Editor's note: This story contains an account of sexual abuse.
Hadley Duvall’s stepfather began abusing her when she was five years old. Seven years later, he impregnated her.
"I remember standing in my bathroom as a 12-year-old girl holding a pregnancy test and feeling deeply afraid, and the first thing I heard was 'you have options'," she said.
The Kentucky native, now 22, visited Scranton Tuesday afternoon to rally voters around the stakes of reproductive freedoms this presidential election during a Women for Harris-Walz happy hour at Voodoo Brewery.
Duvall is part of the Pennsylvania leg of a national "Harris-Walz Fighting for Reproductive Freedom Bus Tour." The bus will make 50 stops across the country, hitting battleground states. It started on Sept. 3 in Florida.
Duvall stepped off the big blue bus to tell a small crowd her story — one she’s been repeating since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
She says now other young girls and women in her position don’t have options. Vice President Kamala Harris’ Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, took them away.
"Every time Donald Trump brags about the overturn of Roe, it's personal," she said.
The U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 landmark decision ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion.
Kentucky is one of 14 states that began a total ban on abortions after Roe was overturned. Abortion remains legal in Pennsylvania.
Trump has said he was instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade. And he has repeatedly called for leaving abortion policy to the states.
Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti said the city is traditionally conservative Democratic area steeped in the Catholic faith. A place where, in the past, you wouldn’t talk about reproductive rights and all that comes with it.
"This is a conversation that we've been needing to have for a long time, and it's a conversation that has opened up, I think, for women of all ages, talking more, not just about childbirth or having a hard time having a child, also stories about menopause and all these things that have been taboo for so long," she said. "But I really think, I don't think the Supreme Court meant for this.”
Virginia McGregor is treasurer of the Democratic National Convention and national co-chair of Women for Harris. She also spoke, alongside state Rep. Bridget Kosierowski, a Democrat. Two anti-abortion protestors held small signs outside the brewery's window.
McGregor fears with Roe v. Wade overturned that access to contraception could become limited, that marriage equality could be erased.
"We, the women in this room and men in this room are not going to let that happen, because Pennsylvania is going to decide this election, and we are the messengers," she said.
Kosierowski said Donald Trump could repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicare if reelected.
“We know, in a second term of Trump ... it would be much, much worse," she said.
The speakers, including Duvall, discussed how devastating the proposed Project 2025 would be for women's rights. Trump has distanced himself from the conservative policy agenda with ties to the Heritage Foundation. The plan calls for restructuring the country's entire federal government, as well as restricting reproductive rights and eliminating marriage equality, among other recommendations.
When Duvall first shared her story on Facebook, she was shocked at how many people in her Kentucky community didn't understand what the Dobbs decision — the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — meant for women and girls like her.
“To this day, that post is the most important thing I've ever done. It took me time to find my voice, and it's not easy, but doing so has never been more important," she said.
Duvall is a first generation college graduate — because she had options.
“I'm somebody now who would save younger me ... if younger me can take the abuse, then I can do this part," she said.
The bus tour is heading to Harrisburg then Pittsburgh.
For Duvall, though, it doesn’t matter what state lines she crosses while spreading her message.
“I'm still a survivor. Being in Pennsylvania doesn't change that," she said.
