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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Megill, 27, founded Haven when the issue of access to abortion was, literally, brought home to her. Having served as hot-line director for the National Abortion Federation in Washington, she'd moved to New York to work as a clinic counselor. (No longer a host, she's now working at a homeless shelter in Montreal and planning to go to medical school.) One day, a desperate colleague called from another clinic to see if Megill would let an out-of-town patient -- who could hardly afford an abortion, much less a Manhattan hotel -- crash on her couch. She said yes that night -- and many, many more. She also began asking other counselors and friends if they'd pitch in.
The person who inspired Megill to make Haven official was a 20-year-old rape victim she hosted who'd been living on and off the Philadelphia streets. "She was very shy. She didn't talk much, just kept her head down," says Megill. "She did say she hadn't been able to sleep because she didn't have anywhere safe; she would always worry about being assaulted again. At one point I said, 'I'm just going down [to the basement] to get the laundry,' and she said, 'I'll come with you.' We walked into the elevator, and she walked into my arms and gave me a hug." Once they talked more, they found out they had much more in common than they'd assumed: minister fathers, a strict upbringing. "In the morning I said, 'Did you sleep?'" says Megill. "And she said, 'I was able to sleep because you were here.'
"I completely melted," says Megill. She gave the woman her address and heard nothing from her for a year. Then a letter came. "She said she was getting her life back on track," says Megill, "and that she would never forget what had happened."
That did it. Megill started posting fliers and calling people to organize meetings. The first meeting, held at a Brooklyn church in May 2001, pulled in five people. Each of them told two friends, who in turn told two more friends, and so on. Then some ink in the Village Voice about the fledgling group "blew the whole thing up," says Megill. "I got a hundred e-mails in a week, people congratulating us and asking where can I send money. I wasn't expecting the public to respond so strongly. I mean, the need is there, and there was something very clear we could do about it. I didn't think of it as a big deal," she says.
She's not being self-effacing so much as describing her feminist philosophy. "I like to talk about the difference between what I call 'theoretical' feminism and 'practical' feminism," says Megill. With Haven, "It comes down to supporting women, not just women's rights. Supporting actual women, flesh and blood."
And Haven is about as nuts-and-bolts practical as it gets. Haven has no office and no overhead -- just a cellphone and a rotating team of coordinators who screen new members and act as liaisons between clinics and hosts. Most Haven members are on call to put up patients (and sometimes their moms, siblings or partners, too). A few make themselves available for rides or to sit with a patient at Starbucks from the clinic's closing time until the overnight host can get there.
"I think of Haven as an underground railroad for women seeking abortions," says Shauna Shames, 24, an early Haven member and coordinator who in 2002 helped double the number of participating hosts. She's now assistant to National Organization for Women president Kim Gandy in Washington. "When I first heard about it, it seemed like the Jane Network that existed pre-Roe [to help women get safe but illegal abortions]."
This comparison might seem peculiar, even high-drama, given that abortion is legal. However, advocates say, there's legal, and there's accessible. With 87 percent of U.S. counties lacking an abortion provider and one-quarter of women seeking abortions traveling 50 miles or more to get them, according to nonprofit research and policy organization the Alan Guttmacher Institute, abortion rights are not even halfway there. As Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt writes in her new book, "The War on Choice," "Rights without access are no rights at all."
Haven is unique to New York, but similar organizations have sprung up to address access issues in other parts of the country. The Women's Health Rights Coalition ACCESS Project in San Francisco helps women with transportation and housing, as do NARAL's Abortion Access Network in Seattle and the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. In Georgia, where 94 percent of counties lack abortion providers, the Volunteer Drivers Network offers transportation to and from clinics (and that's only after patients can get themselves to Atlanta).
