Yoni Ceramics and “The Writing Was on The Wall”
by
Jaime Cantrell
The Writing Was On The Wall
Dissent is sometimes confused with descent, which is, itself, a homophone of decent. Decency is often determined by one’s conformity to socio-cultural guidelines that dictate acceptable, moral, or respectable behavior. When groups deploy a strategic use of respectability narratives to advocate for specific political outcomes, it is called respectability politics. To willfully dissent from coerced conformity in the context of respectability politics during this unprecedented era of descent or rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at institutions of higher learning across the country, amidst the increase of state-based legislative threats to Women’s, Gender, Sexuality, and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies departments and programs, is, to me, a necessary act of academic freedom.
What follows below is a creative form hybrid that draws on selected personal Instagram posts (2021-2022) documenting my experiences as an abortion clinic escort at Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, Louisiana, leading up to the reversal of Roe v. Wade. These entries are intertwined with newspaper headlines (2023-2025) mapping the landscape of women’s reproductive healthcare in post-Roe Louisiana.
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drjaimita Heat index of 98 and the Christian anti-abortion protestors from Marshall, Texas have brought salt (!!!) to sprinkle across the clinic’s driveway. Purify. Ritual. Blessing. What a surprising bunch of pagans.
August 7, 2021
New Orleans Public Radio (WWNO) — “Louisiana Voters Support Abortion Rights; See Results”
A majority of likely voters in Louisiana support abortion rights and greater access to abortion than allowed under the state’s near-total ban, according to a new poll released Monday. The poll comes as Louisiana’s legislature convenes for the first time since politicians banned nearly all abortions last year, with only narrow exceptions to save a pregnant person’s life or major organ, or in cases that meet a select list of fatal fetal diagnoses. The survey’s results could signal a significant swing in public opinion in this deeply red state in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
April 10, 2023
drjaimita I’m still here.
September 25, 2021
BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana Illuminator) — “Tax Credit Approved for Donors to Louisiana Anti-abortion Centers”
Gov. John Bel Edwards signed a new tax credit for donors to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers into law last week – about a year after Louisiana put a near-total ban on abortion in place.
Donors to the organizations, which have been renamed maternal wellness centers in the state law, will be able to benefit from $30 million worth of income tax breaks that will be issued from 2025 through 2030.
July 2, 2023
drjaimita There’s a tactical advantage to the ethical high ground—cars driving down Line Avenue can see our “We Stand with TX Women” above the counter-protestors. Hope Medical is the nearest abortion clinic to the Texas state line, about twenty miles away at the closest point and 40 miles from the Arkansas border. Solidarity to activists rallying nationwide today in defense of abortion access for patients and legal protections for providers. $upport access funds in Texas: @lilithfund, @janesdueprocess. $upport access funds in Louisiana: @goldsteinfund @neworleansabortionfund.
October 2, 2021
BATON ROUGE, La. (Associated Press) — “Rape, Incest Exceptions to Louisiana Abortion Ban Rejected by GOP Lawmakers”
Republican lawmakers in Louisiana rejected legislation Wednesday that would add exceptions in cases of rape and incest to one of the strictest abortion bans in the country.
May 10, 2023
drjaimita 45 and feelin’ cold out here. #clinicescort
debbie_lynn_hollis Any antis this morning?
drjaimita @debbie_lynn_hollis just the usual drive-ins from TX passing out their “religious literature” bags; hate how they use their own kids and babies to terrorize clients into stopping at the exit.
debbie_lynn_hollis @drjaimita Throwing their kids in front of moving vehicles is SO pro-life.
November 13, 2021
BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana Illuminator) — “Louisiana Legislature Won’t Let Voters Reconsider Abortion Ban”
State lawmakers voted down a proposal Monday that would have let voters decide whether to enshrine the right to reproductive services — including abortion, contraception and fertility treatment — in the state constitution. The House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure rejected with a 10-2 vote a constitutional amendment that would have reinstated abortion access in Louisiana. It also sought to protect people’s ability to obtain birth control, in vitro fertilization and other pregnancy health care.
March 25, 2024
drjaimita Know what she wants for Christmas? Repro-justice! 50% of the total proceeds from my political pussy art pots will go to $upport the @goldsteinfund at Hope Medical Group for Women. An abortion costs $600 at Hope. 99.1% of clients with @fundtexaschoice were referred out of state in the last 70 days. Hope Medical Group for women is the closest abortion clinic to the Texas state line. These ladies still need to be under glazed, fired, drip glazed again, and re-fired, but I’m already so proud of them. Each pussy will have the name of a famous lesbian carved on the bottom, along with my initials, and you can guarantee these hands made ’em with love.
November 15, 2021
BATON ROUGE, La. (Associated Press) — “Abortion Pills will be Controlled Substances in Louisiana Soon. Doctors have Concerns”
On Tuesday, Louisiana will become the first state in the U.S. to categorize two widely used abortion pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, as “controlled dangerous substances.”
