Babies Not Having Babies

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I'm Jane Marie and this is the dream.

Big trigger warning today.

I'm not usually a fan of those, but, and this is going to sound like one of those I didn't care until it happened to me kind of things.

But I was so upset by today's interview that the minute it was over, I ran to my car and sobbed.

Yes, we all know I'm a crier, but this was different.

So anyway, you're warned, you might be upset after this.

This past year, I was working on a podcast called Outlawed, which aimed to inform people about abortion so they could have better discussions about it.

And one thing that came up a lot is the criminalization of pregnancy, essentially.

Like a fear that abortion could lead to jail for the pregnant person or doctors.

fear that miscarriage could be mistaken for abortion, and if abortion's illegal, that person could face charges, etc.

A lot of these fears are hypothetical, but there have been some cases already where this sort of thing is happening.

And this is one of them.

My name is Charlotte Eisenberg.

I am from Western North Carolina.

Right now, I'm a university student at Appalachian State, and I'm a political journalist.

I write for Plug CLT, which is a Charlotte news source, and I do journalism, especially regarding reproductive rights issues in the area.

And also, I do some online advocacy and organizing.

And I'm the vice president of College Dems at our school.

Cool.

Wow, you're doing a lot of stuff.

Yeah.

What are you studying?

I am studying technical writing.

and rhetoric with a minor in political science.

Can we start with where you grew up?

Yeah, so I was born in Lincoln, North Carolina, which is a small town in Western North Carolina.

It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

I grew up in Gastonia, which is right beside it.

It's one of the most polluted cities in North Carolina.

It's a leftover mill town and it's very, very poor.

I grew up in government housing in Gastonia and

My whole life,

my childhood especially, I felt very much that I was raised more by my community and a series of babysitters and friends and friends' parents than I ever really was just by my mother, who was a single mom when I was a kid.

I have four siblings.

A single mom to five kids.

Yeah, I'm the second youngest.

My mom has five children.

I grew up around so many people that were like loosely connected to each other, which I always kind of liked when I was a kid.

Was that because she was working?

My mom was working a lot, but also she, I think, did a lot of trying to find herself when we were kids because she was in her 20s when I was a child.

My mom had her first child when she was 15.

So I recognized that she probably also wanted to live some of her own life outside of her five children, which I can't even imagine having three kids at my age like she did.

So sure.

So tell me about, you know, your teen years.

What were those like?

Yeah.

So when I was 11, I started being sexually abused by someone who was close to me.

And I was raped repeatedly for four years throughout middle school and into my freshman year of high school.

And when I was 15,

in the fall of my freshman year of high school, I became pregnant from that sexual assault and I ended up miscarrying that pregnancy at about nine or ten weeks in my school bathroom.

My school was really tiny.

I ended up managing to go to an early college.

It was a very small magnet program.

So, I went to the basement of my school during

exams, during my math exam,

and Nobody was down there for hours at a time at our school.

And I had a miscarriage, and I didn't know what was happening to me.

I thought that I might die at any second, and it was kind of a wake-up call that I really needed to escape my abuse before it actually killed me.

I'm really sorry that any of this happened to you.

I just want you to know.

Do you remember that day what you were thinking was happening?

Did you know you were pregnant then?

I thought that I was pregnant, but I wasn't sure.

Like I had regular periods at that point and I had missed it and I felt very sick, but my mom told me that it was just anxiety because obviously at that point I was having pretty regular like anxiety attacks.

And

I just remember feeling very scared.

And then when I started miscarrying, I started bleeding during my exam.

And I got up and I thought, well, you know, I've heard before that sometimes when you're pregnant, you bleed a little bit, but it just kept going and going.

And I realized that I was probably having a miscarriage.

So I just sat on the toilet and just like looked at my hands.

They were covered in blood at that point.

And

I saw like tissue come out.

And I really struggled with trying to figure out whether or not I should call anybody, but I decided not to because I was like,

these people are going to have a lot of questions that I'm not ready to answer right now.

So I

just sat in there for probably an hour.

And then I got up.

And I was still bleeding all over myself.

And I went up to the front desk.

And the nurse was like, oh, you got, you know, your period.

You need to go home, honey, and get like a change of clothes.

And my mom came and picked me up and took me home.

Did you tell your mom what was happening?

No, because I

was so scared that she would be mad at me

and I didn't know how to answer how I'd gotten pregnant and I was so scared of what she would say because you know she'd got pregnant when she was 15 too and she made it pretty clear that I should avoid being a teen mom.

Charlotte and her family did try to bring a legal case against this person, but for all kinds of unfair reasons, nothing came came of it.

Though he is a known quantity in their community,

but I think I would just be putting myself through hell and reliving something just for them to give him six months' probation, and I don't think that's worth it.

Right, right.

I think that that math you just did is like exactly what most women who have been assaulted do in their heads, you know.

Yeah, like, how much more am I going to suffer because of this person?

I started posting online pretty much immediately after I had my miscarriage and then the police report about what had happened to me.

Cause I think like a lot of teen girls, especially who grew up with the internet, I was using Twitter kind of like a diary.

I had like 100 followers, you know, at that point, a couple hundred.

And I was just like talking into the void.

And there were people who were like, you know,

what happened to you was horrible and your story matters and we care about you.

And nobody in my my life, no adult in my life at that point was telling me those things.

And I just wanted to say anything that would bring me more of that because I was beating myself up so much every day about

letting that happen to me, you know, which is obviously not true, but it's how it felt.

Yeah.

And

I was just desperate really for any semblance of comfort.

I felt like a little kid all the time, just like begging to be believed and heard.

Mm-hmm.

And so you found that online through Twitter.

Yes.

Did you know when these people were commenting on your posts online, like who they were?

Or did you just feel like you were reaching some, like

some new friends?

I didn't have a grasp on the fact these people were religious and political extremists.

I didn't really understand they were like internet strangers.

And especially because at that point, you know, like I said, I grew up with the internet.

So the idea of talking to people on the internet who I didn't know wasn't really scary to me.

It was just a way that people talked to each other sometimes.

So

I didn't really understand what I was like getting myself into.

I hear you.

Yeah.

But they were offering you some comfort, right?

At the beginning.

They were.

And I think that like in retrospect, that's, you know, obviously how cults pull people in.

They tell them that they're broken, but, you know, we have something that can make you feel better, something that can fix you.

And for me, at that point, that thing was Jesus.

And Jesus, according to these people, was anti-abortion.

And so they were like, well, we need you to use your story and your grief.

And particularly, I think a lot of these people projected onto me a lot of grief about my miscarriage that was not organically there.

Like grief about my miscarriage itself, absolutely.

But grief about not being allowed to be a mother at that point.

I think that they read a lot into that and kind of told me how to feel.

And then I decided that that's how I felt about it because that's what got a good reaction out of them.

I gotcha.

Okay, so I was raped for four years of my life violently, more times than I can count.

And I did get pregnant when I was 15.

I did end up losing her, but I wanted her very badly.

I named her Rahail, which is Rachel in English.

And I think it's very important to hear.

So I was upset about bleeding out in my high school bathroom and feeling like I was about to die.

I wasn't upset about not having a child by my rapist.

Like when I think back to how I actually felt in that moment, that was not at all how I felt.

But I was like, well, this is what these people got from this story.

So yeah, like, okay, I'll talk about how upset that made me.

And

somehow over the span of a couple years, that kept.

happening over and over where I would talk about it and it would get a good reaction from those people.

And then I woke up one day and I was an an anti-abortion influencer.

So for a few years there in her middle teens, Charlotte was recruited to appear in YouTube videos and social media campaigns as a sort of anti-abortion poster child, despite never having had one.

And you're like 16 at this point, yeah?

Yes.

My God.

Do you remember what your, like any of your talking points from that time?

When you were making videos or just talking to people in that community?

Like what was the story you were telling?

Basically, I told the story of my rape, of my abuse, and then of my miscarriage and, you know, about how badly I felt after having my miscarriage and then attributing those feelings to me not

having a child and grieving that loss.

And I think that was a really, that was kind of the.

the angle that a lot of people pushed me into like that oh well you're already a mother and we recognize you as a mother and it was a really big thing for people to like wish me happy mother's day every spring yeah like so many people would do it and that was kind of how they portray me like i'm this 16 year old girl who's never given birth and all of a sudden i'm the quintessential mother figure in this movement it was the definition of absurd yeah and then sometimes in interviews i was told to comment on that or to give that specific narrative and so i would because i was a 16 year old girl and the people who were talking to me about these things who were interviewing me about these things were all very much adults and so i was like like, Well, yeah, you know, the best thing you can do after you get pregnant from rape is to give birth because

then you're not like continuing this cycle of violence.

