‘I became the abortion lady of Mississippi’: the mother of seven who devoted her life to the pro-choice cause

‘They would say to me I should be very grateful that my white mother decided to have me, because she was pregnant with a black man’s baby.’ Laurie Bertram Roberts in Jackson, Mississippi. Photograph: Bethany Mollenkof

When Laurie Bertram Roberts was 17, she was sent home from hospital and almost bled to death. Pregnant and experiencing bleeding, she had gone to the emergency department of her nearest hospital in Indiana twice, and was told she was miscarrying, but, because a scan showed the foetus still had a heartbeat, she was also told there was nothing they could do. What she needed, in order to end a pregnancy that was ending anyway, was an abortion – but she says the Catholic hospital would not provide one. “They had the power to end my pregnancy right there, when I was already bleeding fairly heavily, in a tremendous amount of pain. Instead, they sent my scared 17-year-old self, a mother of two already, home.”

There Bertram Roberts collapsed. She closes her eyes, visualising the scene. “I remember what it feels like to think you’re dying. Laying on the floor, in my mom’s kitchen, I passed out.” She was taken to hospital to have the emergency procedure that she could have had earlier.