KY’s Hadley Duvall named one of Glamour’s ‘Women of the Year’ for abortion rights activism
Hadley Duvall, whose perseverance after being raped and impregnated at age 12 by her stepfather transformed her into a national advocate for restoring abortion access, was named this week as one of Glamour’s Women of the Year.
Duvall miscarried, but she otherwise would have chosen to get an abortion, calling the alternative of carrying the pregnancy to term “unthinkable.”
The 22-year-old Owensboro native gained prominence in 2023 after tell her story in a campaign ad for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
The magazine named Duvall and Louisiana’s Kaitlyn Joshua together in their own category as two women who both experienced miscarriages and, in Joshua’s case, received delayed medical care during her pre-term labor because of her state’s strict abortion ban.
Both women spoke at the Democratic National Convention about the importance of restoring the full gamut of reproductive rights nationwide.
“Two women. Two miscarriages. Two accidental activists,” Glamour wrote, lauding them for being political change-makers, for having the “willingness to share the most intimate details of their personal trauma,” and for turning “pain into power.”
At the time of her pregnancy, Duvall could have legally gotten an abortion in Kentucky. But with the state’s near-total abortion ban, which became law after the Dobbs Supreme Court decision in 2022, that’s no longer the case.
Kentucky’s current ban does not include exceptions for rape, incest or nonviable pregnancies.
Lawmakers have filed bills to add exceptions in the two year since — including one named “Hadley’s Law,” for Duvall — but the Republican supermajority denied them even a committee hearing.
Naming women across eight categories, Glamour chooses women each year it considers “extraordinary — trailblazers, rule breakers, visionaries and champions.”
Hadley Duvall’s limelight
Duvall first shared her story last September in a campaign ad for Beshear’s reelection bid. In that video, she told her personal story and criticized Beshear’s Republican opponent, then-Attorney General Daniel Cameron, for supporting Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban.
“Anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and incest could never understand what it’s like to stand in my shoes,” Duvall said in the commercial. “This is to you, Daniel Cameron: to tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather, who raped her, is unthinkable.
“I’m speaking out because women and girls need to have options. Daniel Cameron would give us none.”
In a country where 20 states have either banned abortion or restricted the medical procedure earlier in pregnancy than the standard set by Roe v. Wade, Beshear’s reelection ad featuring Duvall catapulted her story to the national stage.
In turn, it buoyed Beshear’s narrative, as a Democratic governor in a deeply red state fighting to restore some amount of abortion access for people in Duvall’s position.
Earlier this week, Beshear was selected for TIME magazine’s top 100 NEXT list earlier this week for his “convincing portrayal of post-partisan leadership.”
The magazine each year spotlights 100 people it sees as “rising stars” across platforms, including in the realm of politics, entertainment, and business. Beshear was among the top contenders for vice presidential nominee, after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris took his place.
After Beshear and Duvall headlined a July event in Nashville hosted by a Tennessee reproductive rights advocacy group, Duvall appeared alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview on MSNBC, and accompanied First Lady Jill Biden at a campaign stop for her husband in Pennsylvania.
That day, the First Lady tweeted a video of Hadley, saying, “Her name is Hadley Duvall, and you need to hear her story.”
Duvall also appeared in a Biden reelection ad before he dropped out of the race, similarly rebuking former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance the way she did Cameron:
“Girls like me are suffering,” Duvall said in the one-minute spot. “Their futures are being ripped away. Trump and JD Vance don’t care about women.”
On Tuesday during the vice presidential debate, Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, also mentioned Duvall by name.
“Hadley Duvall, a 12-year-old child, raped and impregnated by her step-father,” Walz said. “Donald Trump put this all into motion. He brags about how great it was that he put the (Supreme Court) judges in and overturned Roe v. Wade.”
Both Duvall and Joshua have become surrogates for the Harris-Walz campaign, appearing not just in campaign ads and in rallies for supporters, but also joining a bus tour for the Democratic presidential nominees to “barnstorm the battlegrounds on Trumps’ support for abortion bans.”
In December 2022, Joshua went into labor at 11 weeks, but said she was was denied appropriate care at two emergency rooms and had to fight to get the standard of care treatment for a miscarriage like hers, which is a medication abortion.
Duvall told Glamour her activism “transformed” her life.
“It’s so amazing to be able to stand up on a platform and give voice to a younger me, who felt like she was always trying to scream and was never heard,” she said. “And to give a voice to so many who are currently going through that.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2024 at 11:58 AM.