And that phrase is something that was handed to me.

And I think that

I did not believe that

those two actions were at all equitable.

I did not believe that rape and abortion were at all equitable.

And I would pretty frequently argue with other anti-abortion people about saying that, but

I couldn't get around having interviews and talking about what happened to me without like certain things being expected of me, like certain narratives being expected of me.

But you're still kind of like a mouthpiece for the movement.

Yeah, at that point, I stopped working with like the quote-unquote establishment anti-abortion movement.

And I'd made like a false distinction between that and this group that I was then working with, which is called Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.

they

claim to be this leftist anti-abortion organization.

They talk about being against the death penalty and being against euthanasia and wanting to establish systems so that people don't have to, quote unquote, choose abortion.

So they're also making a weird false equivalency between euthanasia and the death penalty.

Yeah, like they group all these things under life ethic issues.

So it makes it really hard to attack their stance on any individual one because they've grouped them all together.

Like war, euthanasia, the death penalty, or abortion, because they're like all these things threaten human life.

And clearly, some of these things are not like the others.

When you get an abortion as a reaction to rape, you are continuing the cycle of violence.

So you were raped, that was a violent experience that happened to you.

That wasn't your fault.

You're hurt.

You've been victimized.

Why is it fair to further victimize someone else?

Because you are hurt.

So that's the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising

organization.

And they're still in existence, yes.

Yes, they're still in existence.

From what I understand, they're actually hurting pretty bad internally because people have heard what I've been talking about, what I've been saying about them.

But publicly, they're very much still going.

So in the last year at my high school, I left Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising quietly.

I didn't say anything about it publicly, but I had gone to Washington, D.C.

to stay at their like activist apartment that like all of their activists live at, the ones that work for them, as opposed to like their volunteers who don't get paid, which is what I was considered.

These are like their paid lobbyists?

They call them like paid activists, but people who do like protests and stuff,

like Lauren Handy, theresa bakovinak like they all live in the same area so they can all do like protests pretty regularly okay and they're getting bankrolled by donors

yes so all these people theresa bakovanak um has like the board for progressive anti-abortion uprising and then they get directly paid by like really wealthy conservative anti-abortion donors wow

Yeah, which I didn't again, I didn't know that at the time.

Like, that's who was bankrolling this because I thought it was like grassroots funded because that's what they told us.

But it's like some creepy oligarchs.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

It's all old conservative white people.

Yeah.

So, okay.

So you didn't, you left quietly.

Yeah.

Um, because that spring I went to DC for their week of action, which was supposed to be a week where we did like non-stop protests in DC.

So I

flew up there.

It's like a 30-minute flight from where I live to DC.

And so I could do it relatively regularly with like donor money.

So I went up there and I stayed at their apartment and they had this new girl come in who was like asking really inappropriate questions about my abuse and about my pregnancy.

And then like she announced her own pregnancy.

And we were all like, oh, that's really cool.

You know, like nice.

And then she started hitting on this guy that worked with our organization who was like 20 years older than her and like, do what you're going to do, mama.

Like, okay.

But she was also married.

Yeah.

She was married and she was like 18 and just told us she was barely pregnant with her husband's baby.

And we were like, okay.

And then she

was like joking about it and she called me a whore.

And I was like, oh, oh,

don't say that.

I was so enraged, but I was trying really hard not to turn it into a bigger situation than it was.

I've been caught a lot of names in my life.

So I just like quietly brought it to leadership.

And you're not supposed to talk to other people in the group about your issues.

You're supposed to go directly to Teresa, the leader, and talk to her about it.

So there can't be any, you know, opinion forming about how the organization is being run.

I was like, hey, I'm having this disagreement.

And I also had issues with how things were being done, like with protests and stuff.

I had issues with how my Judaism was being used, like how I was being propped up as kind of like the token Jew.

I am 18 years old.

I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I am anti-abortion.

One misconception that I deal with pretty frequently is that we're all Christian white old men.

And as a, you know, Jewish woman, younger, I really want more voices like mine to be seen in the anti-abortion movement because I think we have new perspectives.

So I brought up all these issues and they were like, oh, okay.

And then

they got back to me later and were like, hey,

you're alienating this girl who just joined and

we

are going to kick you out if you don't basically have a struggle session with us and like get on a call and let us berate you.

A struggle session.

What's that?

Another cult thing?

I mean, it's the term that me and the other people who have left this group kind of assigned to these meetings, but basically in reference to what Mao's government did in communist China, where you would have like a meeting with people,

your superiors, when you'd done something wrong, and they would like berate you for it publicly with like,

you know, your higher ups so that you would like go back into submission.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I was like, fuck you.

I didn't do anything wrong.

So after that spring and all that had happened, I

left.

I was completely separated from that group.

And again, like I didn't do it publicly because I thought that it was dangerous for me to voice the opinions that I was starting to have publicly because of like the platform that I had and just how many people knew me.

But at that point, I was like, I can't work with any of these organizations anymore.

Dangerous, like someone was going to be like confront you about it or dangerous how?

I

had a lot of harassment, a lot of hate, and a lot of scary messages that I got.

I was like 16 or 17 when I left formally.

Um, and I had a lot of people harassing me and threatening to dox me.

And then finally, someone did dox me and

like threatened my family for being Jewish.

Like, it was all centered around my Judaism.

They're basically like their point was that I was subversive to Catholicism, I was always going to leave, and that I would keep moving further left because it was in my nature as a Jewish person to subvert the church.

Yeah.

So they were all like saying the most horrific anti-Semitic things against me.

And I was like, Look, if I come out as

getting myself away from the entire anti-abortion movement, these people are going to come back with that twice as hard.

And I don't know how I'm going to deal with that.

And obviously, considering the events that would happen almost a year later, I was completely correct in that assumption.

Yeah.

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Well, tell us what happened.

So basically,

when I got together with my now boyfriend,

it was almost exactly a year ago that I started working at this brewery with him in my hometown.

I was going to community college online and applying to universities, getting ready to transfer my credits so I could be the first person in my family to go to university.

I was very excited.

So I was basically just getting all my ducks in a row for like a year.

And

as I was working at this brewery, I was really struggling with feeling like I had taken a massive step back in life.

I'd had this whole life planned for myself.

And then I just kind of threw it out the

and feeling like I've massively screwed up.

So I started drinking a lot and it became more and more of a problem until finally that spring when I was 20, I realized that I had a serious problem.

I was drinking all the time and I was massively depressed and I was so anxious.

I was having constant panic attacks.

Which is what drinking will do.

Yeah, drinking turns out is your body doesn't like it when you poison it.

So I was was basically just laying in my room when I wasn't at work, just drinking and listening to sad music and crying.

And my boyfriend was like, this is not good.

And he ended up leaving that brewery to go work at a rehab facility for teenage boys.

And it was owned by a company that also ran a rehab facility for young women a couple hours away.

And he was like, hey, I've heard about this place that my company owns.

I really like the facility that I work at.

I think you should go to this place.

And I think it might be hard for you.

He was honestly an angel.

Like in retrospect, I do not know how he was able to like, dealing with his own issues at the same time, like, you know, go with me through this.

So I went to rehab for a month and I was able to completely unpack my abuse when I was a teenager and especially all the things that had happened to me in.

uh the anti-abortion movement and my therapist was able to articulate to me for the first time like that i had been exploited and abused by those adults.

And that that's why I was so angry.

It wasn't just because all these like interpersonal falling outs that I'd have with these people, but I was so angry because they'd abused me and I could sense that.

And I was like, holy shit.

So I started describing myself in rehab as pro-choice and talking to the girls around me.

And I made many lifelong friends.

And I'm very grateful for rehab.

And then I left, and I felt a lot better after that.

So do you move back home or with your boyfriend?

Yeah.

At that point, it was the end of May when I was released from rehab.

So I came back home and I went to stay at my boyfriend's house for a little bit.

I had about two and a half months until I was supposed to move to the university that I'd been accepted to.

And I was really, really excited because I was worried that rehab was going to complicate me going to university, but everything was working out right on time.

Great.

So I went to stay with my boyfriend, you know, just have a little summer vacation.

And we had sex.

And at the time, I didn't realize that the birth control I was taking and any birth control pill can be rendered ineffective by antibiotics.

I was taking antibiotics in rehab.

I got like a UTI or something, I think.

And nobody told me that it would make my birth control ineffective because A, I was taking it for endometriosis.

It wasn't just supposed to be a contraceptive, but B, I was in rehab.

So I wasn't having sex with anyone.

And I don't think they thought that was like an important thing to note to me again.

Oh, yeah, it's an all-women's rehab.

