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upworthy

reproductive rights

Democracy

I did a roundtable with the Vice President about abortion. Here are 4 things that surprised me.

The conversation was important, but in some ways the experience was nothing like I expected it to be.

Upworthy associate editor Annie Reneau chatting with Joy Reid and Kamala Harris in an MSNBC roundtable

It's been a very weird week.

I'm a writer and editor—not a medical professional, legal expert or political activist in any way—so imagine my surprise when I got a message from Vice President Kamala Harris's senior advisor inviting me to join a roundtable discussion on MSNBC for the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. I thought someone might be pranking me, but nope. The invite was real.

Apparently, someone had read an op-ed I'd written years ago about how it's possible to be morally pro-life but politically pro-choice and felt that my voice would add something to the discussion. The panelists included the lead plaintiffs in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization and the Texas Abortion Ban lawsuits, two activists involved in the fight for reproductive rights, a Texas OB-GYN who has seen the implications of the Dobbs decision in his own practice…and me.

I felt remarkably average among these experts on the issue, but I think that was the point. My view represents millions of average American voters who may feel conflicted about where they stand on abortion morally and legally and are trying to reconcile their personal or religious beliefs with what they think our laws should be. Additionally, as someone with no political affiliation or loyalty to any party, I could speak about grappling with this issue without any partisan pressure or influence.

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We live in a world where men, who have never and will never experience pregnancy or childbirth, make laws about women's reproduction, which in and of itself is a headscratcher. When we're talking about anti-abortion legislation, which effectively forces women to go through pregnancy and childbirth whether it's healthy for them or not, it seems like the people who actually experience those things should have a more heavily weighted say in such legislation.

Of course, women have varied opinions on the matter. (The most recent Gallup poll found that 53% of women in the U.S. identify as "pro-choice" and 43% identify as "pro-life.") But interestingly, a Twitter thread is showing how actual experience can either shift or concretes a person's views.

Writer Jennifer Wright wrote, "Raise your hand if pregnancy and childbirth only made you *more* pro-choice," and the responses came flooding in.

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Lake Highlands High School valedictorian Paxton Smith made waves with her commencement speech this week, as she discarded her approved remarks and spoke about Texas's anti-abortion "heartbeat bill" instead.

Smith told D Magazine that the speech she had prepared and submitted for approval was about media consumption and how it had shaped her view of the world. But she had also prepared a different speech, one that addressed something far more important to her.

When the time came to step up to the microphone, she took out a folded piece of paper tucked into her shirt and delivered the second speech instead. Clips of her remarks have since gone viral on social media.


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Part of the problem with debating abortion legislation is that there is no clear definition of what it even is. Some might say it's the termination of an unwanted pregnancy, but sometimes a pregnancy that ends in abortion was very much wanted. Some might say it's the killing of a baby in the womb, but plenty of abortions take place after a baby has already died in utero.

Merriam-Webster defines abortion as "the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus"—a definition that points to the following heartbreaking story and the reason why abortion is not as cut and dry an issue as many make it out to be.

Haylie Grammer shared her family's experience with "late-term abortion" in the death of her daughter, Embree, at 25 weeks, and it illustrates how abortion can look very, very different than what people imagine it to be.

Grammer wrote:

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