After Roe, the network of people who help others get abortions see themselves as 'the underground'
A makeshift national network of abortion doulas, navigators at clinics and individual volunteers are helping people who live in restrictive states and need or want an abortion
NAMPA, Idaho (AP) — Waiting in a long post office line with the latest shipment of “abortion aftercare kits,” Kimra Luna got a text. A woman who’d taken abortion pills three weeks earlier was worried about bleeding — and disclosing the cause to a doctor.
“Bleeding doesn’t mean you need to go in,” Luna responded on the encrypted messaging app Signal. “Some people bleed on and off for a month."
It was a typically busy afternoon for Luna, a doula and reproductive care activist in a state with some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. Those laws make the work a constant battle, the 38-year-old said, but they draw strength from others in a makeshift national network of helpers — clinic navigators, abortion fund leaders and individual volunteers who have become a supporting cast for people in restrictive states who are seeking abortions.
“This is the underground,” said Jerad Martindale, an activist in Boise.