Yeah.

So if they did think about that, they were like, oh, well, she's here in this all-women's rehab.

So I left like right after that.

And

the antibiotics probably hadn't even made it out of my system.

And I had sex immediately after.

And then I got pregnant.

And

I

remember I was sitting with my boyfriend one night, like a week after I'd left rehab, like the last week of May.

And

he was sitting on the floor and he was holding me in his lap.

And I was looking at the wall and I started crying.

And

he asked me what was wrong.

And I told him I couldn't say it because I was too scared.

And he couldn't look at me either because I think he was just as scared as I was.

And he was like, you think you're pregnant?

And I was like, yeah.

So he was like, well, don't worry about it.

We're just going to figure it out.

We're gonna find out whether or not you are and then we'll take it from there.

Yeah.

And he was really,

really calm for someone that I'm sure was absolutely terrified.

Yeah.

So I scheduled a gynecologist appointment and I got a blood test and I was very much in early pregnancy.

It felt like absolute hell.

I was sick very badly

all the time.

My legs.

And also you're reliving a trauma.

So yeah.

Yeah.

So we were really struggling to figure out what to do.

And I

ended up calling after my second gynecologist visit when I, you know, cried to her and I was like, I love my boyfriend.

I want to be a mom so bad, but I don't think I can be pregnant right now.

And I'm

considering the other option.

And she was like, okay, well, this is the closest facility.

And I called them

and my boyfriend overheard the phone conversation.

I was initially like, I'm just going to deal with this on my own because it's going to be so hard.

And I don't want to subject him to it.

But he overheard it and was like,

why won't you just tell me what's going through your head and what you're thinking of?

And I just need you to do this together with me.

I can relate to this so hard, just like not allowing people to take care of me because I wasn't conditioned as a kid to expect that.

Yeah.

Like I said, it's weird.

Nobody had ever taken care of me.

Yeah, it feels weird when they're doing it.

You're like, no, no, no, I'll do this myself.

Like when I eventually got pregnant on purpose to have my daughter, I did most of it myself.

Like I did the pregnancy test alone, you know, like all of that stuff.

Cause I was like, I don't really want someone that close.

Exactly.

But he swooped in and said, no, I'm going to take care of you.

Yeah.

He was like, I'm going to take care of you.

And also,

I

need you to be honest with me through this whole thing.

You don't have to have an abortion.

And I really want you to understand that I'm not ever going to pressure you into having an abortion.

Like if you want to have a baby with me right now, I'll find a way to make it happen.

And

I

was so scared, but I trusted him so much and I knew that he trusted me.

So I made this appointment to have a consultation.

And I was like, look, I'm going to go in there.

I have to have an ultrasound and then I have to wait three days.

So I have like built-in time to talk this over with you.

Because that's the law at that point, right?

They changed the law that.

that year, correct?

Yeah.

So in North Carolina, we have a 12-week abortion ban.

and also you have to have an ultrasound and you have to be given the opportunity to see and hear the ultrasound and they have to ask you a bunch of questions about like if you want to know if it's twins and stuff which i found out about that the hard way it was really weird um

wait that it was twins or that you had to have that done that they have to ask you know

did it did it remind you at all of like the anti-abortion people did you hear the talking points coming through the the checklist they have to go through?

Absolutely.

And it, I already had kind of intellectually worked through how absurd those things were, like in my almost a year of time that I had between myself and that movement.

But it gave me an experience of just how bizarre their talking points are in action because I had.

already completely made up my mind to have an abortion for reasons that were totally separate from whether or not there were two fetuses as opposed to one.

So like, you're just inconveniencing me and everyone else for no fucking reason.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's lawmakers wanting to control you,

not doctors doing their jobs, right?

They're being forced to do the work of those same people that are giving money to the anti-abortion organizations.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you go through that whole process and you're

hours away from home and you have to stay for three days, correct?

My appointment was only 45 minutes from where I live.

I was really, really lucky because I live just a little ways outside of Charlotte.

I

was very worried that I would end up going over the 12-week limit and having to go to Virginia.

And that would have been a reality for me then at that point.

Yeah.

As I was waiting for my appointment, I started thinking about having a plan in case I end up not wanting to have an abortion.

Because at this point, my boyfriend and I were still trying to talk through a lot of things.

Plus they're getting in your head.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like years of programming is going to, you know, try and scrape away at any sort of, you know, autonomous decision that you want to make like that.

So I had this voice in the back of my head that was like, oh, are you sure?

Because what if it's really as bad as they say it was?

And what if, you know, you try to have an abortion and you die or you become infertile or all these other things that, you know, are pretty bullshit, but it just been like hammered into me at that point.

So I was like, okay, like I should have a plan in case for whatever reason I end up not wanting to do this.

And so I reached out to Kristen Turner, who worked with me at Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.

I hadn't talked to her in over a year, but she was the person I was closest with.

She was also the person who's probably closest to my age.

She's just like two or three years older than me.

And

I was like, this is the only person that I can think who would keep this on the DL, but who can also get me into contact with anti-abortion resources that might not even be available to the average person.

Because, I mean, I was very aware of the fact that these people did not want me to have an abortion, not just because of their ideology, but also because it would look really fucking bad for them if I had an abortion and that came out somehow.

Yeah.

So I reached out to her and I was like, hey, I have an abortion appointment scheduled.

I'm only telling you that because I know that.

a lot of these organizations won't help you unless you have an abortion appointment, which not a lot of people know.

Okay.

But you can't just be a pregnant person and contact a lot of these organizations and get help.

Like you actually have to have scheduled an abortion appointment so they can be saving a baby quote unquote from an abortion.

It's really absurd and gross.

And then what's the help?

I wasn't actually entirely sure.

I'd heard a lot of different things from a lot of different people.

And Kristen reached out and she was like,

yeah, absolutely.

I'll connect you with Let Them Live, which is...

I'm almost certain the largest anti-abortion charity organization.

And I use that term very loosely, but it's the only thing I can think to describe them.

They

claim to do things like pay people's rent, buy them child care services, help them facilitate adoptions, like more tangible things than I think a lot of standalone crisis pregnancy centers because Let Them Live is better funded.

Sure.

I mean, it's like Catholic charities, right?

Exactly.

Okay, so they get, she gets you in touch with these people or just she gets in touch with them herself.

They went straight to the leader of this organization and were like, hey, this is Charlotte Ayala Eisenberg.

Like you need to make sure she doesn't have a fucking abortion.

Sure.

But also she could also be reborn as our poster girl again.

Exactly.

That part wasn't even a covert thing.

That was explicitly said to me as a reason I shouldn't have an abortion is because they could make me a poster child if I didn't have one.

And she was like, hey, we want you to go to this crisis pregnancy center near you so that you can have an ultrasound.

So I was like, so I'm having an ultrasound at Planned Parenthood during my appointment and nothing else is happening.

They're just giving me an ultrasound and talking to me about my options.

So can I just send you the ultrasound that I get at Planned Parenthood?

And she was like, no.

And I was like, well, I'm already paying like $200 something dollars, like the last of my savings account to have this abortion.

Can you just use this one?

And she was like, oh, well, this one's completely free.

And then I was like, is this place even a medical facility?

So I looked up and they're not.

They're not a medical facility.

Like I asked, I called them.

Wait, wait, wait.

That's another thing I don't think everybody knows about.

The crisis pregnancy centers are basically centers that oftentimes will pose as possibly abortion providers.

They use very misleading language on their websites and on their signage to imply that they might provide reproductive care.

But in actuality, they are usually not medical facilities.

They usually do not have actual practitioners where they claim to give things like ultrasounds.

They'll have like a nurse practitioner come in sometimes, but I've heard that they dress up right like a lot of times it's just a lay person who dresses in a lab coat exactly they'll have people who are or scrubs essentially yeah they're like you know lifelong church workers they're like secretaries but they'll wear scrubs and they'll perform ultrasounds and pretend to be nurses and as long as they never tell people that they are a nurse like no one ever asks everyone just assumes so they will give you like an ultrasound and then they'll lie to you about abortion they'll tell you that it'll make you infertile that's something that i was told over and over again and then they'll like say you know instead of having an abortion we can give you baby diapers and formula for a year and you're like oh well thanks that totally fixes that fixes yeah like now i'm not worried about now i wasn't raped now i wasn't raped yeah like everything's good

oh my god

And I was like, I'm not having some street preacher look at my insides and lie to me about what's on the screen because they don't even know.

They're not an ultrasound technician

and be like oh you're 50 weeks pregnant with three babies like man

um and they start like you know beating on the table and they're like that's the heartbeat that's the heartbeat um

i was like i'm not putting myself through that so i told her like hey i don't want to go to this she's like we already scheduled an appointment for you on wednesday can you go to it and i was like I don't, we'll see.

