Soon after Roe was overturned, one Mississippi woman learned she was pregnant

NPR’s Ailsa Chang talks with Bryce Covert about her report on one of the first babies born in a post-Dobbs America and the circumstances his mother is faced with.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Lationna Halbert already knew just how much it takes to raise a child when she found out about her second pregnancy – a pregnancy that she was not ready for, either emotionally or financially.

LATIONNA HALBERT: When I actually found out that I was pregnant, I tried to set up an appointment at the abortion clinic.

CHANG: The only clinic that provided abortions in Mississippi at the time – but she never heard back because that very facility, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, was at the center of the Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade just a month before Lationna found out that she was pregnant.

HALBERT: I was stuck. Like, dang, what do I do now? I can’t do anything now.

CHANG: Lationna carried her pregnancy to term. She had her second son, Kingsley, back in January, making her one of the first people to give birth after being unable to end a pregnancy in the wake of Roe being overturned. Reporter Bryce Covert spent months talking to Lationna about that experience, and she joins us now. Welcome.

BRYCE COVERT: Thank you for having me.

CHANG: So it feels like Lationna’s story is emblematic of what so many pregnant people across the country have faced over the past year, right? Like, can you just tell us a little bit about what her circumstances were when she found out about her second pregnancy?

COVERT: So as you said, she was already a mother. She had a 4-year-old named Royalty. And she and her partner, Kendall, were doing OK. She works at a school district doing IT work. She makes 8.50 an hour, which, for Mississippi, is pretty standard, but it’s not a lot. He is a welder, and so he makes a little bit more. They live in market-rate housing, but it’s pretty expensive. It’s almost $900 a month. They get a little money in food stamps. They get a voucher to cover Royalty’s after-school care. But, you know, they were piecing it together and making it work. But certainly, when she found out that she was pregnant, there was not enough financial stability to welcome a child into their home.

CHANG: Right.

COVERT: They were not ready. There were other things they wanted to have in place before that happened.

CHANG: Yeah, I wanted to ask about that because, even though Lationna did eventually decide to have a second child, she had certain dreams that she wanted to fulfill before all of that. What did she tell you about those plans and dreams?

COVERT: Yeah, of course. Lationna had lots of things in place. You know, she had a job. She has family support. But she knew that she wanted a lot more financial stability. She knew she wanted a lot of things in her life to be different before she had a second child.

HALBERT: I wanted to have a steady, paying job, where I can actually afford a house and not have to rent a house. I could have bought a house. I wanted to have a new car. I wanted to have my son in a better school. I just wanted everything to be better than what it is now.

COVERT: She also had just started looking into going to cosmetology school. She’s been doing hair and makeup on the side for a while and had realized that’s a passion of hers that she really wanted to turn into her full-time career. But just as she was starting to call around to schools, that’s when she found out she was pregnant.

CHANG: Hmm. Well, I understand that Lationna found herself in a position where she was suddenly on the brink of poverty because she went ahead and had this second child. How common is that among people who seek abortions but can’t get abortions – to find themselves in such dire financial straits afterwards?

COVERT: It’s, unfortunately, extremely common. We have past research from the landmark Turnaway Study, where a researcher followed women who both were able to get an abortion or were just over the limit for how far along they were and were turned away. And what she found is that the women who were turned away were nearly four times as likely to be living in poverty. They were more likely to drop out of school. Five years later, they were more likely to be in debt or to be evicted. Their children were more likely to live in poverty. So it’s very clear from that research that seeking an abortion and then being unable to get one can really turn them down a path toward really severe financial hardship.

CHANG: Mmm hmm. Well, since the Dobbs ruling came down almost a year ago, has the state of Mississippi or any other state with abortion bans now in place – have they provided any support services that can help alleviate any challenges that these abortion bans are causing people?

COVERT: There has been some movement, but not a lot. Mississippi did extend postpartum Medicaid to cover up to a year. Before, parents who just gave birth were kicked off after a couple of months. And that happened in Wyoming as well. But in Mississippi, there were 60 bills that were considered to provide more support to either pregnant people or new parents. Most of them died without consideration or without moving forward. Similar things have happened in other states, although there has been some movement in Florida, for example, to expand children’s health insurance and in North Carolina to offer state employees paid family leave. The action that has been considered and moved forward most commonly in these states is tax credits for crisis pregnancy centers, which offer, typically, a lot of misleading information, are run by religious organizations. Mississippi and a couple other states have expanded those tax credits, and that’s gotten the most momentum.

CHANG: Well, I wanted to ask because Lationna’s baby, Kingsley, is 6 months old now. Have things improved for them since you began reporting this story? Is Lationna any closer to reaching the kind of stability that she was hoping for?

COVERT: They are basically in a state of stasis, I would say. You know, they’re housed. They’re getting by. But it’s definitely a struggle, and it’s going to be more of a struggle as Kingsley gets older. She’s starting to have to buy bigger clothes. He’s now in child care. So the expenses are growing, and their incomes are not. And they’re just really trying to make it work.

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