Mindy Rush-Chipman doesn’t remember the attorney’s name, can’t picture her clearly all these years later.
But she's come to realize, in the 25 years since she was a 17-year-old girl on her own, barely making ends meet, in a relationship she knew wasn’t healthy — what an impact that woman had on her life.
The attorney, working as a volunteer, met a young, scared Rush-Chipman at the courthouse, accompanied her to a district judge’s chambers and helped her walk through intensely personal details of her life she’d never disclosed to anyone, that she was now telling a stranger in a black robe weighing her fate.
Nebraska law requires anyone under 18 who doesn't have their parent's consent to get a judge's permission before getting an abortion, a process called judicial bypass. Rush-Chipman left the judge’s chambers that day able to access abortion care, something she knew she needed to do as soon as she realized she was pregnant.
People are also reading…
That she was in an abusive relationship was just one factor.Â
“I was barely supporting myself. I didn’t have access to traditional health care or health insurance. I wanted to further my education. I needed to continue to work the survival job just to survive,†she said. “Ultimately, it was just my decision that I needed to make for myself.â€
That decision — and the role that attorney played in the process — helped set her life on a different trajectory, away from her abuser and poverty to a husband, four kids and a successful legal career.
Years later, she told her husband and children she’d had an abortion, and about the abuse and addiction in her family, but she’d never told anyone else.
Until she did.
She’d thought for months about how important it is, in the fight for reproductive freedom, for women to tell their stories, and for others to hear them.
On her first day as legal director of ACLU Nebraska in March — surrounded by supportive and receptive colleagues — a 42-year-old Rush-Chipman decided it was time to tell her story. Maybe she could change someone’s perspective. Maybe it would encourage others to tell their stories.
“The rights that I utilized 20 years ago are under attack right now,†she said. “And so we’re in this unprecedented time where the decisions that I was able to make for myself and my future and my family might not be there moving forward.â€
She wrote a column for the Journal Star’s opinion page. She agreed to talk to a reporter.
Friday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court — as expected — overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion after almost 50 years.
Rush-Chipman was in a meeting when the decision came down. Her team had spent weeks planning its response and next steps — top among them to remind Nebraskans that abortion is still legal here, to contact their senators, to get involved.
She spent the day finalizing and sending out news releases, executing social media pushes, giving a pre-planned presentation on employment law, attending a rally at the County-City Building.
“Although we had the leaked decision and we tried to be as prepared as possible, it was still shocking, disappointing, frustrating, heart-wrenching. All the emotions,†she said.
And always, on the periphery, forcing its way into the whirlwind of a day, was the memory of her own experience years ago.
* * *
Rush-Chipman was born in Minnesota and her childhood was marked by domestic abuse and her father’s addiction — an addiction that sent him to prison or jail several times and ultimately led to his death by overdose four years ago.
Her parents divorced when she was young, her mom remarried and the family traveled around a lot before landing in Lincoln, where Rush-Chipman went to Randolph Elementary School, Lefler Junior High and Lincoln High.
In high school, she was active — on student council, a cheerleader, in gymnastics. She liked school, but a chaotic home life led her to decide to graduate a year early and move out.
“It was not a supportive or happy environment in my home at that time,†she said. “And so I moved out, kind of flailing, not having a solid place to land and what ultimately happened is a person who was abusive took advantage of that situation.â€
Rush-Chipman met her abuser when she was staying at a friend’s house, sleeping on the couch. She thought he could offer her stability. She was wrong.
Now that Rush-Chipman understands more about the dynamics of power and control, she understands just how abusive he was, but even at 16, she knew it wasn’t a good situation.
She always intended to go to college — she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, but she was convinced education was the path out of poverty.
“It was a goal, but that was about it. A very far-fetched, unclear goal,†she said. “The road was very bumpy and it wasn’t perfect and I had to stop and start, but I always started again.â€
It stopped for a while, when she moved away from home, and in with the man she'd met at her friend's house.
She’d started working at Amigo’s when she was 14 and she stuck with that job. A good friend there had once mentioned abortion during a casual conversation — the first time Rush-Chipman had ever heard the subject mentioned.
When she suspected she was pregnant she turned to that friend. She’s still grateful for her support. The friend took Rush-Chipman to Planned Parenthood, where staffers confirmed the pregnancy and connected her with an attorney. She stayed with the friend for a short time afterward.
Though she returned to her abuser, she eventually left him for good. Breaking the cycle of domestic abuse was hard, she said, and several factors played into her eventually getting out of the situation. She called the police more than once. The support she got when she was pregnant was part of it.
“Now, looking back, I think one of the things, knowing that there were support systems I could rely on, was very powerful,†she said. “You know, there was this pro bono attorney who didn’t know me that was helping me, and my friend, the folks at Planned Parenthood.â€
Getting a better-paying job as a correctional officer at the Nebraska Department of Corrections was another factor, she said, because it allowed her to be more financially independent.
There was another, unintended benefit: it helped set her on a path to becoming a lawyer.
She started working at what was then the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center, then got a promotion to work in the prison library, which was also a law library. She saw so many prisoners, she said, still working through the appeals process. She was struck by how different the sentences were for the same crime, how some inmates had no access to attorneys.
She thought about the attorney who’d helped her. And something sparked. She wasn’t aspiring to be a lawyer just yet, but maybe, she thought, a legal assistant.
She started attending the Lincoln School of Commerce, where she earned a paralegal degree, then got a job at an attorney’s office and went to Doane College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in paralegal studies.
She took the law school entrance exam, and when she got a scholarship, started law school at the University of Nebraska. After her first year, she worked at the Lancaster County Public Defender’s office as a clerk.
By that time, she had a young daughter. She’d been in a relationship with the father when her daughter was born, but the relationship ended.
She met her husband in law school — he was in the Air Force at the time, a year ahead of her. They got married during her last year of law school.
She did a short stint in private practice once she graduated, but she was drawn to work that involved helping those who couldn’t afford it, who needed someone to advocate for them. She worked for Legal Aid of Nebraska and the Immigration Legal Center, then became director of the Lincoln Human Rights Commission. She started work at ACLU Nebraska this spring.
And she has realized, she said, just how much that pro bono lawyer impacted the trajectory of her career — and her life.
“I mean, that was my first experience with a lawyer, right?â€
* * *
Today, Rush-Chipman and her husband have a blended family: her daughter, two of his children from a previous relationship, and a 15-year-old son together. Two of their oldest children are in college, one is joining the military.
For the last decade, they’ve lived on an acreage with a pot-bellied pig named Penelope and a fainting goat. In a nearby small town, they own a junk/antique store they recently converted to an Airbnb.
She knows trauma is part of her story, including the death by suicide of her brother 15 years ago, but that's not the only justification for women making the same choice because all women's stories are valid.Â
“Stigma made it feel impossible for me to share (my story) for 25 years,†she said. “And that shouldn’t be the case. The reason somebody decides to access abortion care is the only reason that matters. To me, anyone else's expectation is inappropriate.â€
Rush-Chipman hopes to find the attorney who helped her all those years ago.
She wants to thank her.
She would tell her how what she did might have seemed a small thing, but it helped put a 17-year-old girl’s life on a different path. She doesn’t know where she’d be now had she not had access to those services, certainly not legal director of the ACLU.
She would tell that attorney that she's the reason she does pro bono work, why she encourages other lawyers to do the same.
“You just never know how that one pro bono act could have an amazing ripple effect in (someone’s) life,†she said.