Kirke was a student at the time she became pregnant and didn’t have much money. She didn’t want to tell her mother and ask for financial help, so she had to empty her checking account to scrounge together enough money to pay for the procedure. Ultimately, she had to forgo anesthesia because she couldn’t afford it.

Now a mother of two girls, Kirke says she’s already anticipating the body-image issues her daughters will face, but hopes they won’t still be fighting for adequate reproductive care and the right to make decisions about their own bodies. “I would love if, when they’re older … the political issues surrounding their bodies were not there anymore,” she says. “I would hate to see them having to fight for rights.”

The good news is that access to abortion is actually expanding in some states. For most legislators, the goal is to prevent situations such as Kirke’s, where women can’t afford the care they need and have to make do with subpar options or forgo treatment altogether.

Though more anti-choice bills were enacted around the country between 2011 and 2013 than in the previous decade, legislators in states like Washington and Oregon have proposed bills that would require insurance providers to cover abortions as they would any other type of reproductive care. Said Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, in a statement:

Since 1976, millions of women in America who qualify for public insurance have endured government-sanctioned discrimination in access to abortion services. But there is a strong and growing movement underway to eliminate this disparity