year alone).
Ohioans forgo food, risk eviction, and pawn their possessions to pay for an abortion. Some are forced to continue their pregnancies, abandon their education, and stay trapped in poverty. The cost of a first-trimester abortion can be more than a low-income family lives on in a month.
My experiences at MSI have only emphasized the need to tell these women’s stories — as well as my own — to communicate what we all have at stake in this fight for reproductive choice.
This spring, I had the privilege to help MSI launch a billboard in Times Square to amplify this message: that no matter where she lives or who she is, every woman deserves to make decisions about what to do with her body. I’m proud to see our team member Zayanna’s portrait so prominently displayed in Times Square, asserting “My mind. My body. My choice.”
It’s a powerful message and appropriate place to display it, given that President Trump recently proposed a domestic gag rule in the United States that would pull government funding from family planning clinics that also provide abortion. This hostile environment makes it even harder to advocate for women like Fanirisoa to the US Government, and worsens the socioeconomic circumstances of women in US states like Ohio, who already struggle to access full reproductive healthcare.
To these Ohio women, to Zayanna and Fanirisoa, and to all the women and girls around the world who are affected by past, present and future gag rules: your struggles do not go unnoticed.
To our clients and providers at MSI: it’s been an honor to tell your stories.
At the end of this month, I’ll be leaving to become a Community Economic Development Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia, where I’ll work with women and youth to realize their dreams and aspirations.
I feel so lucky to have spent my time at such a special organization, and I hope to find my way back soon.
Until then,
Jane