And then Wednesday morning, Kristen Turner texts me and tries to bribe me with a DoorDash of breakfast so that I would go.

At this point, I was really struggling to afford a lot of stuff because I, like I said, I didn't have a job.

I was using the last of my money to go towards.

And she's like, do you want a bagel?

Yeah.

She was like, I can literally send you McDonald's.

And at that point, like genuinely, for someone who's in the kind of financial situation that I was in, I was like, that's really tempting.

And she's like, I'll get you an Uber.

You just got to get in the Uber and you can have your breakfast on the way and they'll talk to you.

And this is the only time that I was ever offered a meal is when they were trying to use it to get me to go to this crisis pregnancy center appointment they made for me.

So did you go?

I did not go.

At that point, I was so enraged that they were trying to obviously bait me with food that I needed to get.

Right.

So I was like, fuck you.

I'm going to go find some instant oatmeal in the back of my cabinet.

Like I'm, I'm not going to be manipulated.

What were you hoping Kristen was going to say?

Like, what was the dream scenario and how reasonable was it?

You know?

I was really hoping she'd be like, because she had had her own issues that she'd vocalized with me about progressive anti-abortion uprising.

And unbeknownst to me, actually, at this point, she had more or less separated herself from progressive anti-abortion uprising because of the fucked up way that they operate.

Um, and like had moved out of their house into like a Catholic worker's house.

Um,

so I was like, maybe she'll just be like, you know, here's this charity that can connect you with resources.

Here's some stuff in your area.

Like I already reached out to them for you.

And then kind of more or less leaving me alone.

I didn't expect her to completely be like, okay, bye, because that was very unrealistic.

But I expected her to just give me actual resources and to also

be understanding about it.

Cause like I said, we're about the same age.

And you thought you were calling a like-minded person, mostly like-minded, and that you had this one difference, but that you could count on her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In no way did I think that she would even consider doing what she actually ended up doing.

So what happened?

So as I stopped being responsive after the whole thing with the Crisis Pregnancy Center, because that scared me, I had Teresa Bukovanak, who again is like, she runs Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.

She's like the founder and director of it.

She's also a very grown woman in her late 30s.

She was calling me and she was like, hey, we're all going to be in DC for Dobbs Day, which is the day that Roe v.

Wade was overturned.

And the anti-abortion movement kind of uses it like a Met Gala.

It's so disgusting.

They get dressed up.

Yeah, they have parties.

They have like a ball.

Okay.

So she was like, we're all going to be in D.C.

and you can just fly up here and you don't even have to tell your boyfriend or your family where you're going.

And we'll pay for your plane ticket and we'll pay for your meals.

And you can just come in here for a few weeks and, you know, you'll stay at our house and we'll go to the lake and i was like this is starting to sound like

those like you'd used to hear about those places where families would send pregnant girls um a couple decades ago like in ireland and even in the united states we had one in my hometown pregnant women were just

yeah where they're just kind of kept like cattle while they're pregnant to stop them from doing anything else right so i was like this is actually terrifying especially on how they were pushing really hard to get me away from my family and the place that i'm from and telling me not to tell anyone where I was going.

So I was like,

and I stopped responding to them.

Like I would still answer the text messages, but I was just like, okay, yeah, okay.

Kristen, I actually ghosted like several times.

Like you can see in our text history, there's stuff that I just didn't answer.

Like she asked to talk to my boyfriend on the phone and I was like,

I'm not responding to you.

My boyfriend was like increasingly uncomfortable, obviously, with the situation.

I told him what these women were saying and trying to get me to leave.

And he was like, I don't think that these people are going to help you.

And at this point, I was like, yeah, like, I just hope that they'll sort of leave me alone if I ignore them.

And you don't have time to think about this.

Like, you don't have time to process any of this.

You're on a deadline.

Yeah.

Like, not at all.

I had like two or three weeks from the time that I made the appointment until going to it.

And they were, I mean, in North Carolina, we have all of these like pregnant people coming from all these states around us, as well as the burden of, you know, there's only so many clinics in our state to handle the people from here so there's no space for me to reschedule this appointment or anything it's really like do or die

so i'm getting all this information at once and then there's very much the emphasis like this has to happen now you have to decide right now and it was overwhelming so i just sort of like checked out.

Do you think that's part of the plan?

This has never occurred to me before.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I think that all the regulations, I think that all the hoops you have to jump through, and I think that even when they do what they call sidewalk counseling, just standing outside, it's all meant to put you in this pressure cooker where you feel like you have to make a very, very, very serious choice right now.

And it costs so much money and it's so scary because they've, you know, hyped it up to be this terrifying thing.

And they're hoping that you just stay home.

And that's a much easier ask than going through with it.

Right.

So what did you decide to do?

I was like, I made this appointment.

I think that logically this is the best thing to do for not only me and my boyfriend and my family, but also for what would end up being like this future person.

Like they would be really disadvantaged to be brought into a situation like this.

So we went to my appointment and me and my boyfriend were both like, I don't have to make a choice right now today.

And on the morning of my appointment, I woke up at like 6.30 and I couldn't go back to sleep.

And my boyfriend was already awake.

He had the same issue.

And I was like, I'm so scared that they told someone and somebody's going to be at that clinic waiting for me.

And he was like, let's not worry about that.

They have people there, you know, to take care of you.

They have security guards.

Like, I'm not going to let anything happen to you.

And so I was like, okay, I'm just going to go and we'll see what ends up happening.

We leave like two hours before we need to because we're both just so fucking ramped up.

And as we start this like 45 minute drive, I'm getting texts from

random anti-abortion leaders that had met me maybe once ever and who were so high profile, importantly texting and calling me on like their main Instagram accounts and from their phone numbers to be like, hey, you don't have to go through this.

And I was like, what the fuck?

Because I didn't tell any of these people about my abortion.

But Kristen knew which day it would be if you were going to do it.

Or someone knew.

Yeah.

Yeah.

she was asking around that sort of thing and it never occurred to me that she would do anything to like actually so she was gathering intel yeah she didn't remember what city i was from she actually told me that she wanted to send me a care package and asked for my address and i gave her my address and that's how she figured out what abortion clinic i was going to because there's only one planned parenthood anywhere around my city yeah oh my god um oh my god so she was like we have to know

um like what day it is for this that and the other so it got out there by that avenue it sounds like yeah and you're getting all these calls in the car which is creepy yeah I got like a text from Jessica Newell who's a national anti-abortion activist and she was like you don't have to go through with this queen like you're so strong and I was like oh my fucking God did Kristen Turner seriously tell you and she was like she just wanted me to know because I'm in the area and maybe I can help and like there's no need to be embarrassed and I was like I'm not fucking embarrassed like she's just making my life way harder than it needs to be right now.

And this is none of your business.

Yep.

And this is like none of your fucking business.

Like, girl, oh my God, I'm not embarrassed.

You're just literally, your nose is in my ass right now.

You need to leave.

Randall Terry also was calling me.

And for those unfamiliar, Randall Terry is this ancient, decrepit old man who

He basically founded the modern anti-abortion movement, which a lot of anti-abortion organizations don't like to acknowledge acknowledge because he's such a horrible person and it's like universally understood.

He founded like the rescue movement, which is where people invade clinics, like they go in in groups and harass the patients about their abortions and then also like physically handcuffing themselves to doors and assaulting nurses.

Like it got very physically violent.

And it was such a massive national issue that the Clinton administration passed the FACE Act to make it a federal crime to perform a quote-unquote rescue at an abortion provider.

But those are the people that abortion providers are scared of, you know, with good reason.

Yeah.

Yes, because they have killed abortion providers.

Right, exactly.

And Randall Terry is notorious for not only being like a Christian far-right extremist, but also for having basically endorsed the murder of an abortion provider.

Today, outside the church where Dr.

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But he defiantly held his ground.

What I am doing is legal, what I'm doing is moral, what I'm doing is ethical, and you're not going to run me out of town.

Anti-abortion group Operation Rescue is condemning the killing, but its founder says Tiller reaped what he sowed.

George Tiller was a mass murderer.

He killed tens of thousands of innocent human beings at his own hand, and horrifically he reaped what he sowed.

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Roe versus Wade will be on the ash heap of history, and men like George Tiller will be remembered as one of the villains of history.

Yes, he's just a bad person.

He's exactly the guy you want to get a call from on the way to your abortion.

Oh, yeah.

Like, I could think of no one better.

So I get a call from him.

And I'm like, I'll answer the phone.

So I pick it up.

And as soon as I do, Randall's like, don't go through with it, sweetie.

