When state Rep. Marilyn Lands won her race for the 10th District seat in Alabama in March with 63 percent of the vote, she did not expect to beat her Republican opponent by such a large margin. However, the voting landscape in the state has changed since Lands lost her race in 2022 by 7 percentage points. Abortion is changing the way voters look up and down the ballot.
Rep. Marilyn Lands made reproductive freedom the heart of her winning campaign this year. Lands, who had an abortion two decades ago after genetic testing determined that her baby would not survive, has found that sharing her story has had a profound impact on her relationship with voters.
“Right from the very beginning, this campaign has had a different kind of energy to it. People have shared their stories with me I think because of the fact that my story was so public,” said Lands.
Lands campaigned on abortion in 2022, but said it “didn’t really go anywhere.” She was advised that telling her own abortion story wasn’t necessary—that a pro-choice message was enough. However, this changed when Lands saw 18 women share their post-Roe abortion stories with Dianne Sawyer. Almost all of the women were from Southern states, and one woman, Alyssa Gonzales, from Alabama had a story similar to Lands’.
“When I heard her story, it just was very emotional for me because our stories were so similar,” said Lands. “We both were expecting second sons. We both were very excited about these pregnancies. It was enjoyable for us to be adding on to our family. And then, we both were told we had a genetic disorder trisomy—hers was trisomy 18 and mine was 13. And we both were told that the damage was devastating, catastrophic … that there was no viability.”
“Then both of us were told our lives were at risk,” she continued. “And yet 20 years ago, I was able to get the healthcare I needed in my own community at Huntsville Hospital, with my own doctor who I have known for many years, and Alyssa had to travel 500 miles away to a place she’d ever been before to see a doctor that she didn’t know.”
Emphasizing the difficulty of abortions and the decision to have one, Lands shared an anecdote:
“They’re hard decisions and there’s a lot of grief that goes along with it. Even in my case, I share with people that when my son Jordan was about 4, I would take him to daycare and the daycare was right by the elementary school. there were these two brothers that I would see walking home every day—and the two were holding hands. I wanted that for my family. I wanted Jordan to have a brother. And there’s this parallel life. It’s not there all the time, but at certain moments, like when Jordan graduated from high school. Again, just this is sense of ‘your brother should have been here.’”
Especially after Alabama’s recent IVF ruling granting personhood to frozen embryos was released earlier this year, Lands said publicly telling her abortion story changed her discussions with voters and people in her life.
“I have had close friends of mine reveal stories I knew nothing about. Many people that I talked with at the door or just as I was campaigning would tell me that nobody in their immediate family knew this story, or they haven’t told this story in 30 years,” said Lands.
Right from the very beginning, this campaign has had a different kind of energy to it. People have shared their stories with me I think because of the fact that my story was so public.
Rep. Marilyn Lands
These stories have the potential to change how people vote on abortion. Lands is hopeful that change will come in Alabama, noting that parts of north Alabama have the potential to turn blue after the 2026 elections.
“One of the things that I really saw in this election was that people are starting to recognize that state and local elections really have an impact on their day to day lives and we’re going to see people moving forward voting more thoughtfully,” said Lands.
Moving forward, Lands is hopeful for the future of her state. While she did not expect to win by such a large margin, Lands said, “What I’m most proud of is how many people tell me that this win has given them hope again. So for the first time in a long time, they have hope in Alabama. And I’m hopeful too—both about Alabama and about America, and we are fighting for democracy.”
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