We’re in the midst of an incredible surge in antiabortion extremism and clinic violence, with this weekend’s tragic shooting of pro-abortion Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband providing a grim example of the threats facing abortion advocates. Meanwhile, in the wake of state-level attacks on abortion rights, it’s hard to ignore the mental health implications for abortion patients and providers alike. In January, the Trump administration announced that it no longer plans to enforce the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act—the 1994 law that protects patients and staff at reproductive healthcare clinics from harassment and violent attacks from antiabortion demonstrators. Just this month, the House has been discussing repealing the FACE Act entirely, despite the rising rates of clinic attacks in the last three years since Dobbs.
Most news coverage of abortion rights in the United States focuses on the legal battles, and this coverage is extremely important. But the initiative Write and Rights—started last year by college student Iha Rastogi—is working to boost the mental health of abortion patients and providers in the midst of these attacks on their rights by organizing her fellow students to write and send supportive letters to clinics.
“[We’re] specifically using letters to combat harassment and foster solidarity for abortion patients and providers,” Rastogi told me in a phone interview. She is a sophomore neuroscience major at the University of California, Davis, and held Write and Rights’ first letter-writing session last September at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Since then, Rastogi has hosted sessions at universities across the U.S., partnering with groups like Stanford Women In Law, Penn Reproductive Justice, NYU Reproductive Health Action Network and multiple Planned Parenthood Generation Action and U.N. Foundation Girl Up chapters at universities including Brown, Cornell and UNC Chapel Hill for students to write letters on different college campuses. From first reaching out to student groups with cold emails and Instagram DMs, Write and Rights has now sent more than 1,000 anonymous letters from college students at 30 schools to over 20 clinics around the country.
“I feel like there’s a power in the youth voice that doesn’t always get acknowledged,” Rastogi said. “And I really want to foster Gen Z being able to own their voice, especially because we’re the ones that are also the most impacted because we’re the ones who are growing up in this post Roe v. Wade era.”
Even though Write and Rights has hosted letter-writing sessions at colleges around the U.S., the program remains local in its focus. Some students, like a group from Brown University, have chosen to send their letters to clinics in their immediate area to express their gratitude for the services the clinics provide in their college community. Other students send scans of their letters through a form where Rastogi collects them and distributes them to clinics.
“We remind both patients and providers that they aren’t alone, especially because of all the rising rates of harassment and violence against these patients and providers,” Rastogi said.
The need for mental healthcare and community support among abortion patients and providers is real. Research has proven that being denied an abortion harms women’s physical health and mental health, heightening the risk of long-term anxiety and depression. And even women who can still obtain abortion care despite heavy restrictions must face the stress of navigating around restrictive laws—such as traveling to an out-of-state clinic that may itself be under attack—even when they know abortion is the right choice for them and their family.
So far, the clinics have responded enthusiastically to the letters from supportive strangers. “They’ve mentioned how they’ve printed [the letters] out on stationery for patients and for providers to see,” said Rastogi. “And one was even telling me about how they printed out a little booklet for their patients, and they put it in their waiting room so they could flip through the messages.”
Rastogi’s interest in reproductive health started when she was in high school, when she researched menstrual stigma and filmed videos of her interviews with menstrual equity activists. “It helped me see this power of storytelling and being able to be an advocate in your field and being able to talk about so-called taboo topics,” she said. It was the summer after her junior year when the draft of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision and opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked, which is when she started looking more deeply into abortion and violence against abortion providers.
As a current college neuroscience major, Rastogi has studied the psychological toll of adverse experiences such as abortion restrictions (which the landmark Turnaway Study tracked with its research into the psychological, physical and socioeconomic effects of women being denied abortions). Abortion access varies across geography and identity; for example, Black women are the most likely demographic in the U.S. to get abortions, but it’s also much harder for women of color to obtain abortion care because of systemic barriers.
At the same time that more and more abortion clinics are closing, abortion providers and clinic workers are also facing a rise in threats to their physical safety as they work to care for a swelling volume of patients, including those from out of state and people whose local clinics have shut down.
The ever-increasing stress and pressure on providers and patients prompted Rastogi to start Write and Rights’ letter-writing campaign.
“I wanted to create something that could address the emotional side of this issue, and something that could offer human solidarity,” she said. “And also, because I’ve noticed people already write letters to patients in the hospital. But I was like, why aren’t people writing to abortion patients? And I realized maybe it’s because abortion is so stigmatized, but [abortion patients] also have emotional needs that need to be addressed.”
As of now, Write and Rights has operated mostly through student groups, but Rastogi hopes to expand the initiative and create a website where anyone, not just college students, can submit a letter of support. Write and Rights’ online form is currently accepting submissions. Rastogi has created guidelines for letter-writers that emphasize compassion and nonjudgment, asking people to avoid triggering language that could retraumatize the patient. She also suggests that people leave identifying details about themselves out of their letters to avoid becoming targets themselves for antiabortion hate.
“An abortion is such a personal choice,” Rastogi said, “but being able to have that support, even from a stranger, I’m sure it means a lot.”
Supporters writing letters to abortion patients or providers can send scans through Write and Rights’ online form or follow Write and Rights’ work on Instagram.
