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Austin City Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, her husband Tom Madison and their two girls, ages 9 and 11, take a few minutes to visit with each other—at a safe distance—from the porch of their home in Austin. (Courtesy of Natasha Harper-Madison)
When Tom Madison strode into his college Spanish class wearing his firefighter uniform nearly 20 years ago, fellow student Natasha Harper liked what she saw.
"He didn't know he was interested in me—I had to convince him," the Austin City Council member, who is now Natasha Harper-Madison, said as she laughed.
The two married three years later. And now their tightly knit home is divided by what can only be called an act of love.
Harper-Madison, 42, has lupus and is a breast cancer survivor, putting her at high risk of death from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Madison, also 42, is a lieutenant in the Austin Fire Department, and on every shift he runs calls that could expose him to COVID-19.
Nearly two weeks ago, he moved out. "It was too nerve-wracking," Madison said.
Harper-Madison and their two youngest children, ages 9 and 11, continue to stay at home. Madison lives alone nearby.
When he's not working, Madison strolls over to stand on the sidewalk and talks with his family on the porch. Sometimes they'll ride bikes together, maintaining a safe distance.
Their younger child asks every day when he's coming home.
"I wish I could hug my dad," she tells her mother.
Emergency responders across Austin have been making similar decisions to move into family property, friends' homes and campers in order to limit their family's exposure.
In the Harper-Madison house, the conversations about risk started in February, when COVID-related 911 calls at Madison's job began to ramp up.
Weeks of elaborate measures to limit his family's exposure did little to stem their fears. By mid-March, the virus had spread throughout the community. Testing was scarce. Carriers can show no symptoms. Every call was a risk.
One night, Madison's crew responded to a nursing home where patients were later diagnosed with the disease, his wife said. Another shift's crew was exposed elsewhere and had to be quarantined.
The next morning, in a phone call from the firehouse, the couple decided it was time to separate entirely.
Harper-Madison and the kids packed up Dad's suitcases and left them in the garage. They waved an emotional goodbye from the front door.
"We both decided we would feel like fools if I got her sick and it killed her," Madison said.
Natasha Harper-Madison, busy with City Council, now also finds herself, for the first time, the full-time solo caretaker of two kids.
Madison, for his part, is used to cooking and kid-wrangling. This week, his wife left homemade meatloaf and mashed potatoes for him on the porch, a welcome break from cooking for one. He's learning Tik Tok. They're watching movies together with Zoom.
But they feel lucky because, unlike many other families, he had a place to go when he needed to distance. And in addition to knowing that their actions are helping contain the virus' spread, the couple said, one other thing is keeping them going.
Hope.
"There's got to be an end to it," Madison said. "This can't last forever."
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(Paxton Smith/Instagram)
Paxton Smith’s 2021 valedictory speech at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas wasn’t the same speech she had previously shared with school administrators. She dropped the approved speech and made a case for women’s reproductive rights after lawmakers passed the Texas "Heartbeat Bill.”
Her advocacy made news on NPR, YouTubeTV and in The Guardian. Just over a year later, the “war on (women’s) rights” she forewarned has come to a head as the U.S. Supreme Court voted Friday morning to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protection for abortion access.
“It is up to the people to show up and show the courts and the politicians that we won’t sit back and let this happen,” Smith told Austonia Friday morning. “We will show up, we will fight back. Before, we were scared of them, now they should be scared of us.”
Now a University of Texas sophomore and abortion rights activist, 19-year-old Smith said she wanted to give the same speech in the “the most public way possible” to reach “as many people as possible who don't agree that I deserve this right.”
However, she says the response was “actually overwhelmingly positive” and supportive of her cause. According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
The speech opened up further opportunities for activism: she advocated for reproductive rights at the International Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, interviewed with Variety magazine and spoke to tens of thousands at Austin’s Bans Off Our Bodies protest at the Texas Capitol in May.
Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, a national nonprofit organization that helps fund abortions or medication abortion—like Plan C pills—in all 50 states. Most recently, Smith has been attending protests in Washington, D.C. leading up to the ruling.
“This is land of the free. This is where you get to choose how you live your life,” Smith said. “Overturning Roe v. Wade violates everything that we have come to believe about what it means to live in this country. I think a lot of people aren't willing to accept that this is a human right that is most likely just going to be gone for over half of the country within the next couple of weeks.”
Bracing for the next steps, Smith gave some tips for supporters:
- Find a protest to attend.
- “I would say invite somebody to go to those protests with you, invite a couple of friends, invite people into the movement,” Smith said.
- Talk about the issue on social media—use the platform you have.
- “Have these kinds of conversations where people can just talk about their fears and then find ways to go and advocate for yourself,” Smith said.
- Volunteer at a nonprofit near you.
“I feel like a lot of the reason things have gotten as bad as they have within the abortion rights world is that people are not making a scene, not protesting, not putting the effort into ensuring that the government doesn't take away this right,” Smith said. “I want to emphasize that if you're not doing anything, don't expect the best scenario, expect the worst because that's the direction that we're going in.”
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(Council Member Chito Vela/Twitter)
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, Friday morning. Moments later, Austin City Council set a special meeting for next month to pass a resolution aimed at decriminalizing abortion.
The GRACE Act, which stands for guarding the right to abortion care for everyone, is a twofold plan submitted by council member Jose “Chito” Vela. It recommends that city funds shouldn’t be used to surveil, catalog, report or investigate abortions. It also recommends that police make investigating abortion their lowest priority.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who co-sponsored the resolution along with council members Paige Ellis, Kathie Tovo and Mayor Steve Adler, said the importance of the GRACE Act cannot be overstated.
“By introducing this resolution during a special session, City Council is doubling down on fighting back for reproductive health,” Fuentes said. “Items like the GRACE Act will promote essential healthcare while enabling individuals to exercise their bodily freedom.”
The act takes an approach similar to when former council member Greg Casar moved to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Ultimately, state law doesn't allow city officials to order police chiefs to adopt specific enforcement policies so the resolution would be a request to Police Chief Joe Chacon. In May, Politico reported that Vela is having "ongoing conversations" with Chacon about the proposal.
Austonia contacted Attorney General Ken Paxton for comment on the GRACE Act but did not hear back by time of publication. On Friday, Paxton celebrated the overturning of Roe and announced an annual office holiday on June 24 in recognition of the high court's decision.
In a press release, Vela said the Texas state government has a history of overturning municipal protections of human rights. Thirty days after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Texas will ban all abortions, with exceptions only to save the life of a pregnant patient or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”
Still, Vela expressed hope for the GRACE Act’s longevity. Council’s special meeting on it is set for the week of July 18.
“We know this resolution is legally sound, and Austin is not alone in this fight,” Vela said. “We are working with several other cities who are equally horrified by the prospect of an abortion ban and want to do everything they can to protect their residents.”
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