This story references child rape, abortion, and descriptions of miscarriages.
Resources related to sexual assault can be found at Rape, Abuse, and Incest National internet, www.rainn.org.
Before she knewwhat a miscarriage was, Hadley Duvall experienced one.
Kaitlyn wearsTanya Taylor dress,Jenny Bird earrings, andJennifer Fisher ring; Hadley wearsTanya Taylor top and skirt, andMejuri ring.
She wondered if this would be it.
Maybe, she thought, shed bleed out.
Shed die right here and then shed be free of this whole mess.
Tanya Taylor top.Jenny Bird earrings.
That could be the best-case scenario.
Down the hall her mother slept soundly.
Hadley wanted to scream to her, to cry for her.
Tanya Taylor dress.Jenny Bird earrings.
Then, what if her mother woke him up?
Tanya Taylor top.Jenny Bird earrings.
Hadley played through the scenario in her mind.
Kaitlyn Joshua wearsCallas Milano coat,Jenny Bird earrings, andJennifer Fisher ring; Hadley Duvall wearsTanya Taylor top and skirt.
Her abuser had guns in the house.
If she woke everyone up, would he see it as a threat?
Would he kill them allher mother, her older sibling, and herselfto avoid the consequences?
Tanya Taylor top and skirt.Jenny Bird earrings.
No, it was too risky.
So Hadley sat, for hours, waiting.
Finally she drew herself a bath, making the water as hot as it could go.
Tanya Taylor dress.Jenny Bird earrings.Jennifer Fisher ring.
She scrubbed her entire body to get rid of the germs, to get rid of it all.
Then she went back to bed.
A few days later she was back at middle school.
She pretended it had never even happened.
But she didnt forget.
Something wasnt right with this pregnancy, she could feel it.
On paper Kaitlyn could not have been more different from Hadley.
But the day after her daughters fourth birthday party in September 2022, Kaitlyn began to feel sharp pain.
Then she began to bleed.
She was nearly 11 weeks along but hadnt yet seen a doctor for this pregnancy.
Thus they have started seeing patients only after thatthreshold is crossed.
Kaitlyn tried to continue working, taking meetings, but the bleeding got heavier and heavier.
Finally she decided to drive herself to the emergency room.
Once emergency room doctors saw how much she was bleeding, Kaitlyn thought, they would help.
At the emergency room Kaitlyn got an ultrasound and learned that her baby had stopped growing weeks earlier.
But the doctors wouldnt use the wordmiscarriage.
Even worse, they wouldnt treat her for one.
But, they said, theyd be praying for her.
The pain grew worse and worse.
Kaitlyn began to pass huge clots.
Sitting there in the bathroom, her daughter in the next room, she was gripped by fear.
Even though she understood what was happening to her, she had very little information.
And the pain was so bad, the blood so much.
So just like Hadley, she worried: Was she dying?
This felt so much worse than what she remembered from giving birth to her daughter.
Was she going to bleed out, right here, next to her baby?
Tanya Taylor dress.Jenny Bird earrings.
It was this fear that spurred her to action.
She couldnt just sit there, not when her daughter needed her to survive.
The next evening she drove to another hospital, where her mother and Landon joined her.
It was the same routine.
She got an ultrasound, explained to the doctors about her bleeding and cramping.
No, these new doctors said.
They could not, and would not, do so.
Besides, was Kaitlyn sure she had actually been pregnant?
Could she have just had a cyst?
Regardless, there wasnt anything they could do for her.
She should go home, they told her.
If the pain was really that bad, she could take Tylenol.
With no other options, Kaitlyn went home.
Eventually the bleeding stopped.
But she didnt forget.
Two miscarriages.Two accidental activists.
For many women across the country, this election is fundamentally about freedom.
Two years afterRoe,its heartbreakingly clear.
Women are struggling, we are suffering, we are dying.
Neither Hadley nor Kaitlyn, both namedGlamourWomen of the Year, chose this path.
They must tell their worst moments to everyone, over and over again, in graphic detail.
For Kaitlyn it was sharing the reality of what had happened to her since her rights were stripped away.
He calls it a beautiful thing.
What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parents child?
Both women are now, in many ways, full-time reproductive justice advocates.
Their DNC appearance was just the tip of the iceberg.
Theyve appeared in national campaign ads; they speak to crowds large and small.
During the fall theyll be appearing across battleground states as part of the campaigns Fighting for Reproductive Freedombus tour.
Why put themselves through this?
Well, both Hadley and Kaitlyn say, its ultimately not about them.
When she thinks about why she does this, Kaitlyn thinks about a little girl, her daughter.
Hadley thinks about another little girl, her younger self.
Its really transformed my life, she says of her activism.
It has allowed so many conversations to be started and had, and honestly that is so special.
And to give a voice to so many who are currently going through that.
Kaitlyns life currently,like the lives of many working mothers, is a balance.
After all, shes juggling a lot.
But then she miscarried.
She felt depressed, bitter, enraged.
How was it right?
How was it fair?
Then, a month after her miscarriage, her twin sister called her.
And I was like, Im not going to do that.
But her sisterlovingly, of coursewouldnt stop nagging her about it, and finally Kaitlyn agreed.
