Watching political TV, it would be easy to think we live in an extremely polarized society. But the North Carolina I live and work in doesn’t feel that way. For years, I have worked with Down Home North Carolina – first as a member, then on staff, and now as the leader. At Down Home, we organize in our state’s small towns and rural communities. Our work shows us that nothing is black and white. This complexity is captured perfectly in our small towns.
Right now, Down Home members are knocking on doors throughout rural North Carolina. We’ve knocked on over 72,000 doors and had over 13,000 conversations across region, gender, race, and party lines. We are having deep, inquisitive conversations with our neighbors about one of the most divisive and politicized issues of our time: Abortion. What we have learned is rural folks cannot and should not be quickly stereotyped.
North Carolina has the second largest – and second largest growing – rural population in the country: 3.5 million people with different perspectives from all backgrounds and walks of life. Our rural door-knocking conversations are telling us that, contrary to popular belief, the majority of us support abortion access.
We have found that rural North Carolinians of all ages support abortion – not just young folks. They do so in dramatic numbers: Young adults under 25 are nearly four times more likely to support access to abortion than not (236 to 63), and those over age 41 are almost three times as likely (1,467 to 582) to do the same.
We’ve also found that rural North Carolinians of all genders support access to abortion care. More than twice as many men (881 versus 367) oppose abortion bans, while three times as many women oppose bans as support them (1,245 versus 407).
Then there’s religion. Another stereotype is that rural folks are extremely religious and oppose abortion. While many of us are deeply religious, we find that people of faith not only support abortion access, but they also have abortions. I’m Christian and find that my faith calls on me to have care and compassion for all of our neighbors, including those who need an abortion. I’m tired of my faith being used by politicians in Raleigh to push their unpopular and unsafe abortion bans.
Another myth is that rural North Carolina is all White and extremely conservative. Growing up in Alamance County and working at Down Home, I’ve gotten to know rural North Carolina pretty well. Our communities are made up of people from every background under the sun: Black, Latino, White, Indigenous, gay, straight. In fact, there are nearly 14 million rural folks in North Carolina that identify as Black Hispanic or Latino, Native, Asian or multiracial – that’s more people than New York City and Los Angeles combined. North Carolina’s abortion ban is part of an effort to harm and control people of color by preventing them from accessing abortion, and it disproportionately hurts these communities.
As diverse as rural North Carolina is, there’s one thing we all share: we value freedom. We care about having the freedom to make our own decisions for our families – including getting an abortion – without lawmakers in Raleigh making those decisions for us.
I know that abortion is hard. As a birth mother, I know that adoption is hard. I’ve raised children, and know that’s hard. There is no easy choice, but women should have the right to decide which path is best for them.
Misconceptions about our rural communities and how we view abortion and reproductive freedom distort a diverse group of people into a single stereotype. And that’s just plain wrong.
We might come from different backgrounds and our small towns might each have their own character, but in North Carolina, most of us believe in the freedom to decide what’s best for our families. Our state’s abortion ban is taking away that freedom and harming our neighbors, families, and futures. It’s time that we push back against stereotypes and show what rural folks really stand for: the freedom to pursue the lives we want, on our own terms.
Dreama Caldwell is executive co-director of We Are Down Home. This story was originally published in the Daily Yonder. For more rural reporting and small-town stories visit dailyyonder.com.
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2024
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