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ST. LOUIS — Shhhooo. Wee-uuu. Chick, chick, chick. That’s the sound of three different cicada species. For some people, those sounds are the song of the summer. Others wish the insects would turn it down. The cacophony can be especially irritating for people on the autism spectrum who have hearing sensitivity.
Warren Rickly, 14, lives in suburban south St. Louis County, Missouri. Warren, who has autism, was at the bus stop recently waiting for his younger brother when the sound of cicadas became too much to bear.
“He said it sounds like there’s always a train running next to him,” his mother, Jamie Reed, said.
Warren told her the noise hurt.
Starting this spring, trillions of the red-eyed insects crawled their way out of the ground across the Midwest and Southeast. It’s part of a rare simultaneous emergence of two broods — one that appears every 13 years, the other every 17.
The noisy insects can be stressful. People with autism can have a sensitivity to texture, brightness, and sound.
“I think the difference for individuals with autism is the level of intensity or how upsetting some of these sensory differences are,” said Rachel Follmer, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.
“It can get to the extreme where it can cause physical discomfort,” she said.
When a large group of cicadas starts to sing, the chorus can be as loud as a motorcycle. Researchers at the University of Missouri-St. Louis this year crowdsourced cicada noise levels as high as 86 decibels, about as loud as a food blender.
That can be stressful, not melodic, Follmer said.
To help children cope, she suggests giving them a primer before they encounter a noisy situation. For cicadas, that could mean explaining what they are, that they don’t bite or sting, and that they’ll be here for just a short time.
“When something is uncomfortable, not having power in that situation can be very scary for a lot of individuals, whether you’re on the spectrum or not,” Follmer said.
Before they can sing, periodical cicada nymphs molt and leave behind exoskeletons like these. The U.S. Forest Service projected that trillions of cicadas would emerge this year across the Midwestern and Southeastern United States.(Zach Dyer/KFF Health News)
Jamie Reed’s family has been using this and other strategies to help her son. Warren wears noise-canceling headphones, listens to music, and has been teaching himself about cicadas.
“For him, researching it and looking into it I think grounds him a little bit,” Reed said.
Fatima Husain is a professor and neuroscientist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and studies how the brain processes sound. She said people with tinnitus may also struggle with cicada song.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
Tinnitus, a ringing or other noise in the ears, is a person’s perception of sound without an external source.
“Some people say it sounds like buzzing, like wind blowing through trees, and ironically, quite a few people say it sounds like cicadas,” Husain said.
For most people with tinnitus the cicada’s song is harmless background noise, according to Husain, but for others the ringing can prevent easy conversation or sleep. Those with tinnitus are also more likely to have anxiety or depression. A loud persistent sound, like singing cicadas, can make someone’s tinnitus worse, Husain said.
It’s not always bad, though. The cicada’s song can also be a relief.
Kasey Fowler-Finn holds a red-eyed periodical cicada outside St. Louis on May 31.(Zach Dyer/KFF Health News)
For some, tinnitus gets worse in a quiet environment. Husain said she’s seen reports this year of patients saying the cicadas’ song has been like soothing white noise.
“The sound is loud enough that in some ways it’s drowning their internal tinnitus,” Husain said.
As loud as the cicadas can be, they won’t necessarily damage anyone’s hearing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hearing loss builds up over time from repeated exposure to loud sounds. Cicadas aren’t loud enough for long enough to do lasting damage, Husain said.
Everyday sources of noise come with a higher risk. Husain said constant exposure to loud highways, an airport, industrial sites, or household appliances like blenders and hair dryers can be a concern. And they can take a toll on someone’s emotional well-being.
“If you are being exposed to very loud sounds for a part of your school day or your working day, it may make you more stressed out; it may make you more angry about things,” she said.
Unlike the highway or an airport, cicadas won’t be around long. Most of the current brood will be gone in the next few weeks. Just in time for another noisy summer event: the Fourth of July.
One patient had two toddlers already and was trying to extract herself from an abusive relationship. Another ended up in Michigan after trying to get care in her home state of Ohio; she was handed a Bible at a crisis pregnancy center but no abortion pills. A third thought her childbearing years were behind her and had been looking forward to rejoining the workforce.
All three women sought abortion care at Northland Family Planning Center in Sterling Heights, a city in the metro Detroit area. And all told their stories to reporter Kate Wells as she embedded in the clinic for nine days in August and September. Wells’ story, produced in partnership with KHN, aired on NPR’s “Morning Edition” on Nov. 3. (The story includes audio of one woman’s abortion procedure that some listeners may find disturbing.)