I'll adopt your baby sweetheart, honey.

It's, it's going to be okay.

And I was like, Randall, I'm going to have an abortion.

Like, you guys need to fucking stop.

And he was like, well, do you want to be a murderer?

Cause it sounds like you want to be a murderer.

And I was like, fuck you.

Good.

So it was all these people blowing my phone up.

I just sort of turned my phone off.

And me and my boyfriend on the drive were holding hands and listening to magnetic fields and talking about how, you know, we're going to get through this together.

And he was like, I'm, I'm going to keep you safe.

I'm going to love you through this.

Like, it's going to be okay.

And I will never forget how gentle he was able to be with me, even while he was very physically, obviously enraged that I was being treated like that.

Yeah.

And so we got to the clinic.

And as we were pulling in, I felt really safe because the Planned Parenthood near me is this huge building.

It's got these huge fences with blackout curtains over them.

And there's cameras everywhere.

I was like, oh, I feel really, really safe right now.

Like, these people aren't going to let anything happen to me.

And as soon as that thought processes, I looked to my side and I saw Kristen Turner standing in the driveway looking back at our car that had just pulled in.

Oh my god.

And I almost threw up.

Like, I screamed.

And my boyfriend freaked out and was like, What?

Did I almost hit someone?

Like, what's going on?

And I was like, I think I just saw Kristen Turner.

And I might be hallucinating because I'm just scared out of my mind, but I'm almost certain.

And so

we were talking through, like, okay, what do we do right now?

He's like, we can just go home.

And I was like, no, if we go home right now, we might not be able to reschedule until after 12 weeks, you know, because we've already waited two or three weeks.

Then you're talking about going to a different state.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We knew it was now or never because I had just enough money to pay for exactly what I needed at this clinic.

And importantly, I didn't have enough money for an in-clinic procedure, let alone to pay for gas to travel to Virginia and all that stuff.

Right.

So you had to do do a medical, a medication abortion?

Yeah, that's what I was looking at.

Okay.

And because I knew also the price with that can fluctuate a lot more than with an in-clinic procedure, which is going to be over like 500 bucks.

Right.

Right.

And also, of course, my insurance doesn't fucking cover an abortion.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

So I go in and I get signed in.

And I fork over like $230 for this ultrasound and stuff, which is physically painful.

Can we clarify?

I don't think people understand how an ultrasound can be painful, but they a lot of times do an internal ultrasound.

Yeah.

And if you have endometriosis and you're pregnant, that is

no bueno.

That sure hurts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we sit down.

Me and my boyfriend are sitting there talking about what to do.

And then Kristen Turner starts texting me.

And she's like, hey, am I at the right clinic, LOL?

Like, I think I saw you, but I'm not sure.

And I was like, what the fuck is wrong?

And you're like, I didn't invite you here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So actually, I can read these text messages in real time.

So she texted me.

And I was just so in shock and I didn't even know what to say to her.

So she was like,

did you see me?

And I was like, you looked right at us.

And she was like,

just come give me a hug, man.

I miss you.

I honestly couldn't see the fence blocks faces.

It's almost like that's what it's designed to do.

And I said, I'm just going to get my ultrasound done.

I'm not even here for an abortion procedure today.

And importantly, like nobody at that facility was there to have an abortion that day because they don't have an abortion provider at that facility on the day that I went.

And they told me that.

So, and I could also overhear at the counter what people were there for.

And it was all like birth control, implant insertions, and pills.

And, you know, like nobody was there for anything even remotely close to an abortion procedure.

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So what happened afterwards was just so incredibly melodramatic.

I was like, I'm going to get my ultrasound done.

I'll be out in a bit.

And then she said, can I come with you?

I said, I don't think that's a good idea.

And she said, Teresa wanted me to tell you she's sorry about Randall.

I didn't tell him and I didn't know he called you at all.

I'm sure.

Then she said, Charlotte, I'm going to come in there if you don't come out.

I can't stand by and let you get hurt.

We have a sonographer waiting for you at the pregnancy center.

If you want to get an ultrasound and hear your options, just come say hi.

We spent all day yesterday driving here and my heart is breaking for you.

I just want to see you.

I'm not doing this to be a dick.

I'm doing this because you're family and I don't care what it takes.

I need to make sure you're safe.

Oh my God.

Yikes.

Very stalker behavior.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm thinking like, this person has not talked to me in over a year.

And I just responded, I'm definitely safe and I'm getting an ultrasound.

I will be out in a bit.

And then I turn to my boyfriend and I'm like,

man,

what if she comes in here?

I'm freaking out.

And, you know, he's holding my hand and he's like, she can't get in here.

They have a buzzer system.

They have like this huge prison door that they have like 20 locks on.

Like she can't just walk in.

And then I turn and she's walking in.

She told me later that she had.

gone up to the counter and said that she was there to support a friend and told them my name.

And I guess that they were like, oh, she can't be a protester because she knows the first and last name of the person she's looking for.

Oh my God.

And like, granted, that's really dumb.

But the people that they're used to being protesters there, I know are like Love Life people.

They're people who are just standing outside with pamphlets and trying in vain to hand them to people in the cars going in.

Like they don't know anybody's first or last name.

So I guess they were like,

you know, okay, if she knows

that she's like, yeah.

Yeah.

Plus also she was intentionally dressed like really alternatively.

So they were like, oh, she doesn't look like an anti-abortion protester.

Oh, because she's progressive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, I can totally see why they let her in.

I am a little upset that they did because at the end of the day, that's not best practice.

But like, I'm not mad at anyone.

Well, also, it's a federal crime.

And then part of me was like, maybe this is like, God is punishing me for being an anti-abortion activist.

And this is like my atonement.

And I was very much thinking of that at that moment.

And like, I don't think that that's true, but it did give me a lot of perspective that I will not soon forget.

She sits across from us and she starts talking to us.

At this point, Charlotte began filming.

I just want to share with you all this pretty emotional picture for me that I took inside the clinic on the day of my consultation.

This is me holding hands with my boyfriend.

That's him.

And this is Kristen Turner.

This is while she was asking us super invasive questions, asking my boyfriend if he's ever been a father before, asking me about my previous pregnancies, and asking us if we thought of any names.

We're just looking at each other, like, what the fuck is going on?

Then she's like talking directly to my boyfriend because she knows she can't get an answer out of me.

And she's like, Can you just step outside for a minute and talk to me?

And he's like, I don't have anything that I need to discuss with you.

And she looks really taken aback.

And she's like, well, I think there's clearly a lot to discuss.

And he leans in and he's like, not with you.

And he was my hero in that moment.

It's like, you know, I've been a very assertive, loud, frankly, like, I've been called a bitchy woman my whole life.

And it was so mortifying that in this moment, I was frozen and I just could not do anything but stare.

So

I basically was like, Kristen, please stop.

We're not coming outside.

We don't want to talk to you.

And

after what feels like an hour, they finally called me back.

And I felt bad for leaving my boyfriend there, but I really didn't want to give Kristen the impression that she could follow us back.

Because if I had to tell her to stay there, I was afraid it would create like an altercation.

The whole time, I didn't just go up to the front desk to tell anyone that she was a protester because I was terrified that she'd be like, well, she is an anti-abortion protester too.

And there would be a whole thing and the police would show up.

And like, I just need my phone.

Oh, I see.

Cause like.

Like, actually, it's a team of you in there that are anti-abortion.

Yeah.

Like, it didn't escape me that any of those clinic workers could have recognized me.

And actually, when I went up to the desk, the man who was checking me in was like, oh, I've seen you somewhere before.

Hang on, let me place you.

And I promise you, I almost pissed myself.

I was so scared.

There were tears in my eyes.

And he was like, you look just like me lacunas.

I was like, yeah.

You just dodged a bullet.

I get that a lot.

So I was already like about to throw up.

I was so scared.

And I was like, I just don't want her to find some way.

So he stayed out there to block her.

Yeah.

Like I basically told him to stay there to block her.

And I think he understood that.

It's like I left them together.

And as soon as I got up, she like sat beside him.

And

my

boyfriend, God bless him, had to endure her asking questions like, have you ever been a father before?

Like, do you want to have a baby with Charlotte?

You know, do you want to marry her?

Like all these things.

And the restraint that it must have taken him to keep answering these questions.

So she didn't redirect her attention to me.

I'm so grateful for him.

And I went back and they did the vaginal ultrasound.

And then finally, I came out and I've had some time to like reflect with myself about like the choice that I'm trying to make.

And I come back and I'm like, oh, we're still dealing with this.

I forgot.

For a moment, I lived in a sane world where I was like at a doctor's appointment.

Right.