She went to the meeting, where she told her story publicly for the first time.
I talked about how I love this state, but the state doesnt love me back, she says.
After she told her story, a woman approached her.
It was a journalist who asked if she could interview Kaitlyn for an NPR story.
Kaitlyn immediately thought no but went home and talked to Landon about it.
And he talked me into it.
Suddenly Kaitlyn was everywhere.
Local media, more national media.
Then she got a call.
She began to work more closely with them and agreed to be a surrogate for the campaign.
The NPR story aired almosttwo years ago, and the whirlwind keeps going.
Oh, and she was now raising two kids.
In August 2023 she and Landon welcomed their second child, a son.
Kaitlyn wears all of her different hats proudly.
She was calling the storytellers, assuaging their concerns, and trying to convince more women to speak out.
Then theres the work she does off the clock, so to speak, which can be much harder.
Like responding to the messages she gets on social media from women sharing their own stories.
Sometimes they will DM Kaitlyn an obituary.
So those stories are always really hard to read.
Then there are the political attacks.
Hard stop, she wrote.
It was a punch in the gut, one Kaitlyn has turned over in her mind ever since.
How dare you attempt to discredit someones story?
She doesnt love leaving her kids, especially her now one-year-old.
So she has brought him on nearly every one of her trips, along with a babysitter.
Its not a typical family Sunday, but her daughter doesnt seem to mind.
So none of it is easy.
But Kaitlyn keeps going because she knows shes on the right track.
She has never felt more fulfilled than she has this year, fighting for reproductive rights.
Shes not certain what the future holds or what shes going to do past November.
But she knows she needs to keep going.
I know the fire that Im feeling under my feet is not going anywhere, she says.
I finally feel like Ive found my place and my scope of work that I should be working on.
I feel at home here.
I felt like reproductive health care is definitely something that I should have just done a long time ago.
And in a weird way, Im almost grateful for my experience.
So I have a whole new outlook on it and I want to do something with it.
Sometimes her patrons recognize her.
Those who do recognize her can be kind, or not.
Once, a patron didnt speak to her the entire time she served him.
When he left, she saw he hadnt left her a tip.
Instead, on the line where a tip would go, he had written pro-life.
This new notoriety is ironic, because in high school all Hadley had wanted was to be anonymous.
Owensboro and the neighboring town of Henderson are places where everyone knows everyone, and most people dont leave.
They marry young and have kids young, sometimes in reverse order.
Her mother reacted immediately.
She moved Hadley to a safe location and confronted her abuser.
He is now serving 20 years in prison for his crimes against her.
All the conversations and all the talk about it…nobody was really talking from the survivor standpoint.
After his arrest, local media jumped on the story.
People could read between the lines; they knew who his victim was.
They knew what had happened, every last, excruciating detail.
She told them they could ask her anything; they didnt have to tiptoe around her.
But most people didnt talk to her about it.
She punched him in the mouth.
There were heroes in her story too.
I had something I was running from, she says.
A few years later Hadley had much to be proud of.
But she felt adrift.
She was complaining that he was so obsessed with basketball.
Didnt he ever think about everything else?
He responded in an offhand way, telling her, Well, its my passion.
Once you figure out your passion, youll get it.
To both of their surprise, Hadley started sobbing.
IfRoe v. Wadehad never been overturned, would she still be lost?
After reading about the decision in June 2022, Hadley suddenly knew she couldnt stay silent.
Tanya Taylor top and skirt.Jenny Bird earrings.
People were degrading it by saying that the statistics of its so small and everything.
That just made me feel like I was being belittled by so many strangers.
For the most part, people were supportive.
It got a lot of shares, but eventually things died down.
Then, a year later, she got a call.
Hadley said, Why not?
She filmed the video.
In it she speaks directly to the camera, calm, cool, and collected.
She looks like a woman with a purpose.
This is to you, Daniel Cameron, she said.
To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable.
Like Kaitlyns, Hadleys life has never really been the same after that.
So she put her plans on hold.
The dichotomies of her current life are, frankly, pretty weird.
Im still a server, she says.
Its not like I just live a luxurious life, just hopping on a plane, being flown out.
I would say thats hard, because it takes up a lot of time.
Sometimes she feels self-conscious.
But I know what it looks like in a conversation.
Im like, Oh yeah, Im a waitress.
And Im really grateful for that.
Tanya Taylor dress.Jenny Bird earrings.Jennifer Fisher ring.
Kaitlyn and Hadley have both flown in for theirGlamourWomen of the Yearcover shoot and are brimming with excitement.
In coverage of reproductive rights and abortion activists, there tends to be a narrative in the press.
Oh, poor you, people will say.
We are so sorry that happened to you.
She felt so, so powerful.
Its a power that Hadley feels, too, every time she tells her story.
I dont care if it makes you uncomfortable that Im talking about my story, she says.
I dont care if the wordabortionmakes you uncomfortable.
The rape made me more uncomfortable.
So [its about] taking your power back.
Together they stand in their power, hands clasped, shoulders proud.
The camera clicks just as they both break into matching beautiful, radiant smiles.
Photographer:Celeste SlomanStylist:Kat ThomasHair:Brenton DialloMakeup:Misuzu MiyakeProduction:Viewfinders