Northland was started in 1976 by Renee Chelian. She had undergone an illegal abortion at age 16, back in 1966, seven years before Roe v. Wade. In recent months, patients have been traveling to Northland’s three locations from Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, even as far as Florida and Texas.
But abortion rights in Michigan are far from certain. So far, courts have blocked enforcement of a 1931 law that bans the procedure with no exceptions for rape or incest. But the judicial wrangling has been confusing. On Aug. 1, for example, rapid-fire court rulings meant that abortion in Michigan was legal at breakfast, illegal at lunchtime, and legal once again by dinner.
Michigan voters decide Nov. 8 whether abortion stays legal in the state. What’s known as Proposal 3 would explicitly enshrine in the Michigan Constitution the right to abortion, as well as other reproductive rights.
This story is part of a partnership that includes Michigan Radio, NPR, and KHN.
Birth control options have improved over the decades. Oral contraceptives are now safer, with fewer side effects. Intrauterine devices can prevent pregnancy 99.6% of the time. But no prescription drug or medical device works flawlessly, and people’s use of contraception is inexact.
“No one walks into my office and says, ‘I plan on missing a pill,’” said obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Mitchell Creinin.
“There is no such thing as perfect use, we are all real-life users,” said Creinin, a professor at the University of California-Davis who wrote a widely used textbook that details contraceptive failure rates.
Even when the odds of contraception failure are small, the number of incidents can add up quickly. More than 47 million women of reproductive age in the United States use contraception and, depending on the birth control method, hundreds of thousands of unplanned pregnancies can occur each year. With most abortions outlawed in at least 13 states and legal battles underway in others, contraceptive failures now carry bigger stakes for tens of millions of Americans.
Researchers distinguish between the perfect use of birth control, when a method is used consistently and correctly every time, and typical use, when a method is used in real-life circumstances. No birth control, short of a complete female sterilization, has a 0.00% failure rate.
The failure rate for typical use of birth control pills is 7%. For every million women taking pills, 70,000 unplanned pregnancies could occur in a year. According to the most recent data available, more than 6.5 million women ages 15 to 49 use oral contraceptives, leading to about 460,000 unplanned pregnancies.
(Emma Lee Gometz / Science Friday)
Even seemingly minuscule failure rates of IUDs and birth control implants can lead to surprises.
An intrauterine device releases a hormone that thickens the mucus on the cervix. Sperm hit the brick wall of mucus and are unable to pass through the barrier. Implants are matchstick-sized plastic rods placed under the skin, which send a steady, low dose of hormone into the body that also thickens the cervical mucus and prevents the ovaries from releasing an egg. But not always. The hormonal IUD and implants fail to prevent pregnancy 0.1% to 0.4% of the time.
Some 4.8 million women use IUDs or implants in the U.S., leading to as many as 5,000 to 20,000 unplanned pregnancies a year.
“We’ve had women come through here for abortions who had an IUD, and they were the one in a thousand,” said Gordon Low, a nurse practitioner at the Planned Parenthood in Little Rock.
Dr. Janet Cathey (left) and Gordon Low, a nurse practitioner, work at Little Rock Planned Parenthood in Arkansas. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson expelled Planned Parenthood from Medicaid in 2017, leaving patients unable to get no-cost contraception at the clinic.(Sarah Varney / KHN)
Abortion has been outlawed in Arkansas since the Supreme Court’s ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in late June. The only exception is when a patient’s death is considered imminent.
Those stakes are the new backdrop for couples making decisions about which form of contraception to choose or calculating the chances of pregnancy.
Another complication is the belief among many that contraceptives should work all the time, every time.
“In medicine, there is never anything that is 100%,” said Dr. Régine Sitruk-Ware, a reproductive endocrinologist at the Population Council, a nonprofit research organization.
All sorts of factors interfere with contraceptive efficacy, said Sitruk-Ware. Certain medications for HIV and tuberculosis and the herbal supplement St. John’s wort can disrupt the liver’s processing of birth control pills. A medical provider might insert an IUD imprecisely into the uterus. Emergency contraception, including Plan B, is less effective in women weighing more than 165 pounds because the hormone in the medication is weight-dependent.
And life is hectic.
“You may have a delay in taking your next pill,” said Sitruk-Ware, or getting to the doctor to insert “your next vaginal ring.”
