Post-Prop. 1, let’s wreak some empathic havoc

By Jen Jackson Quintano
Reader Contributor

Despite the striving and storytelling of thousands over the past several years, on Tuesday, Nov. 3, a majority of Idahoans chose not to restore reproductive rights in our state.

Too extreme for Idaho, said opponents of the measure, willing instead to embrace the extremity of our current abortion bans, which are among the most heavy-handed and havoc-wreaking in the nation. Too extreme for Idaho, they said without acknowledging how that term might be applied to the legislative body doubling down on those bans.

With this loss, my heart is broken. Not for the four years we’ve poured into reproductive rights activism — I firmly believe we have accomplished much — but for the people who will bear the burden of this defeat. I ache for pregnant patients in medical crises, for families living in maternity care deserts like our own, for people who find themselves pregnant in untenable circumstances and for the remaining physicians struggling to practice under the weight of laws indifferent to the nuances of their work. 

We are entitled to our despair today and tomorrow. For those who have advocated tirelessly, please rest and recuperate. But at some point, we’ll need to find a way to stand up anew for those who will be most deeply impacted by the continuance of legislated misogyny. The most revolutionary act is to refuse to be defeated after a defeat. 

For those of us with relative privilege — and that’s many of us perusing this paper over coffee today — this moment calls for more than scrolling election commentary and trolling the opposition. The outgrowths of Christian nationalism are a scourge, yes, but we can’t combat them in isolation, on our devices. The real work is in person, in community, caring for one another.

It’s time to think deeply about how we support those in need with our hands and hearts, in real time, rather than leaning heavily on more distant hopes. Community care isn’t a substitute for legal rights, but it can sustain people through the absence of them, on the path to restoring them.

We have the power to support one another through some dark shit. We can gather resources, build connections, share knowledge, find and fund access, and strengthen the networks that will help keep people safe. This could mean pooling money for those traveling for medical care, educating parents on how to talk with their teens about reproduction and consent, sharing sensitive information through trusted channels, providing emotional support to remaining health care providers or delivering groceries to a neighbor in pain. This is called mutual aid, and in mutuality, there is power. It is a different kind of havoc-wreaking, one rooted in care rather than control. And legislative extremism calls for such radical acts of compassion.

Electoral results are not a referendum on the contents of our hearts. They are shaped by money spent, fears exploited and messages repeated. They don’t erase the stories we’ve told, the conversations we’ve had or the possibilities we’ve planted.

And so we must also continue to change the story told about abortion, not ceding it to the realm of binaries and shame, but persisting in carving out space for complexity and empathy. Narrative activism is generational in scope. It moves slowly, one conversation at a time; yet, this pace is not a sign of ineffectiveness. Think of tiny, feather-light seeds from a towering tree and what they can manifest if given a chance.

I know, deep in my bones, that the Prop. 1 battle was just the start of this work, not the end. This defeat doesn’t invalidate anything we’ve done; instead, it demands the patience to continue it.

Join me — tomorrow, next week, next month, follow your heart’s timing, but please join me — in transmuting our grief into tangible acts of moral beauty: speaking vulnerably, advocating courageously, helping whole-heartedly.

When you’re ready, come find me, and we’ll wreak some empathic havoc together.

Jen Jackson Quintano is the founder and executive director of The Pro-Voice Project and author of the forthcoming book A Field Guide to Staying: Fighting for Women’s Rights in Red America, available now for preorder at afieldguidetostaying.com.