Ohio to France

This past August, the 2024 cohort for OWA’s Reproductive Justice Table launched its Reproductive Justice campaign to educate and advocate for comprehensive sex education, maternal healthcare, and important policies of reproductive care leading up to the U.S. Presidential election. As a member of the 2024 RJ Table, I collaborated in developing this campaign with other table members; however, my involvement looked a little different. I spent four months abroad in Nantes, France—a major city renowned for its artistic and cultural exchanges, and its augmenting influence on the political landscape of the entire country. The mission to protect every individual’s bodily autonomy and rights to reproductive freedom is worldwide, and I experienced this firsthand with various French advocacy groups, such as the Simone Veil Center in the heart of Nantes’ largest hospital. 

The Nantes University Hospital Center (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nantes, CHU) is the primary medical system that serves the city of Nantes and more than 1,000,000 of its inhabitants. In December, I had the opportunity to speak with Virginie Badon, a clinical researcher and licensed midwife who serves as a director at the Simone Veil Center, a specialized advocacy and service center within the hospital that provides gynecological treatment, sexual health and contraceptive resources, and abortion care to the Nantes community. The center is named for a woman who spearheaded the fight to legalize abortion in France. Badon explained that she’s spent the last 20 years doing similar work to that of OWA within her region of France, and she felt inexplicable épanouissance (fulfillment) in March 2024 when France became the first country to explicitly protect abortion in its constitution. She continues to support both her medical and advocacy teams at the Simone Veil Center as they expand into educating at more community events around Nantes, such as the local university’s annual winter festival. 

Although the specific legal and cultural contexts of the fight for reproductive freedom differ significantly in France and the United States, there’s no denying that this is an international concern. Spending four months in France definitely changed my life, as well as being a part of the RJ Table for nine months, and both of these experiences have encouraged me to continue this mission.