Using contraception consistently and correctly lessens the chance for a failure but Alina Salganicoff, KFF’s director of women’s health policy, said that for many people access to birth control is anything but dependable. Birth control pills are needed month after month, year after year, but “the vast majority of women can only get a one- to two-month supply,” she said.
Even vasectomies can fail.
During a vasectomy, the surgeon cuts the tube that carries sperm to the semen.
The procedure is one of the most effective methods of birth control — the failure rate is 0.15% — and avoids the side effects of hormonal birth control. But even after the vas deferens is cut, cells in the body can heal themselves, including after a vasectomy.
“If you get a cut on your finger, the skin covers it back up,” said Creinin. “Depending on how big the gap is and how the procedure is done, that tube may grow back together, and that’s one of the ways in which it fails.”
Researchers are testing reversible birth control methods for men, including a hormonal gel applied to the shoulders that suppresses sperm production. Among the 350 participants in the trial and their partners, so far zero pregnancies have occurred. It’s expected to take years for the new methods to reach the market and be available to consumers. Meanwhile, vasectomies and condoms remain the only contraception available for men, who remain fertile for much of their lives.
At 13%, the typical-use failure rate of condoms is among the highest of birth control methods. Condoms play a vital role in stopping the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, but they are often misused or tear. The typical-use failure rate means that for 1 million couples using condoms, 130,000 unplanned pregnancies could occur in one year.
(Emma Lee Gometz / Science Friday)
Navigating the failure rates of birth control medicines and medical devices is just one aspect of preventing pregnancy. Ensuring a male sexual partner uses a condom can require negotiation or persuasion skills that can be difficult to navigate, said Jennifer Evans, an assistant teaching professor and health education specialist at Northeastern University.
Historically, women have had little to no say in whether to engage in sexual intercourse and limited autonomy over their bodies, complicating sexual-negotiation skills today, said Evans.
Part of Evans’ research focuses on men who coerce women into sex without a condom. One tactic known as “stealthing” is when a man puts on a condom but then removes it either before or during sexual intercourse without the other person’s knowledge or consent.
“In a lot of these stealthing cases women don’t necessarily know the condom has been used improperly,” said Evans. “It means they can’t engage in any kind of preventative behaviors like taking a Plan B or even going and getting an abortion in a timely manner.”
Evans has found that heterosexual men who engage in stealthing often have hostile attitudes toward women. They report that sex without a condom feels better or say they do it “for the thrill of engaging in a behavior they know is not OK,” she said. Evans cautions women who suspect a sexual partner will not use a condom correctly to not have sex with that person.
“The consequences were already severe before,” said Evans, “but now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, they’re even more right now.”
This story is a collaboration between KHN and Science Friday. Listen to the conversation between KHN senior correspondent Sarah Varney and Science Friday producer Shoshannah Buxbaum.
It all changed on a Saturday night in New York City in 2016. Jacquelyn Revere was 29 and headed out to attend a friend’s comedy show. She was on the subway when her phone rang. It was a friend of her mom’s, back in Los Angeles. That’s weird, Revere thought. She never calls.
“And while I was on the subway, my mom’s friend said, ‘Something is wrong with your mom,’” Revere said. “‘We don’t know what’s going on, but your mom got lost driving home. What should have been a 15-minute drive ended up taking two hours.’”
Revere flew to L.A. At her mom’s home in Inglewood, she found foreclosure notices, untreated termite damage on the porch, and expired food in the kitchen. Her mother, Lynn Hindmon, was a devout evangelical who worked for her church. A slim, regal self-declared “health nut,” Hindmon was now forgetting to pay bills and couldn’t remember whom she was talking to on the phone.
Revere did not know it then, but that tough time would lead her to find — and help build — a community of caregivers who support one another on social media. TikTok has been an especially helpful platform. Content with the hashtag “dementia” has racked up more than 4 billion views on TikTok, as younger generations, already accustomed to sharing their lives online, now find themselves caring for aging loved ones — often with little preparation and no idea how to do it. Over the past few years, Revere’s account, @MomofMyMom, has become wildly popular, with more than 650,000 followers. Ardent fans have told her they feel like they personally know her and her mom.
It would take nearly a year to get the diagnosis that confirmed what Revere already suspected: Her mother — still in her 50s — had Alzheimer’s disease. Barely 10 years since Revere left home, she found herself moving back in to become a full-time caregiver for her mom and her grandmother, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s years earlier.
