"What Can I Even Say Without Having to Go to Jail?”

The end of Roe has hamstrung advocates for pregnant victims of sexual and domestic violence.

When Heather Williams, an advocate, gets a call from the local hospital, she has to drop whatever she’s doing and go...But one day last year, she encountered a new challenge: For the first time in her three and a half years on the job, Williams watched as her client got the news that she had become pregnant after being assaulted by her ex-partner. 

If Williams didn’t have to worry about the consequences, she might have told the woman where else she could still get a legal abortion, or referred her to a local reproductive rights organization that could provide more information. 

But she hadn’t even researched where abortion is still legal, because she was afraid of saying something that would put her at risk, given that her state has also made “aiding and abetting” an abortion illegal—though it’s unclear what, specifically, that means.