The day I found out I was pregnant, I saw all over Facebook that Texas was going to be shutting down the clinics. I thought, I’m not going to be able to have this abortion. I thought that I didn’t have a choice—I was going to have to just live with it. It was very scary because I couldn’t tell anybody. I was trying to get as many hours of work as I could.

It was also scary because of everything going on. Everything was closed. I wasn’t making enough money. The restaurants were only giving me ten hours a week, so I couldn’t make enough to support myself. I was scared I would get COVID-19 because I was pregnant. I didn’t have a car, so I had to walk in the heat. No transportation, no work—I couldn’t meet my basic needs.

Read the full EHRP-supported essay in Cosmopolitan.

Anna Louie Sussman is a New York-based journalist covering gender and economics. She is currently working on a book about reproduction.