Claire Tighe | Pavement Pieces

Abortion Access Hackathon offers crucial tech skills to providers and advocates

Participants of the Abortion Access Hackathon, a three day, woman-dominated event hosted at Buzzfeed office in Gramercy Park. Photo by Claire Tighe

In the waning light of yesterday evening, 100 hundred participants of the Abortion Access Hackathon typed away on their laptops at Buzzfeed’s office in Gramercy Park. But this was not your typical fast-paced coding event competition, inspired by the tech bro culture of Silicon Valley.

Instead, the Abortion Access Hackathon facilitated collaboration between two groups who rarely ever meet: abortion advocates and technology experts. Together, teams did not compete for the best idea, but collaborated to build projects — like basic websites and databases — that would increase access to abortion.

The idea for the Abortion Access Hackathon originally came from Shireen Whitaker, 33, one of the event organizers from Sacramento, California. While working at an abortion provider, Whitaker’s team had decades of experience in the field but little knowledge about how technology could advance their work. She and another organizer of the hackathon, Emily Loen, 36, of Northern California, started to look for tech experts who would donate their expertise to the organization.

“Pretty much all of the people who worked (at the provider) had worked there since the ’70s when it started,” she said. We were the only ones who knew how to do anything digital or tech-related. We needed tech intervention from experts but didn’t have the resources to pay for it.”

Whitaker’s experience is a common one. Underfunded and understaffed, many abortion clinics and advocacy organizations do not have enough money or paid staff to engage software designers or engineers, whose expertise is often costly.

Dan Staples, 32, an engineer from Baltimore, Maryland, who works at National Network for Abortion Funds (NNAF), said the hackathon helped many groups for which basic technology, like a working website or database, is usually inaccessible.

“NNAF works with 70 local and regional abortions funds, many of whom do not have any paid staff and all have very limited budgets. Hiring tech consultants, web designers, and app developers is out of reach for them,” he said.

But the introduction of basic technology, such as a working website or searchable database, can make a crucial difference in the work of abortion providers, advocates and clients.

At this weekend’s hackathon, one of the teams improved the visuals on a website called ExposeFakeClinics.com. The website, which includes a short form that visitors can fill out detailing their experiences with crisis pregnancy clinics, was fairly basic. But it could save advocates hours of precious time in finding a provider when working with a patient for whom every minute counts. For a small nonprofit or provider’s office to code such a website without the expertise of an engineer would have been arduous and time intensive, if not nearly impossible.

“People who work in abortion care are very busy and their focus is client care,” said Wendy Robinson, 73, a board member at Abortion Conversation Projects from Western Massachusetts. “They don’t have hours to be Google searching. The small things make a big difference.”

The New York City Abortion Access Hackathon was preceded by two eponymous events earlier this year in California. For the organizers, engaging the unique creative and technology in New York City was tantamount.

“After our event in March, people kept saying, ‘When are you coming to my town?’ New York City is unique in that everyone in the abortion world (here) talks to each other, Loen said. “But I don’t know if they were talking to tech. We are here to modernize abortion access. Bringing people with an incredible amount of knowledge on the subject matter along with tech folks is the easiest way to make that happen.”

Loud bells, quiet remembrance for the victims of 9/11

Located in the cemetery behind St. Paul’s Chapel of Trinity Church, the Bell of Hope is rung annually in honor of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Photo by Claire Tighe

Amid the din of construction, sirens, and car honks, the bells of Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan tolled majestically this morning in honor of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Few passersby seem to notice except for a small group of visitors gathered in the cemetery of St. Paul’s Chapel in the church for the annual ringing of the Bell of Hope.

In the weeks and months after 9/11, Trinity served as a safe haven for rescue workers, volunteers and mourning community members. The church, which sits directly across from ground zero, suffered little damage during the attacks.

“One hundred yards away, when the towers came down and the mushroom cloud destroyed the surrounding area, the oldest freestanding building on Manhattan — St. Paul’s — and its steeple was still there,” said David Sommerville, 74, an Episcopalian minister from Brunswick, Georgia. He volunteered at the church after the attacks.

Sixteen years later, the crowds have thinned, but the church continues its tradition of holding space in remembrance of that day and months following.

“I’m here for the memories of grieving that were ministered to me on that morning,” said Sommerville. “In the Episcopal church, we have a theology that says, ‘We know who we are because we remember. We know ourselves by our memories.’ I’m here helping keep memories alive. It’s like that famous quote, ‘If we don’t remember the evil things that were done, we will repeat them.'”

Reverend Doctor William Lupfer, the church rector, rang the bell in four strikes of five, the tradition of a New York firehouse bell code used to mark the death of a firefighter. After the ceremony, church employees, ministers, and security outnumbered their visitors. Two firefighters and one accompanying family member paused for a moment of silence inside the chapel. One guest lit a candle before taking a seat to pray. A few tourists paused in front of the permanent 9/11 memorial, spending a mere few moments with the memorabilia. Teddy bears, badges of fallen fighters and police officers, and a church volunteer’s notebook were among the items selected to represent the snapshot in time.

Fabien Taclet, 32, a tourist from France, said that although the crowds were thin, the attacks changed the world.

“I lived in London at the time and remember that the attacks marked a new era in which no one was safe anymore,” he said.

Outside the gates of St. Paul’s Cemetery, Gage Pullmeyer, 17, from Lincoln, Nebraska, paused aside a throng of people emerging from the subway. He used his phone to take photo of the new One World Trade Center building.

“I was only one at the time, but it was America’s greatest tragedy,” Pullmeyer said. “I wish I was older so I could remember. I think remembering makes us stronger. We are all so separated nowadays and there is so much hate going around. 9/11 was about hate, so this is bringing us together as a country. It’s important to reflect.”

At 9:50 a.m., a city fire department flag procession walked the perimeter of St. Paul’s heading toward the memorial site. Commuters momentarily made way for the procession’s large flags and accompanying family members in plainclothes. The usual lower Manhattan crowds resumed their Monday routines as the procession faded into the background of another workday.