She wanted an abortion. Now, she has twins.
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2022
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After Brooke Alexander learned she was pregnant last August, she and then-boyfriend Billy High initially wanted an abortion. Just 18 and 17, the pair had been dating only a month. But Brooke and Billy live in Texas, where a state-wide abortion ban prohibited the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy. Brooke was too far along, and this past spring, she gave birth to twins.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade Friday, ending the constitutional right to an abortion, it set off a cascade of abortion bans and restrictions. That means that more Americans are now facing the same conundrum as Brooke and Billy.
National political reporter Caroline Kitchener recently spent a week with Brooke and Billy, to see how parenthood had upended their lives in ways they couldn’t have predicted. As we navigate a world without the protections of Roe, they give us a preview of what could be in store for other people who could be pushed into parenthood.
Read more:
Read Caroline Kitchener’s profile of Brooke and Billy and see pictures of them and their twins here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I mean, I've been here a lot for work. |
| 0:11.0 | And I last month, Washington Post reporter Caroline Kitchener spent a week in Corpus Christi, |
| 0:17.0 | Texas. |
| 0:18.0 | She was with a pair of new parents, Brooke Alexander and Belie high. |
| 0:25.0 | Brooke is 18 years old. She's got blonde hair that's like really tight ringlets and she often |
| 0:32.0 | pulls it together with a ribbon. |
| 0:34.0 | It looks so cool when they're in the same house. |
| 0:36.0 | Brooke had recently given birth to twin girls, Kendall and Olivia. |
| 0:41.0 | So I was in the bedroom with Brooke and it was about 10.30 at night. |
| 0:47.0 | Belie works every day from 5 to 11 and so we were waiting for him to get home in his bedroom. |
| 0:55.0 | And their baby, Kendall, she had been on her back and then Brooke looks over and all of a sudden |
| 1:03.0 | she's on her stomach. |
| 1:05.0 | Damn, that was really cool. |
| 1:08.0 | Really exciting. |
| 1:10.0 | And Brooke just gasped. |
| 1:12.0 | She had blue eyes, she was going to remember the birthday and I can't believe she did it. |
| 1:19.0 | Amazing. |
| 1:20.0 | I wish we would have seen it. |
| 1:27.0 | You know, Brooke told me the hardest hours for her were the ones where she was alone, you |
| 1:33.0 | know, waiting for Belie to get home because she doesn't really see any other people. |
| 1:38.0 | And they live with Belie's dad and Belie's stepmom. |
| 1:43.0 | But Brooke doesn't want to get in their way. |
... |
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