I didn't even go to the counter to check back out because I didn't want to try and schedule another appointment for my abortion and have Kristen Turner get up and start screaming or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because at this point, I felt like I was handling an explosive.

So I grabbed my boyfriend and I just like dragged him out.

And as we're walking out, we got outside the door and up to our car and I turned around and she was gone.

So we sat in the car for a minute, just kind of took a breath.

And then as we were pulling out,

turned to the car and kristen turner appeared in front of it like standing in front of the car so he couldn't drive off she like gestures at him to roll the window down and he does and he just like leans back while she talks past him to me and she's like i'm so sorry for showing up unexpectedly tihi i didn't mean to upset you i know you guys are pretty upset and i was like thank you you're so sweet please

you know yeah let us go let us go so she stepped back and then my boyfriend like peels off

and After all that I was like take me home and I'm not leaving my room for three days Yeah, like I was so scared.

I was so worried that someone had overheard our conversation.

We got back and spent a couple hours decompressing

and Then Kristen texted me a couple hours later Hey, like we're still in your city.

We want to know if we can just talk to you for a little bit.

Lydia really wants to see you.

And I was like, who the fuck is Lydia?

And it was then that I was informed she had brought along this teenage girl who was very much a baby.

Like she's still in high school.

And

I'm not really sure why she brought her along.

I was like, man, these people aren't going to fucking leave until I am straight up with them.

Like if I talk to them, because at this point, I had not been straight up with her because I felt like I couldn't.

But I was getting to a point where I was like, no, this needs to end right now.

And they pull into my boyfriend's house and I get in the car.

And my boyfriend doesn't really want me going with them, but I'm like, look, I'll be right back.

We're not going far.

I just need to tell them, you know, what's what.

And he's like, okay, I trust you.

So I get into the car and they're like, okay, well, it's like a 45-minute drive to the hotel.

And I'm like, whoa.

They ask if I want to pick up clothes from my parents' house.

What?

Yeah.

They're like, you want to get a change of clothes?

And I was like, what do you mean?

They're like, well, you're coming to stay with us.

Right.

And I was like,

never said that.

That's something that you are making up in your head.

And she's like, oh, okay.

Well, we can just start driving and we'll find something along the way to stop at.

And I'm like, There is a little main street in our tiny town.

It's like two blocks from here.

It's walking distance.

We can stop there.

Yeah.

To give myself some autonomy because I knew that if I really needed to walk back home to my boyfriend's house, that I could.

You could get there.

Yeah.

So they seem really upset by this, but they're like, okay.

So they drive me out to this little downtown area.

I get some coffee and we're sitting there talking.

It is the end of June in the southeast and it's like 90 degrees and I'm pregnant.

So I already feel like shit.

And over the course of a couple hours, I sit there and go through hours?

Hours.

Two hours.

Oh God.

Yeah.

I was like telling my life story to these people.

They just kept asking questions.

Did you feel like you were doing your own hostage negotiation?

Yes.

She had complete authority to ask me any kind of invasive question she wanted.

Like it didn't even occur to her that it was none of her business, any of this stuff.

Yeah.

So

we kept going through my relationship, and she's like, Yeah, I talked to him and he seemed like a really nice guy.

You know, I thought he was really great.

I think you should marry him and just consider having his baby right now.

And I was like, You know, it's funny you say that because you made him so incredibly angry when you were asking him all these invasive questions.

And I don't think that you realize that, but he is very upset with you because none of this is any of your business, Kristen.

And she changed her demeanor so abruptly after being told that.

And she's like, Okay, it's been a couple hours.

I don't want you to have this abortion.

And I'm like, Well,

I think I'm going to have an abortion.

And these are the reasons which I've already articulated to you.

It's the finances.

It's that I just got out of rehab.

It's that I'm literally weeks away from going to university.

That I don't have to explain any of this to you.

Yeah.

And so she switches up, and her immediate response to that is, I think your boyfriend is abusing you.

What?

And exactly.

And I was like,

what are you talking about?

And she's like, I think your boyfriend is forcing you to have an abortion

and he's abusing you.

And I don't think that you're in a safe situation.

And I'm like, the boyfriend that you were just trying to convince me to marry and have children with five, 10 minutes ago, this is the boyfriend that's abusing me.

How did you come to this conclusion?

At this point, I'm like, I need you to take me home right now because it's been hours.

It is hot.

I feel sick.

I want to go home.

My boyfriend's texting me asking if I'm okay.

I need to be home now.

She's like, well, I need to talk to Lydia.

And they go into this restaurant to use the bathroom.

And I can see them through the window talking and pointing at me.

And I'm like, this is ridiculous.

And she finally gets out of this restaurant and gets out of her negotiations with this teenage girl.

And she's like, Lydia says she doesn't want to drive you home because you're in an abusive situation.

So here's what you can do.

What I can do.

You can call your parents to pick you up.

And at this point, to stop myself from getting into an altercation with this woman, I just started walking in the other direction.

Yeah.

Because

I

have never felt so unsafe in an altercation like this.

And I'm like, I'm just, I need to get out of here.

So I start walking and I can hear her screaming after me.

And I hear her get on the phone with someone.

And it does not occur to me that the person she could be speaking to is a 911 operator.

Oh my God.

And as I'm walking down the street, an ambulance pulls up in front of this empty church and stops.

And two EMTs get out.

And I have a gut feeling that they are looking for me.

And so I go up to them and I'm like, hey, do you guys need directions or something?

Why are you stopped here?

She's like, we're looking for a girl that matches your description.

Actually, your friend called and said that you're suicidal and that you're trying to hurt yourself.

And I let out the most animal sound sound that I think I've ever let out.

Something between a wail and like a scream of frustration.

And I'm like, look, I'm going to level with you.

This is what's going on.

I know it's going to sound weird, but these girls are like really, really religious and they don't want me to have an abortion.

And being where I'm from, that makes total sense.

That's the culture of the Southeast.

This EMT luckily is a really cool lady and a normal person.

And she's like, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

We're not going to evaluate you.

You are clearly of sound mind.

You're articulating yourself very clearly.

The police officer is about to pull up and we'll have him drive you home because we can't take you home in an EMT vehicle, but we'll have the police officer drive you home.

So the police officer takes me home and I come inside.

Yeah.

And my boyfriend's like, did a police car just drop you off?

And I like fell into his arms and I collapsed and I was just sobbing.

And I explained what happened to him.

So I'm like, look, man, I'm really hungry.

I feel sick and horrible.

I just, can you go make some breakfast for dinner?

So he goes downstairs and he like starts making some biscuits and stuff.

And like I

throw on one of his t-shirts and like my boxers and I'm just like trying to relax.

And it's about two hours that I'm at home.

And I finally step out into the yard.

I'm like, I'm going to call Teresa Bakovanak to see if she organized this.

So I get on the phone with Teresa and she answers.

And I'm like, hey, Kristen Turner just called the police on me and told them that I was suicidal because she doesn't want me to have an abortion.

Did you or did you not tell her to do that?

Because that is not legal.

You're at the very least lying to the police and misusing resources.

And I need to know if this is an action of your organization or just something that Kristen Turner did.

And Teresa says, We're all just really worried about you.

So that's a yes, in my humble opinion.

Yep.

Yep.

Like she knew what was happening.

Right, right.

She was apprised of it, whether it was her idea or not.

She knew what was going on.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So she says that.

And as she gets that out of her mouth, two cars pull into the driveway with headlights way too bright for me to make out what they are.

And I'm standing there barefoot in my boxer shorts and a ratty t-shirt with no bra.

And I scream for my boyfriend.

He comes running out of the house at a speed I've never seen a human being move.

And

he

gets in front of me, puts his body right in front of mine, and is like yelling at this car.

Like, what are you doing in my driveway?

And this police officer steps out, oh my gosh, fully vested.

And I'm able to see now that

there are bars on the windows of both these police cars that are sitting in front of me.

And

I,

this is really hard.

This is really hard.

I'm sorry.

I was like clinging to my boyfriend as this police officer is saying, we have a warrant from a magistrate because someone filed an affidavit certifying that this girl is a danger to herself.

And we have to take her to be evaluated at a psych ward.

They want to put her in a psych ward for 72 hours and hold her there.

Oh my God.

And I'm clinging to my boyfriend like a child and I'm I'm sobbing and I'm like, you can't let them take me.

You don't let them take me.

Like these people can't do this.

And I was just sobbing and like wailing.

I just want to go home.

And I have never in my life felt more like a scared child than I did in that moment.

It was still really hard for me to think about.

Sorry.

It's hard to think about them wanting to put you through that after everything they already knew about you, you know?

Yeah.

