Karlie Kloss always supported abortion rights as a concept in the abstract. But after having two children in three years amid the fall of Roe v. Wade, her belief in the woman’s right to choose felt even more personal, and her desire to do something felt urgent.
“I’m so grateful to have had healthy pregnancies and have had access to the care that I needed, but that shouldn’t be a privilege,” the 32-year-old model and activist tells me over Zoom. “The ability to choose as a woman when you’re ready to go down that journey, to me—I think it’s the most profound and pivotal choice in my life.”
It’s a sentiment that I’ve heard many Millennial mothers express since the Supreme Court stripped us of our right to choose two years ago. It can be dizzying that such an enormous loss has occurred smack dab in the middle of our reproductive years, and it’s a feeling Kloss shares, especially when she thinks of the women in her home state of Missouri.
Growing up as one of four daughters of an emergency room physician, Kloss says her family discussions on abortion were never politically charged or fraught. Now, Missouri has one of the most restrictive laws in the country, banning abortion in all cases with extremely limited exceptions. Kloss described the law as “devastating.”
“I’ve cared about this for a long time, but Roe was a real turning point for me, and I think for many others, of realizing there’s so much more that we need to do,” she says.
Her latest action has required her to put on a new title: executive producer. Along with fellow activist Phoebe Gates, Kloss has partnered with MTV Staying Alive Foundation to create Everybody’s Fight: An In Bloom Series. The series—which features five episodes comprising three documentaries and two scripted films about reproductive rights—are launching Tuesday on MTV Staying Alive Foundation’s In Bloom YouTube channel.
Each video runs less than 20 minutes and is meant to be easily digestible and watched on social media primarily, though they will be available on Paramount Plus in early 2025. This was done intentionally, says Wame Jallow, the foundation’s executive director, to appeal to a younger audience.
“We felt that it was important for us to have a series that combines both the narrative and documentary formats that tells the untold stories around what this restrictive access actually looks like,” she says. “Not just from the community perspective, but also from the frontline provider’s point of view and advocates who are really fighting for reproductive health as a whole. There are many statistics that we can toss around in terms of what that looks like, even state by state, but now is really the time where we really need to articulate why this issue is important for communities and get Gen Z to be involved in these conversations.”
Kloss agreed, saying the goal is to “meet people where they are.”
“We wanted to, especially in these last weeks’ leading up to the election, create this bite-sized way of just actually hearing and seeing what’s happening from people who are most directly on the front line,” she says.
The three documentaries, which were produced by the Emmy-nominated Culture House, feature interviews with abortion providers and advocates discussing the impact of the loss of reproductive freedom on their states. The scripted episodes, produced by Pulse Films, include This Is What We’re Taking, the story of a young Indigenous woman, played by True Detective’s Isabella LaBlanc, managing a medication abortion with her family.
The team used this approach, says Jallow, to ensure they could share as many stories in as many forms as possible.
“It’s really making sure that we can share the full 360 of the message and allow for people to have the full breadth of information that’s available and awareness building,” she says.
Partnering to create the series isn’t Karlie Kloss’ first foray into reproductive activism—she founded a collective in 2022 called the Gateway Coalition to fund clinics providing reproductive healthcare in the midwest and has been vocal about her support for women’s right to choose on social media. As a public figure, she says her main goal is to use her cultural capital and voice to bring this fight to the grassroots. If she can open that door, she says, she’s turning the knob.
“It’s confusing, it’s overwhelming, it’s intimidating, and we really want people to see how human this is and how personal it is,” she says. “And actually a little effort can go a long way.”
For her, and every woman, of course, it is personal.
“I just think it’s really important ultimately that we trust women to make this choice for themselves,” she says. “And I think that’s just, for me, coming from just my lived experience, for me, it is vital to do whatever I can to fight for access and reproductive justice. Nothing is going to stop me from standing up for what I believe in.”
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