September 30, 2024
drjaimita Clinic escorting by the numbers today: 27 or so vehicles in the parking lot over the last four hours, 5 with Louisiana plates, over 20 at any given moment with Texas plates; maybe 2 dozen or so clients appearing in their 20s-40s; women of color and white women; some with partners driving, a handful of solos arriving in Ubers, the occasional duo of best girlfriends, and one parent/older child combo. Understand that because of COVID restrictions, no one can accompany a client inside the clinic, so that form of emotional support and physical comfort ends at the door; roughly a dozen anti-abortion counter-protestors, with the usual Christian crew that drives in from small-town Texas. It’s a family affair; children and teens are led by a core group of young white males in their mid-twenties. They’ll attempt to intimidate clients from the public sidewalk (posted up at the entrance and the exit), screaming: “WE CAN HELP YOU!” “YOUR BABY HAS TEN FINGERS AND TEN TOES” “CAN WE TALK TO YOU?” “CAN WE GIVE YOU A GIFT?” “WE WILL TAKE YOUR BABY!” along with grisly and graphic pseudo-scientific posters of aborted fetuses. There’s even a life-sized cross made of white PVC pipe that boys will take turns parading back and forth on the sidewalk. Their appointed disciple, Jacob, had what looked like a six-month-old baby in his arms this morning, which he used to taunt clients with, raised high in the air over his head for visibility. Who else? Two officers from the Shreveport City Marshal’s Office (compensated by Hope), who never exited their unmarked black SUVs and certainly don’t enforce the 18 U.S.C. § 248 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act (protecting access to reproductive health care clinics) or, for that matter, the numerous violations of Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 14, Section 100.1 (willful obstruction of public sidewalks); a handful of dedicated, impassive physicians and healthcare providers in blue scrubs coming and going from the secluded back door; two clinic escorts in bright pink vests (Kathryn, Melissa, and Tyrrell are usually here on Saturdays, but not today). They never heckle me, but will often vitriolically engage my comrade, Kerry, directly. Kerry says they’re intimidated by me (he says he is too), and I laughed off that remark until today, when he walked around the back for a cigarette, they, as a collective, went silent. This is wild to me, as someone whose power generally manifests in the written word. I’ll never again underestimate the impact of serving a NOT ON MY WATCH look; other numbers, it’s 46 degrees today (way too cold for ya girl), and sadly, I’ve had only 1 cuppa coffee this morning.
December 11, 2021
BATON ROUGE, La. (Associated Press) — “Arrest Warrant Issued for New York Doctor Indicted in Louisiana for Prescribing Abortion Pill”
Grand jurors at the District Court for the Parish of West Baton Rouge unanimously issued an indictment against Dr. Margaret Carpenter; her company, Nightingale Medical, PC; and the minor’s mother. All three were charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony.
January 31, 2025
drjaimita February 6th was my one-year anniversary of escorting at Hope—and I slap forgot. So, here’s me today. This soul of mine is enriched by my comrades down at Hope; our fellowship of fury and friendships keeps me going when news is bleak.
February 12th, 2022
BATON ROUGE, La. (Office of the Governor) — “Governor Jeff Landry Signs Extradition Warrant for New York Doctor”
At the request of Attorney General Liz Murrill and District Attorney Tony Clayton, Governor Jeff Landry has signed the extradition warrant for New York Doctor Margaret Carpenter. A grand jury in West Baton Rouge Parish indicted Carpenter for the charge of Criminal Abortion by Means of Abortion-Inducing Drugs, a violation of La. R.S. 14:87.9(A) and (B)(1), committed on or about April 5, 2024.
February 13, 2025
drjaimita “Court blocks La. abortion trigger law.” (Image of Kerry and me holding up the New York Times newspaper outside the clinic doors.) Heat index between the 8th and 9th circle of hell. The clinic was PACKED today & reporters from NPR and the NYT were onsite; this is big news. Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Robinson Giarruso’s temporary order allows clinics to continue providing abortion services for now. Friends, focus your $upport on abortion access funds in the nearest city with an abortion clinic adjacent to a restricted/trigger law state. Louisiana and Texas women have a stay of roughly 10 days before the district court hearing on July 8th; that window of time is everything for some.
June 28, 2022
NEW YORK, NY. (NBC News) — “New York Governor Rejects Louisiana's Extradition Request for Doctor in Abortion Pill Case”
“I will not be signing an extradition order that came from the governor of Louisiana, not now, not ever,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said.
February 13, 2025
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The conservative majority Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. Three days after the constitutional right to abortion was reversed at the federal level and pushed down to the states, the Center for Reproductive Rights and its partners—with plaintiffs including Hope Medical Group for Women and its longtime director, Kathaleen Pittman—filed a lawsuit in the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans to challenge Louisiana’s “trigger” ban laws. On June 27, just hours after the case was filed, Judge Giarruso temporarily blocked the trigger ban laws; a hearing was scheduled for July 8 and a preliminary injunction was granted on July 21, 2022. Between June 27 and July 30, abortions resumed in the state of Louisiana at Hope, despite Roe’s reversal. On August 1, a state appellate court ordered the district court to lift the preliminary injunction and on August 12, 2022 the Louisiana Supreme Court denied an emergency writ filed on August 4 asking the court to reinstate the preliminary injunction blocking the state’s trigger bans. Abortion access and medical care ended in the state of Louisiana on August 1, 2022. Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, Louisiana closed its doors after 42 years of providing abortion access in the ArkLaTex region.
Artist Statement
Jaime Cantrell is an artist-activist and former abortion clinic escort at Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, Louisiana. In October of 2021, she began hand-building yoni ceramics as a cathartic response to her rage surrounding TX SB8 and the then-ongoing challenges to Roe v. Wade. Her art celebrates the right to women’s bodily autonomy and seeks to bring awareness to reproductive justice advocacy in Louisiana. Since 2021, her work has been featured in the lesbian feminist magazine, SINISTER WISDOM, and can be found at Boxcar Contemporary Gallery on Royal Street in the French Quarter. Her creative process involves carefully mason staining porcelain pieces with rich pigments before trimming their delicate folds in 7k gold luster. This technique allows a through-body color to pigment the entire piece, offering a unique and intricate aesthetic as singular as its subject. Iced coffee-sipper, scone-baker, cat-lover, crawfish-peeler, and garden-grower, Jaime knows what it means to miss her hometown of New Orleans.