The Year After a Denied Abortion

Tennessee bans abortion in nearly all circumstances. But once the babies are here, the state provides little help. To chronicle what life truly looks like in a state whose political leaders say they are pro-life, I commissioned Stacy Kranitz to follow one woman for a year after she was denied an abortion for a life-threatening pregnancy.

I was the lead project and photo editor for the resulting photo essay, "The Year After a Denied Abortion" that revealed critical gaps in Tennessee's social safety net after banning abortion leaving little support for families once the babies are born.

Among other honors, as part of ProPublica's reporting on the consequences of abortion bans, "The Year After a Denied Abortion" was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, National Magazine Award for Public Interest, Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism, Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Journalism, and the George Polk Award for Medical Reporting.

"The Year After a Denied Abortion" was ProPublica's most read story of 2024, averaging 6 minutes on page across all platforms, and was also awarded Online Storytelling Project of the Year in Pictures of the Year, the Grand Prize and Domestic Photography Award in the RFK Book and Journalism Awards, and was a finalist for Excellence in Visual Digital Storytelling in ONA's Online Journalism Awards and for Excellence in Visual Human-Interest Storytelling in the Scripps Howard Journalism Awards.