“That first year and a half, I was just filled with fear: What if I lose the house?” Revere said.
Because of the stress, she said, “I went through bouts of migraines. My hair, right in the middle, fell out completely.”
“I had to figure out how to get control of all the banking, figure out the passwords, make sure the bills are paid, make sure everything’s taken care of.”
Photos of Jacquelyn Revere as a child hang in the home of her mother, Lynn Hindmon. In one video on her TikTok channel, @MomofMyMom, Revere says seeing the pictures prompted Hindmon to call her “Mommy.” (Lauren Justice for NPR)
In 2017, her grandmother died. Revere’s grief and isolation felt overpowering. Her friends in their 20s either couldn’t relate or thought she was “wallowing in pity,” Revere said.
Trying to make them understand what her daily life was like now seemed impossible. “I just wanted to find people I didn’t have to explain everything to,” she said.
Revere tried a support group for caregivers, an hour’s drive away. But the other attendees were decades older and had more financial resources. “[They] would say, ‘And now I have to take equity out of our house,’ or ‘I’m thinking of reaching into our 401(k).’ And then I would tell my story, and people would be looking at me like … a charity case, or like my problem is unsolvable. … I just felt worse.”
These days Revere no longer feels so alone. She’s a celebrity of sorts on TikTok, at least among the hundreds of thousands of people who post about the difficulties of caring for a loved one with dementia.
Daughters Are Often Dementia Caregivers
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia. Others include vascular, Lewy body, frontotemporal, and mixed dementia, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly all forms worsen over time, and there is no cure, although there are some treatments.
The task of caring for people with dementia usually falls on family members. Every year, an estimated 16 million Americans provide more than 17 billion hours of unpaid care for relatives or friends suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias, according to the CDC. About 60% of these caregivers are women.
“Unfortunately, there is not a very strong system of paid support for people with dementia,” said Elena Portacolone, an associate professor who studies aging and cognitive impairment at UCSF’s Institute for Health & Aging. “And so the most common way of supporting persons with dementia is the daughter.”
Like Revere, many of the women who become caregivers end up quitting their jobs. They often find themselves financially vulnerable and “extremely isolated,” said Portacolone.
Another expert, Teepa Snow, said too many caregivers are struggling. Snow, an occupational therapist in North Carolina, runs a company that trains caregivers of people with dementia. Her own how-to videos about practical, compassionate caregiving rack up millions of views. “TikTok is where people are expressing an unmet need,” she said.
Because there’s no cure for dementia, the medical community often treats it the way previous generations of practitioners treated cancer — like “a big black box,” Snow said. Decades ago, when people got cancer, “we didn’t say anything; we didn’t talk about it. We said, ‘Oh, gosh, that’s horrible.’ And people were like, ‘How long have they got?’”
What family members need from the medical system, Snow said, is more understanding of symptoms and how to handle them, more help setting up long-term support systems, and knowledge about how patients can be helped by changes to their dietary, sleep, and exercise habits.
All too often, however, caregivers are left to muddle through the complex tasks of keeping a patient safe. “That’s pretty lonely,” Snow said.
The covid pandemic disrupted or closed down much in-person support for caregivers, including the adult day care center Revere’s mom had been attending five days a week. Desperate to find social connection, Revere did what so many others did as the pandemic stretched on: She got on TikTok. The short video format has attracted caregivers, who find they can document and share the vivid moments of their worlds at home in ways that would be less visceral on text- or photo-centric platforms.
You can watch a woman’s “day in the life” video of caring for her husband with early-onset Alzheimer’s or one of Revere’s @MomofMyMom posts from 2020, which walks viewers through their bath routine.
“It’s bath day,” Revere says at the start of the post, while still lying in bed. “I try my best not to make this an emotionally draining experience,” she sighs. “So let’s begin.”
Bathing someone with dementia can be difficult, even dangerous. They can get disoriented, or feel threatened when someone takes off their clothes or maneuvers them into a wet tub. They may slip and fall, or try to fight their caregiver. Revere has created a soothing, predictable routine for her mother. At the time of this video, Hindmon is 63, and it’s about five years after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. She’s not speaking much. Lynn Hindmon is tall, with great cheekbones. This day she’s wearing neon-blue leggings and a purple beanie.
Revere starts off by promising her mom a present — which she’ll get after the bath.
Revere walks her audience through the process, sharing what works for them. She turns on some soul music, plugs in the space heater, puts the dog outside, and lays out all her mom’s clothes. “Lure her into my cave,” she says, as her mom enters the bathroom.
