The small town of Clarkston where Jasmine lives is located in Washington, where abortion is legal. Had she been aware of a clinic close by where she could have accessed services in that first 24 hours, she says, she would have done it without question.Ĭhoices about abortion in the region can be influenced by practical constraints where urban centers straddle state borders. She doesn’t have much time for politics, but Jasmine believes there’s a place for abortion. “We’re having a baby,” she said to Jasmine. She took it standing in the bathroom with her best friend, who looked first. Photograph: Margaret Albaugh/The Guardian Andrew comes every day with his wife to watch their grandchildren while Jasmine goes to work, and then goes to his own job. Jasmine was done.Īndrew, Jasmine’s dad, sits in the dining room. It had been 11 years of this kind of abuse. Her call to the police set the legal system in motion: a no contact order, charges of assault, stalking. Jasmine fled with her children to her parents’ place. This is what other parents do to their kids, she thought.

From the bedroom, she could hear them crying. The children were feet away, in the hallway. He became violent – according to a police incident report, he threw Jasmine on the floor and strangled her to the point of almost losing consciousness while saying he was “going to kill her”. That weekend, they were on an especially bad meth bender. They have both struggled with substance abuse. Weeks before, she’d been assaulted by her partner. Jasmine found out she was pregnant in the summer of 2022, just weeks after the supreme court overturned the federal right to an abortion. Photograph: Margaret Albaugh/The Guardianįor women like Jasmine across the country who are making this same choice in a quickly shifting cultural and legal landscape, the decision can be complicated by factors beyond simply what the laws permit. Jasmine, 28, is raising four kids in far eastern Washington, near the border of Idaho. “Then grandpa would never get up,” he teases.ĭespite the sacrifice the situation demands of her family and how deeply tired and often lonely Jasmine is at the end of the day, she sees this last baby as a positive force that helped her stop using drugs and focus on her priorities.īut had abortion seemed a more accessible and supported choice in this small American town during a few critical days early in her pregnancy, her life might have taken a different course. “I’m thinking, like, a really nice recliner,” she says to them. Jasmine fantasizes aloud about what she would buy her parents if she had the money. “You know I’m gonna take care of my kids,” says Kelli, 52, as she bustles around collecting her things to leave after watching the baby for nine hours. Many weeks he gets by on 11 hours of sleep – total.

Most nights, her dad, Andrew, 52, finishes his swing shift as a janitor at the hospital around 1am, sleeps a few hours, and then rises again at 4am so he and his wife can watch their grandchild all day. Without her parents stepping in to help, she’d struggle to hold down her job at a factory.

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