Like to just, oh, let's just traumatize her a little little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more.

Exactly.

Um,

so

I

turned away and I'm like looking at the woods and looking at like this, this very safe place

that I'd been able to like retreat to after rehab.

Like my beautiful, my boyfriend has this beautiful property.

It's a farm property.

You know, it's got all these woods and a creek and I'd love to like run with our dogs.

And it had always just been like such a safe place to me.

And I felt like I was just trying to cling to any of that safety.

And as I was like looking around like an animal caught in a trap, I hear the police officer go, Don't turn away from me.

Don't turn away from me because I'll cuff you.

What?

Yeah.

I mean, he was like, If you, if you walk away, like, we'll put you in handcuffs.

And I saw him like reaching for, I think it was like a baton.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

And I was, was

i was so scared um

and my boyfriend was like i'm really sorry baby but you have to go with them because you know they have a warrant like i can't stop them and like you just don't fight with them or you're gonna make it worse um

and

i was like you people can't do this And they're like, just go to the ER and just explain it to the psychiatrist and they'll let you go if they think that you're not a danger to yourself.

So I get into the police part.

What if you actually were like they really believed or thought or were there because you were supposedly suicidal and they're going to threaten to cuff and

hang on to their baton for a

mental health check?

I mean, and mind you, I am 90 pounds soaking wet.

I'm this tiny little five foot two woman

cowering behind her boyfriend.

and they're like

obviously you know physically intimidating me

so i get in the back of the police car and i'm like crying i'm like can my boyfriend just get me my fucking shoes and they're like yeah okay so he goes and brings me my sneakers and they put me in this police car and they close the door and i'm looking at my boyfriend through these barred windows and At this moment, I was like, holy shit.

Like, I immediately thought of how my grandmother must have felt when they took my mother from her

and put her in an orphanage.

Like the state really can just come and take you

if you don't have institutional power, if you're a threat also to that institutional power.

Like

the law really doesn't mean shit.

And

I still had my phone.

I have no fucking idea why they still let me have my phone.

And I texted my dad.

I've never called my mom and dad, mommy and daddy, since I was like nine, but I texted them.

I was like,

daddy, like, I can't really explain what's going on, but

like, I'm in the back of a police car right now.

And I'm my daddy's little girl.

Like, I am, I need tissues.

No, yeah.

I'd always been a straight A student.

I'd always been, you know, doing five extracurriculars and in a debate club.

Like, I'd always been such an achiever.

And like, my dad is so proud of me.

And the idea that I would ever be in a police car was just so alien to him.

My dad knows Kristen Turner, like knows of her.

And I was like, Kristen Turner called the police and told them that I'm suicidal and I'm being taken to the hospital to be evaluated.

Can you meet me there?

And he was like, absolutely, baby.

Like, I'm going to be there.

Just hold on.

I was texting my boyfriend and I was telling him like what hospital they're taking me to.

And

I was trying to explain to the police officers.

I was like, I know I sound like a crazy person, but I'm not suicidal.

Like, these girls are just trying to stop me from having an abortion.

They're like, we can't help you.

Like, you just need to save this for the people at the hospital.

Like, you know, basically, you know, whatever.

Too late.

We're just following protocol or whatever.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And

I'm so sorry.

And

I apologize for,

you know, having you relive this.

I mean, like,

the only thing that I can think of when I think of how I felt in that moment is that there are so many women who have been through similar experiences, especially women of color who have had these experiences and tried to talk about it and no one gave a fuck.

And that have been permanently victimized and traumatized by the state in this way because they were pregnant.

They're people who have had these experiences and just

they just have to live with it because the system doesn't care.

And just that I've been able to like platform this story, I think, like just makes it worth telling.

Okay.

Like letting people know that

I didn't expect to cry so much.

It's okay.

I cry on the show all the time.

At least a couple times a season.

Real.

Yep.

So, what did you say at the hospital?

I got there before my dad and my boyfriend.

And they, they like perp walked me through the ER.

Again, I'm wearing these boxer shorts and old t-shirt.

And

I have these two big old police officers walking me through.

And like every nurse in this hospital is lined up along the walls of the ER staring at me as they walk me to my room.

And

I just wanted to be compacted into a little ball and vanish.

Yeah.

My bad.

I had never been, I'd never been looked at that way in my entire life, even when I was in rehab.

And you don't even know why they're looking at you like that.

It's probably because the cups are there, but like, is it because you're suicidal?

Is it because they know that you're pregnant?

Is it like all of the different things that people could be judging you for?

Yeah, like I didn't even know what they'd been told.

Right.

Right.

So I get in there and I'm explaining to every nurse that comes in.

I explain to the attending doctor and he's like, I'll forward this to the psychiatrist.

Like I'm really just here to make sure that you're not physically hurt, but like I'll tell her, like, I believe you, that shit is crazy.

And finally, the psychiatrist comes in like hours later.

My boyfriend's been there at that point holding my hands,

trying to get me to eat something.

My dad's come in and talked to me.

My dad at that point didn't even know I was pregnant.

My mom did.

But I mean, again, I'm daddy's little girl and

like a star student.

I I just, I didn't want him to see me that way.

And my boyfriend had to tell his parents that I was pregnant too.

So like, now everybody knows I'm pregnant

and thinking about having an abortion.

And the psychiatrist comes in and she asked my boyfriend to leave and she talks to me about everything.

And she's like, here's what they told me happened.

Have you seen this affidavit?

that they filed.

And I was like, no, no one showed me anything.

I don't know what's going on.

So I'm going to read the affidavit that was issued by the court.

It has a bunch of typos and mistakes, but I'll try to read it,

you know, as it's meant to be read, I believe.

Respondent has been talking to friends/slash ex-co-workers from California and Georgia.

They were in DC on a work trip.

Respondent said she was struggling.

Respondent went to a drug rehab at dot dot dot.

and was released at the end of May.

Respondent said she took a bunch of pills trying to kill herself.

Respondent lives with her boyfriend who is an employee at dot dot dot the rehab.

She was referred there by him.

There is a 19-year age difference between the two.

The conversation between respondent and petitioner led petitioner and another friend to come to North Carolina to see about her because her behavior was abnormal.

Respondent told petitioner today that she wanted to kill herself by taking her mom's opioids.

Petitioner stated the respondent's personality is not aligned with her values.

Respondent has been raped before, and she shared with petitioner that she's in the worst mental place of her life.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean, by the way?

Like she's been raped before, but this is worse.

My mother has never been prescribed opioids in her life and I have never done opioids in my life.

So they had like pieced together all this information about me and him and it ended up like a bad game of telephone because they put a lot of stuff on this affidavit that just wasn't true.

Okay.

They alleged that he was abusing me, that I was an addict, that I was a danger to myself.

Importantly, because I was trying to have an abortion and they believed that my boyfriend was forcing me to because it went against my values.

That's the exact verbiage they used.

This random child who is putting me in a psychiatric ward for trying to have an abortion because she thinks it goes against my values.

And

the magistrate signed signed off on this.

And

I'm looking at this piece of paper like, this is the piece of paper that very well could have turned my body into physical property of the state if this psychiatrist was one of these good old boys that are a dime a dozen where I live.

It would have been so easy for me to get taken to a different hospital, talk to an old male psychiatrist, and boom, like I would have been in the psych ward and I would have probably gone over that 12-week deadline and I might have had to remain pregnant.

And remembering what happened to my grandmother, I'm going through this scenario.

I'm like, they would not have let me keep that infant if I had been committed to the psych ward while pregnant.

Right.

CPS is going to take that baby from me, obviously.

Especially when someone's alleging that I had done opioids.

Sure.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, Jesus Christ.

So.

All this shit that just is not true.

And it's now on this legal document associated with my name.

And this judge signs online.

And now you're a known person to the legal system in your home.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the psychiatrist releases me.

Yeah.

She was like, you're of sound mind.

You're articulating yourself perfectly clearly.

You've told a very confusing story in a way that I understood very well.

And I think that's more than enough.

And also, like, she talked to Kristen on the phone and Lydia and she was like, these girls are clearly anti-abortion zealots.

Right.

I can tell from the way that they're talking.

Yeah.

She she actually went and scanned in the affidavit and the like basically arrest warrant put in your medical file

so that i would have access to it

um so i have now printed out and scanned all my medical records and i

posted online my affidavit and all my medical records and all that stuff that you know proved that happened but

After they released me, it was like one in the morning.

And I went home and I just like collapsed at my boyfriend's house.

I was so tired.

It was such an awful day.

Your head must have been spinning that you could have spent so many years as an ally to these folks.

When I was a teenager, I was told, like, oh, you know, we help women who want to remain pregnant by giving them diapers and paying their rent and helping them pay for cars and stuff.