The video then cuts to after the bath is over: Mother and daughter are celebrating with a bathroom dance party.
The video got more than 20,000 views. Hundreds of people left comments, saying how they can relate. One comment read: “My mother-in-law passed a year ago this week. This was the most frustrating part of caring for her. Devoted a whole day to getting this done.” Another commenter told Revere, “God Bless you! I know it’s hard. I see you and send so much love your way.”
Revere posted a follow-up right away:
“How many of us are on here?” she said into the camera. “I’ve been, like, looking for people my age that I can relate to, who have the same experience.”
Revere’s following soared from just a couple of thousand followers to more than 650,000. Many people used the comments to talk about their own caregiving struggles. They wanted to see the little victories, like Revere’s gentle, joyful tricks for getting through bath time. They also listen to Revere’s candid confessions.
“Y’all, I have never been so emotionally drained in my life,” she shared in one video. “Caregiving eats your soul. It kills your spirit. It’s constant mourning for years. … And it’s beautiful.”
Revere’s mother died in March, after six years of living with Alzheimer’s. Revere received an outpouring of support from viewers of her videos on TikTok. Since then, she’s been figuring out what her life will be after years of caregiving. Now she has time to devote to herself and her dog, Dewey.(Lauren Justice for NPR)
Content Creators Weigh Ethics of Going Public
The intimate, unvarnished depictions of dementia on TikTok have raised ethical issues surrounding privacy, dignity, and consent. There are videos on the internet of adults who haven’t consented to their most vulnerable moments being shared with millions of strangers.
In one TikTok, a woman chronicles her grandmother’s aggression, filming as the elderly woman chases her through the house, fists swinging wildly. Other content creators film the verbal abuse that caregivers can experience.
Beth Kallmyer, vice president for care and support for the Alzheimer’s Association, doesn’t think the people posting these videos intend to be exploitative. “You could tell that the caregivers just felt isolated and frustrated and at their wits’ end, with no resources,” she said.
“If I were talking to a family member … considering doing this,” Kallmyer said, “those are the questions I would pose to them: Would they [the person with dementia] be comfortable with this? Is there a way for you to film something that gets the idea across but maintains their dignity?
“Should we have a video of somebody that isn’t fully clothed? Or maybe [before Alzheimer’s] they only went outside when they were dressed to the nines or really put together, and you’ve got them in pajamas or sweatpants or whatever, and they don’t have makeup on. I’m not sure that’s the best way to go about using TikTok.”
Revere has a video that, in retrospect, she now feels ambivalent about posting. It’s the most-watched video on her channel, with 27 million views. In it, her mother is walking around the living room with an open bottle of mouthwash. She somehow got past the locks on the bathroom cabinets.
Lynn Hindmon thinks the mouthwash is a drink, like juice or milk. She looks frustrated and dazed as Revere tries to explain why she can’t drink mouthwash.
With some negotiation, Revere gets her mom to hand it over in exchange for an ice pop.
Some comments on that post call her mom an alcoholic, or say she looked scary. The experience made Revere feel protective — like she needed to be more careful, as she didn’t want to post anything that might put her mom in a bad light. Still, after much consideration, she decided to keep the mouthwash video up. She said it’s a good example of “redirecting” away from a risk — something other caregivers would understand.
On March 9, Jacquelyn Revere posted another video on TikTok, letting her followers know her mother had died. She was 65.
On TikTok, the messages of surprise and condolence poured in.
Revere, an only child, had always assumed that when her mom died she’d mourn her alone. Instead, people were checking in on her, sending her gifts, sharing memories of their favorite videos of Hindmon.
“It’s been the least lonely I’ve ever been throughout this experience, actually,” she said.
Revere has continued to post on @MomofMyMom, talking about what it feels like to miss her mom, and to mourn the life she didn’t live while she was caring for her.
Now she has time to go on dates, get a pedicure, or drive by the ocean.
After six years of caring for her mom, starting when she was just 29, Revere is now trying to figure out who she is now — and what she wants. She knows she wants to stay connected with dementia caregivers.
“I just want them to know that they’re being thought about,” Revere says. “Because that’s what I needed most. Just to know that life isn’t passing me by, and I’m not seen.
“I just want to make sure that they feel seen.”
This story is part of a partnership that includes Michigan Radio, NPR, and KHN.
