Abortion Saved Her. Now It Could Cost Her Freedom.

By Angela Dennis, CapitalB

As the Trump administration cuts funding for Planned Parenthood, one court offers Black Women in the South a legal lifeline.

Kneeling on the cold bathroom floor of her apartment, Kisha clutched the pregnancy test she had just picked up from the Walgreens down the street. She waited for a single blue line to appear. Instead, there were two.

“When I looked down at that test, I didn’t believe it,” she said. “I told myself there was just no way. This can’t be happening to me.”

She was pregnant at 41 years old.

With no partner to support her and no financial cushion to fall back on, living paycheck to paycheck, she couldn’t afford to raise a child alone and had no desire to.

Working long shifts for an online retailing company, loading packages for $20 an hour, Kisha was facing a reality that she did not expect — and could not afford.

“I knew exactly what my next steps would be,” she said.

That step would be an abortion.

As the Trump administration moved to pause Planned Parenthood’s funding and a federal court ruled against criminalizing doctors in Alabama for helping patients seek abortions across state lines, Black women in the South are sounding the alarm, organizing to defend what’s left of their reproductive freedom.

But living in South Carolina, where a law bans abortions around six weeks of pregnancy, Kisha said she felt like her next steps were under threat. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether her state could cut Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood. That decision will not come until this summer. 

The fear has only intensified since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established federal protections for abortion. By giving states the right to restrict or ban abortions altogether, the ruling created a new legal landscape that abortion rights advocates say creates a particular set of hurdles for Black women who already face significant barriers to care.

Keep reading to learn more.

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