And I was like, that's great.

It never occurred to me that these people were capable of kidnapping you, essentially.

Yeah.

and then have the police kidnap you and then have the hospital kidnap you

so did you did you get the abortion do you mind me asking

yes i ended up using mifocristone and mizoprostyl i initially did not tell anybody else even my boyfriend when i had my abortion because obviously at this point I was so scared of how criminalized me even considering an abortion had been.

Right.

So, I went home to my parents' house and had a self-managed abortion in my childhood bathroom by myself.

And

it was so, so, so scary because the whole time I had like ringing in my head, you know, Emily burning telling me that having an abortion would make me infertile and I'd never be able to have the children that I wanted to have and that I would die from like sepsis or hemorrhaging.

Well, in that state, you could because nobody would care for you.

But yeah, I did it myself, and it was

so scary until it was over.

And then I was like, oh,

you know, that was medical care.

Yeah.

Like, I had a pretty standard medical care.

It was painful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's that you're not getting like an involuntary hysterectomy or something, which is what they make it sound like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's the loss, I think, particularly of that potential future of me being a mother that was hard because I do really want to be a mother, but I also knew that is a whole person.

And I know what it feels like to be raised in poverty.

Yeah.

And I'm like, well, I can just wait a year or two and everything will still be here.

Yeah,

it's hard for me to get inside the heads of these people that just want to put you through more and more and more.

trauma.

Not just the police, not just that you can't get into work.

Not just, you know, they want you to then be a really young mom who has to suffer through this thing.

And I don't, I just, it's hard for me to imagine what good they think they're doing.

Can you sue them?

Are you suing them?

You should sue them.

Here's the thing.

I've thought a lot about this and

I really wish that there could be some kind of justice in this situation, particularly against Kristen Turner and progressive anti-abortion uprising.

But in considering that, A, I've worried about, especially as abortion is becoming more and more criminalized.

And we're looking at right now legislation that's been introduced federally to have a total federal abortion ban with House Bill 722.

And

I

had no faith that they would not try to criminally prosecute me for the abortion I had as they were doing discovery for like the case that I had brought.

And the laws keep changing.

It's like you don't know one second to the next what's legal, what's illegal.

Exactly.

Lots of different states are coming up with retroactive laws to go back and prosecute people and whatever.

There's like a million little asterisks.

I talked to the Repro Legal Health Lime.

There are aspects of people having abortions they think are completely legal that it turns out they're liable for.

Right.

As quickly as they got that affidavit and you had a warrant out, that kind of stuff's happening all the time, but like on a grand scale where a doctor will be in the middle of, say, performing a procedure and the law changes while they're not working.

So I can see why you wouldn't want to involve the law.

And also more than that, I don't know if you've heard this because I actually didn't hear it for a couple of days, but apparently Donald Trump just released all of the anti-abortion protesters who have been held in violation of the FACE Act, including Lauren Handy, who worked with Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.

They'd all been to federal prison because they were involved in a quote-unquote rescue where a nurse was injured.

And

I looked at that and I was like, man,

Kristen Turner is never going to get in trouble and go to jail or be held liable in any way that counts.

Right.

If I go through the hell of court and trying to deal with this, just like with my rapist, nothing's going to happen to her because even at the end of the day, if a sane judge in North Carolina does something about it, Donald Trump's just going to snap his fingers and she's going to be able to walk out right so it doesn't matter what these people do to me like it just feels like they just get to terrorize women as much as they want basically and it's only getting worse exactly

meanwhile i'm in a police car right i did not hear that about the face act people getting let out of jail or federal prison rather

that ended any little voice that I had in the back of my mind that was like, what if these people were right?

What if, you know, me having an abortion is going to traumatize me and like all this stuff?

Like as soon as they put me through those things, I was like, nope, because these people cannot be on the right side.

There's no way that the right side would make me feel this way, would do this to me.

You are not obliged to do anything, by the way.

I want you to, I want to make sure I'm clear about that.

Like, you can take it easy and never talk about this again.

You're not, you don't owe anybody anything.

But I'm just wondering if you, how you're thinking about it now.

I had a while to think about it between like

the news of my abortion breaking in far-right spaces and like the harassment that i endured after that and like having to leave school and everything like my life kind of went on pause for a couple weeks yeah and i had time to think about like what do i do now if anything

and the pros and cons of not doing something and doing something because i was already facing such an insane amount of harassment like i'd never experienced before in my life

And I was like, this is only going to get worse if you talk about what happened, you name Kristen Turner and you name Teresa Bakovinak and you go after these people because they react very poorly to you attacking their own.

Sure.

But at the same time, I was like, I would say, especially in anti-abortion spaces, I don't think like people who are donating every once in a while to let them live know that they are funding things like this and progressive anti-abortion uprising.

Like they're funding harassment of pregnant people and.

pressuring and coercion.

And

I think that if more people knew that this is actually what the anti-abortion movement is about, and it's not just about, you know, helping women who want to be pregnant.

Well, that's why I got in touch with you because I was like, I think that a lot of anti-abortion people like to claim that pro-choice folks are like fear-mongering.

Oh, they're coming for your body and da-da-da-da-da.

And then I heard your story and I was like, hang on a minute.

literally someone got arrested for thinking about having an abortion?

But you know, I think people think this stuff isn't happening.

You know, we see these headlines saying, oh, Trump wants to criminalize miscarriage, you know, or

bring death penalty against women who have an abortion.

And

we're in that moment where it's like

turning really scary, but nobody wants to believe it, you know?

Like, yeah.

That's anyway.

That's why I reached out to you.

I wanted to talk to you about the real life

scary consequences of what's happening all over the country right now.

And what's interesting is that, like, there's a lot of anti-abortion people who are starting to wake up to that, but feel like they can't leave.

And I think also in sharing my story, as well as alerting people to the severity of the situation and being like, no, people are being put in police cars for considering abortion as a real thing.

Also being like, you can leave because I did.

I left so publicly and I endured some bullshit for it, but it was worth it because I

don't think any sane person should be able to live with themselves seeing something like what happened to me or even experiencing that and being like okay well i'll still keep my head down you know going from i'm thinking as you're saying that going from wanting to turn into a little ball in the hospital and disappear to

now having become kind of the giant monster in their faces you know

yeah you know they're scared of me they are scared of you and i'm wondering like where do you think you got that sort of strength

i think that

I

am a much more resilient person than I gave myself credit for for a very long time.

And I think that's a big part of it.

I also think that having someone like my boyfriend through all of these things

and who was able to be my strength sometimes when I couldn't, as well as my

father, as well as my close friends.

I leaned on so many incredible people during that time period when I was being harassed so badly that like I had to leave school and I was being like threatened.

I'm very grateful to them.

And I think that that's where a lot of my strength came from.

But also just like the anger.

And I think that a lot of people like me who have been through really traumatic things and who are really angry afterwards feel guilty for that anger.

But I am really grateful for it because I tapped into it.

I tapped into it and I used it.

to do all these things that without it, I would just would not be able to do.

If I was just, you know, only able to sit with how scared and, you know, helpless it made me feel.

Right.

Right.

So aside from the videos I've seen where you talk about this, are you doing any other sort of writing about it as a journalist?

Yeah.

I'm trying really hard.

So I do have my job with Plug CLT where I'm starting to write some pieces about abortion access.

The latest one that I did was about a Catholic school in the Charlotte area that on a school sanctioned field trip brought their students out to protest, a local abortion provider.

Yep,

it's getting crazy out there

writing about that sort of thing.

And then, also, I just applied and was accepted to interview at Collective Rising, which is like a reproductive rights

organization.

There, I'm looking to get a summer internship with them and like go to their conference.

So, I really hope that that works out.

I really do appreciate you,

you know, telling me your story.

And I'm sure you're going to do really great things.

Thank you.

I'm really excited to see what you

do in your career and life.

Thank you.

I'll see you soon on TikTok.

Thank you so much.

One of the many things that struck me about Charlotte's story, one that I I can't stop thinking about, is just how many adults in her life, in the name of supposedly caring about children, took advantage of her when she herself was just a child.

That so many adults let or maybe even want their politics to affect their morals.

In other words, if you want to be in a certain group that aims to change laws, you might start to believe people like Charlotte should suffer for that.

You lose your empathy, your compassion, in favor of some collective political goal.

We'll unfortunately be hearing a lot more stories like this if we don't get our shit together.

The dream is a production of Little Everywhere.

You can call us on our tip line at 323-248-1488.

Let us know if you have a story for us to cover.

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So what I did is started a bunch of threads like ask Dan and I questions, general chit chat, just to make friends and stuff.

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