NPR’s “Consider This” podcast tells the stories of the Markow, Shickel, and Raspe familes. All had very sick infants who died after needing highly technical, very expensive treatment in neonatal intensive care units. Medical bills lived on for each family even after their babies died. “All Things Considered” host Juana Summers spoke to KHN Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber about her reporting on The Cruelest Bills.
As states grapple with the future of abortion in the U.S., Michigan, California, and Vermont could become the first states to let voters decide whether the right to abortion should be written into the state constitution.
In Michigan, a proposed constitutional amendment would override a 90-year-old state law that makes abortion a felony even in cases of rape or incest. The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last month could revive that abortion ban — and has galvanized abortion-rights advocates to secure new protections.
Some of the momentum is coming from activists getting involved for the first time.
“I wanted to do something, but I had no political experience or really any experience in activism,” said Amanda Mazur, who lives in rural northwestern Michigan. “But I thought, ‘Maybe I can volunteer and just offer something tangible to the movement.’”
Michigan organizers like Mazur submitted more than 750,000 signatures — a record number, they said — to state election officials in hopes of having the amendment appear on the November ballot.
If just over half those signatures are validated, Michigan voters will decide whether to amend the state’s constitution to guarantee broad individual rights to “reproductive freedom” that would cover abortion, contraception, and fertility treatments. It would also prevent the state from regulating abortions later in pregnancy if the patient’s “physical or mental health” is at risk.
The ballot initiative has the backing of medical groups like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, while conservative groups have called it radical and dangerous, claiming it would “allow late-term abortions for practically any reason.”
In California, the push to expand abortion access starts from a very different vantage point: The right to abortion is protected in state statute. And voters will be asked whether they want to enshrine it in the constitution. Proposition 1, which will be on the ballot in November, would prohibit the state from interfering with Californians’ reproductive health decisions, including those related to abortion or contraception.
“I want to know for sure that that right is protected,” state Sen. Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), the Democratic leader in the Senate and lead author of the amendment, said at a legislative hearing in June. “We are protecting ourselves from future courts and future politicians.”
The amendment is one strategy that several California lawmakers are pursuing to protect abortion access in the state. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has signed legislation to eliminate out-of-pocket expenses for abortion for most Californians and to protect California providers that offer abortion services from lawsuits in other states. The recent state budget deal also includes $200 million for reproductive and abortion care.
Earlier this month, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, announced that Proposal 5 will be on the November ballot. He said in a statement: “In Vermont, we solidified the right to choose in law, and now Vermonters have the opportunity to further protect that right in our constitution.”
For Mazur, the desire to “do something” started in 2017, when she and her husband gave their daughter, then 2 years old, some happy news: She was going to be a big sister. The family was thrilled.
But then doctors told Mazur something was wrong.
“I found out halfway through the pregnancy that the baby my husband and I hoped for suffered from a rare and life-limiting genetic condition,” Mazur said. “We ultimately made the compassionate choice to end the pregnancy for my well-being, and for the well-being of our family, and the life of what we thought would be our child.”
Devastated, Mazur turned to a national online support group and met people having similar experiences. But many group members said they were having a tough time finding a way to terminate their pregnancies.
“It really broke my heart that you’re going through this already devastating experience but have to travel far away from your home across the country … [and] advocate for yourself like crazy just to get care that you have decided with your doctor is best for you,” Mazur said.
At the time, abortion rights in Michigan seemed pretty stable, but Mazur’s political awakening found an outlet this year.
Reproductive Freedom for All, a petition group backed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, was gathering signatures for the constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion protections in state law. The effort took on new urgency in May after a draft of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked and then published.
“Folks realized that this big, scary thing that they did not think would happen might actually happen,” said Jessica Ayoub, a field organizer with the ACLU of Michigan.
Some Michiganders were registering to vote just to be eligible to sign the petition. Jaynie Hoerauf, a 62-year-old attorney in Farwell, drove 40 miles to attend a rally where she knew she could sign it.
“A bunch of us were so ticked off [about Roe being overturned], and we were talking about it. And I was like, ‘I’m just going to go on and find where I can sign the stupid petition,’” Hoerauf said.
Activists on both sides of the abortion-rights debate expect to spend millions of dollars. They predict that donations will pour in from outside Michigan and that voters in other states will be watching.
“This is just the start of our fight,” Ayoub said. “We know that it is a long road to November.”
KHN correspondent Rachel Bluth contributed to this report.
This story is part of a partnership that includes Michigan Radio, NPR, and KHN.
