“In the End We Will Win”: The Faces of the Fight for Abortion Rights

CAITLIN BERNARD, MD

Physician, Indiana

Tattooed on Caitlin Bernard’s left foot is the image of a coat hanger and the words “Trust Women.” The 38-year-old Indiana-based ob-gyn got it years ago; it was intended as a reminder of life before Roe v. Wade. Bernard has long paired her medical career with advocacy. She was a plaintiff in an unsuccessful 2019 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit to reverse Indiana’s near-total ban on second-trimester abortions. Post-Roe, Indiana became the first state to pass an abortion ban. Now, Bernard is girding for another legal fight—this time against Republican Indiana attorney general Todd Rokita, who she says maligned her practice as Bernard became a lightning rod in one of the most publicized cases after the Dobbs decision stripped federal abortion protections and turned the country into a patchwork of disparate laws.

Bernard is the doctor who gave a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio an abortion and spoke to The Indianapolis Star about the devastating case. Overnight, Bernard was forced into a glaring spotlight, a martyr to one side and a villain to the other. “It was very scary, not knowing exactly what was going to happen; not knowing if this was going to impact my ability to continue working where I work; my ability to continue seeing patients,” she says. “And certainly I was scared for my personal safety, for the safety of my family.”

For weeks, conservative politicians and members of even mainstream media sowed doubt that such a victim even existed. On national television, Ohio attorney general David Yost said his office hadn’t heard a “whisper” about the case. The Washington Post turned a suspicious “fact checker” on the story. Then The Columbus Dispatch reported that 27-year-old Gerson Fuentes confessed to police that he raped the girl on at least two occasions. As the truth sank in where it hadn’t before, ire shifted to Bernard. Rokita opened an investigation, claiming the doctor had failed to report that abortion and others to the state (official records show otherwise). Bernard cried defamation.

“The amount of work that we have to put in for each individual patient to be able to get the care that they need is really tremendous,” Bernard, who previously worked in Missouri before joining Indiana University, says. “That’s what people in all of these abortion-restrictive states face—a mountain of hurdles just to try to get basic health care for their patients.”

Even as she has faced threats—she had to hire security—more than fear, Bernard feels exhaustion. “We’re already having such a difficult time trying as hard as we can to take care of as many patients as we can,” she says of both working in Indiana and in Missouri. “It really solidified my understanding of how important it was to have providers in those states, and not just providers of abortion access, but also providers of whole reproductive health,” she says. “People sometimes ask, why do we become advocates; why is advocacy part of our job? And the reality is that we would all prefer to just be able to take care of our patients,” she says. “That’s why we became physicians.” —AT

FATIMA GOSS GRAVES

National Women’s Law Center president, Washington, DC

“It was shocking to see those words on paper,” Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, says of the Dobbs decision. She sees the country grappling not just with a public health crisis but a legal one too. “The deep reliance on the norms of 1865, a time where women in this country were not allowed to vote, weren’t allowed to own property, weren’t allowed to even practice law—those were the norms that had to guide a decision in 2022.”

Goss Graves, a longtime gender justice advocate and cofounder of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, took over the NWLC in 2017. A graduate of Yale Law School, Goss Graves, 46, cut her teeth clerking for Judge Diane Wood of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and as a litigator before establishing herself as one of the foremost voices on women’s and gender issues. Though she’s been sounding the alarm for years, the fall of Roe hit Goss Graves hard. “I, on the day of the Dobbs decision, found myself feeling like I had been punched in the gut,” she says. “I knew how many people were terrified for themselves. And I know how deeply personal abortion is—whether people tell their abortion stories or not. Everyone has one.”

Goss Graves operates alongside DC power brokers and often testifies before Congress and federal agencies. In the aftermath of Dobbs, her organization has worked closely with the Biden administration, which was criticized for appearing flat-footed in its response to the highly anticipated ruling. Among the NWLC’s recommendations was for the Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance to physicians on providing abortion care in emergency cases, which was adopted in July. “We will continue our advocacy for a focused effort both publicly and quietly, including toward the White House and, importantly, across agencies,” she says.

The path forward is unclear, Goss Graves says, but the goal is to amend the Constitution to enshrine the protections Roe had provided. “Our ultimate North Star is that abortion should be available and accessible to all who want it,” Goss Graves says, whether that means deploying an existing network of lawyers to give legal advice to health care providers and individuals, or educating businesses on their powers. A critical piece of the puzzle, Goss Graves explains, is working to destigmatize abortion—“turning it into something shameful has been a successful tactic by those who want to continue to oppress,” she says. She’s also looking ahead to future battles, like the right to contraception.

“I have been, in these last few months, watching our legal system absorb this shock on top of the individuals,” Goss Graves says. “And lawyers like certainty, right? When you’re in the business of building your advice on past practice and precedent, you like certainty. And so we’re also in this situation where our very foundations that have undergirded the rule of law, that have sort of allowed us to feel very stable around the advice we give around what the parameters are, all of that also feels fragile and not secure.”

“What I know is that in the end we will win. And so the question is just gonna be, you know, what is the timetable? When does it happen?” —AT

KATHRYN KOLBERT

Retired reproductive rights attorney, Pennsylvania

The scene outside the Supreme Court was chaotic as media crews, reporters, and activists awaited a landmark decision. Kathryn Kolbert, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who had argued the case on behalf of abortion providers and clinics, was bracing for the worst. But in a shocking turn, three justices appointed by Republican presidents—Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor, and David Souter—tipped the scales in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It was June 29, 1992. Roe v. Wade stood.

The only inclination Kolbert had received that perhaps she might prevail came from one of the opposing counsel, Kenneth Starr. As Kolbert recalls it, he said, “The Court of Appeals has been vindicated”—a hint that he had “obviously seen the opinion and it wasn’t as I expected.” But it was significant. “The reality is we still had legal abortion for 30 years as a result of Casey,” she says.