Makayla Montoya Frazier found out she was pregnant right around her 19th birthday. She’d recently moved to San Antonio, Texas, where she lived with her grandparents, found a job, and had finally started to make space between herself and her tumultuous childhood. If she knew one thing for certain, it was that she wasn’t ready to be a mother.
The year was 2018, and the Supreme Court had yet to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had protected legal abortion nationwide. Still, even in a landscape friendlier toward abortion access than it is today, it took Montoya Frazier a month after learning she was pregnant to get an abortion.
In this Teen Vogue feature, writer Dina Gachman retraces the steps Montoya Frazier took to access an abortion, from a misleading pregnancy center to challenges affording the procedure. Now, with abortion access across the country drastically limited, the clinic where Montoya Frazier got her abortion is closed; the doctor who performed the abortion fears for their safety; and Montoya Frazier wonders what the future will be like for girls like her, living in states where abortion will likely be virtually banned.