ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
One speaker we are anticipating hearing from tonight is Kate Cox. She filed a lawsuit while facing serious pregnancy complications, asking the state of Texas to allow her to legally receive an abortion. Cox is one of several people sharing their abortion experiences at the convention, as NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin is here to explain. Hey, Selena.
SELENA SIMMONS-DUFFIN, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Kate Cox's story caught people's attention around the country. Remind us what she went through and how it's relevant to this conversation about reproductive rights in the U.S.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Well, Kate Cox lives in Dallas with her husband and two young kids. And last fall, when she was pregnant, she was extremely sick, and her fetus had a condition that's almost always fatal. Her doctors said if she continued her pregnancy, it could jeopardize her chance to have a baby in the future. So, as you say, she filed a lawsuit, and the case went quickly before the Texas Supreme Court. The judges there denied her request and said that it did not fall into the narrow medical exception in Texas' abortion ban. So Cox ended up traveling out of state to get an abortion. And she did safeguard her fertility. She announced recently she's due in January with her third child. So she'll be speaking tonight to the convention and a national television audience while pregnant.
SHAPIRO: And last night there were three other women who spoke about their experiences having abortions. Tell us about their stories.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Right. Amanda Zurawski and her husband, Josh, spoke. She ended up in the ICU while waiting to become sick enough to be able to get an abortion in Texas. Hadley Duvall of Kentucky spoke about the importance of abortion access for minors and rape survivors. She got an abortion at age 12 after being raped by her stepfather. And Kaitlyn Joshua spoke as well. NPR first reported her story in 2022. She had a miscarriage and was turned away from multiple hospitals in Louisiana, which has strict abortion laws. I spoke to her this afternoon and asked her what it was like being up on that stage. She said right before she spoke, she got emotional.
KAITLYN JOSHUA: I had tears in my eyes, and I looked out in the audience at my husband, and he could tell that I was kind of about to kind of freak out a little bit. So he kind of summoned me to calm down, just go slow. It's difficult. It's really heavy stuff.
SHAPIRO: Selena, it's so striking that we are seeing these women recount traumas on a national stage and, in doing so, kind of becoming a political force.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Yeah, it's true. The Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago has turned the public face of abortion upside down. The abortion issue used to be a rallying cry for Republicans, but it barely came up at all at the Republican National Convention a few weeks ago. Here, it's being discussed frankly by multiple speakers. I reached Julie Burkhart, who's also at the DNC this week. She's the co-owner of the Hope Clinic, which provides abortions in Illinois.
JULIE BURKHART: I remember the 1990s, and we all danced around the word abortion, which, in retrospect, I don't feel was productive for any of us.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Burkhart was working for doctor George Tiller when he was murdered in Kansas in 2009. She decided to reopen his clinic, so she knows about the risks and rewards of being public about abortion.
BURKHART: I actually felt that talking with the media would make us safer because more eyes would be on us then.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: I asked Kaitlyn Joshua about the toll of being so public about abortion, especially 'cause she lives in the Deep South. She says it is hard to relive what she went through over and over, and there are people who push back on her and her story, which is painful. She told me she was let go from her job recently because of how much time she's been spending traveling around campaigning for Harris. But she feels like she was called to do this work, and she's determined to keep at it.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin. Thank you.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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