Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell and forward Brianna Turner usually speak at press conferences after their games. But on Thursday, Aug. 21, they addressed a sea of green.
The color, worn by about 200 attendees at the Ritz Charles in Carmel, is a symbol of abortion rights.
“We’re a league for women, we play across different states,” Turner said. “And our rights change depending on the states we’re in.”
After the Supreme Court overturned the legal right to abortion in 2022, Indiana became the first state to enact a near-total ban. And Indiana continues to be a battleground, with bills introduced to limit some access to certain types of birth control and criminally charge mothers and doctors who perform abortions.
This context is not lost on Liane Groth Hulka, the founder of the Indiana Reproductive Freedom PAC, a group focused on electing candidates who support access to reproductive health care. The organization hosted Mitchell and Turner at its annual fundraiser.
The group conducted a poll among registered voters that found 64% of surveyed Hoosiers believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
“It’s really just a fringe minority of people who staunchly oppose abortion,” Hulka told Mirror Indy. “But through gerrymandering, they control the vast majority of seats in the legislature.”
She pointed out Indiana’s role in Title IX, a federal law that prohibits gender discrimination in education and sports. One of the authors was Democratic U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh.
“This is like the birthplace of women’s equality in sports,” Hulka said. “We have this great Fever team watched by the entire nation. We are so lucky to have these players step on stage and speak publicly.”
Mitchell is a big reason why so many people watch the Fever. Some sports commentators say she’s having an MVP year and she was recently named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week.
During the event, Mitchell shared a personal story involving her twin sister’s experience when they both played college basketball at Ohio State University.
“My sister ended up getting pregnant on the team,” said Mitchell, who also advocates for birth control access through the WNBA’s “Level the Court” initiative. “She was able to get an abortion.”
Later, she directly addressed Fever fans.
“When life happens or something happens to me and I end up getting pregnant, you still want me to be an athlete, right?” Mitchell said. “At the end of the day, I have to go through all these hoops to get the care I need, but you want me to perform.”
Turner also told reporters about supporting a teammate who got an abortion.
“That was obviously her right,” she said. “It shouldn’t be a stigma. It should be something that’s just health care.”
Improving outcomes for Black mothers
The players had a conversation on stage with the co-founders of Navigate Maternity, a local tech company working to make pregnancy safer for Black mothers.
Indiana has the third highest maternal mortality rate, according to a 2022 report from Indiana University’s Public Policy Institute, and Black women here face the starkest disparities in the delivery room.
Ariana McGee, the CEO of Navigate Maternity, expects the outcomes to worsen in the wake of public health funding cuts by Republican Gov. Mike Braun and Indiana lawmakers. That funding had supported maternal health. The abortion ban has also left more people pregnant and struggling to access resources, she said.
“If mothers do not have access to prenatal care, postpartum care and screenings prior to pregnancy, how do we expect women to come into pregnancy healthy?” she said. “We can’t. Preventative care saves lives and cuts costs.”
The company created a toolkit and app that can be prescribed by doctors. Pregnant people receive a blood pressure cuff and digital scale that measures their numbers in real time and shares any abnormalities with their doctors.
So far, about 45 doctors in Indiana have prescribed the tool to their patients, McGee said.
“We have potentially saved over 200 families from heartbreak in our state,” she said.
See more photos from the event below. Click the gallery to enlarge the photos and see captions.
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Mirror Indy reporter Mary Claire Molloy covers health. Reach her at 317-721-7648 or email maryclaire.molloy@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @mcmolloy7.
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