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Madi’s Story

Abortion After the Ban

Interactive Story – 2021-2025

• Timeline

  Sep. 2022 – In my Interactive Storytelling class, I had to create a story using Twine with choices and multiple endings. I chose to do a branching narrative story with a meaningful message that related to the issues of the time. My idea was to research news stories that were relevant to current topics and that would make a good interactive story.

  Branching Narrative – users make key choices that determine how the story unfolds and its outcome

  • Author has limited control of the user’s experience arc
  • High production costs
  • Potential for high information tsunami
  • High interactivity and potentially high investment
• Research and Pitch

  Researched current news stories and was quickly fascinated and appalled at the abortion news coming out of the U.S. I found a particular ABC News clipping that interested me: “‘My body is not their property’: Texas woman’s journey across state lines for an abortion”.

  Read the full article here. I came up with a pitch for the story idea, and although I was nervous about writing about such a sensitive and heavy topic, I knew that with enough research and care put into it, I’d do Madi justice.

  Pitch

  Due to the recent overturn of Roe v Wade, the bill that gave women the right to a legal abortion in all the states of the USA, I decided to base my interactive story on a news story about a 21-year-old Texas college student named Madi who had to travel across state lines to get an abortion. She shared her story because she recognizes that many women won’t have the same emotional and financial support she had throughout the process, and she wants to empower other women in her situation. I give you, the player, many options to decide what you would do if you were in Madi’s position. Some of the possible endings of this story that depend on your choices are: having a successful and
  safe abortion procedure, having an illegal abortion that turns out fatal,
  and keeping the baby instead of getting an abortion at all.

• Development and Testing

  Worked on writing, development, and testing of the story.

  Twine is a labour of love, so it took a lot of time to teach myself how to create the narrative I wanted with the limited options given to me. The story was very simple, with no pictures or special effects added, just a lot of choices, paths, and links to research and helpful resources for the player. This included hours and hours of testing and finding reputable references and sources on the topic, and a lot of creative thinking and world-building for Madi’s life.

  Although I don’t have any process pictures or mock-ups since it was all through Twine, I do have my proposal for the full story and development of the game.

  Proposal

  The topic I am choosing to do my Twine storytelling project on is a news story about 21-year-old Texas college student Madi, who is forced to travel hundreds of miles and cross state lines to get an abortion in Mississippi. At the time the story was written in October 2021, the Texas law (Senate Bill 8) that banned abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy was new and appalling, and the start of the war on women’s bodies in the United States. Presently, in 2022, 14 out of 50 states have a full ban on abortions following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the case that gave women the constitutional right to an abortion in the USA. 4 other states have gestational limits on their bans, meaning if the fetus is over a certain number of weeks old it’s illegal, and 8 more have bans set but temporarily blocked. Some states ban abortion at six weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant, taking away their choice completely when it comes to their bodies. Women have had to resort to lengthy and expensive journeys, ordering medication online to try and self-manage an abortion, or seeking out illegal and dangerous procedures to terminate their pregnancy; otherwise, they are forced to go through with an unwanted pregnancy before being ready. I want to explore some of these choices in my Twine interactive storytelling assignment. Although the topic and story may get quite dark, it is incredibly important to show the real decisions people are making because of these bans and their consequences. This woman’s news story will be the basis of my Twine story, starting by following her journey, then branching off into other plausible situations based on the possibilities a person in her shoes could have chosen. Given the changes that have occurred since the time that the original article was written, I will use creative license and add even more restrictions on the laws to keep it authentic with the USA in 2022.

• Design and Development

  After I finished writing the story, I tested all the pathways and made sure no links were broken. I’m very proud of the storytelling, as I made sure there were plenty of options and decisions to make that aligned with realistic choices in that situation. I’ve given a full summary of the gameplay below:

  Gameplay Summary

  The player is put in the eyes of Madison, a 21-year-old college student who is not ready for a baby. It begins with Madison (you) living a typical life at college in East Texas. You are in a committed relationship and on birth control, you have been feeling a bit sick lately, but you assume it is just the stress of the new semester. However, you haven’t been sleeping or eating, and you’ve been very nauseous, so you have a choice to either ignore it and hope it goes away, or to take a pregnancy test (inciting incident). Following the main narrative arc, assuming you find out you’re pregnant one way or another, you decide what you want to do about the pregnancy. There will be around 5 different endings to the story, with this being the climactic choice that starts you off on different paths. The main narrative following Madi’s journey is to choose to travel across the country to get an abortion in a legal state. You will have to spend a lot of money and time to get there. You can try to book an appointment at a Planned Parenthood in a nearby state (Georgia), but you will be refused because you’re more than six weeks pregnant. You try to go to neighbouring states, Colorado or Kansas, but they have restrictions that limit your access to an abortion and prohibit the use of state funds to cover the cost of the procedure. New Mexico and California are the closest fully legal states, but they are overrun with patients and booked out for weeks. These are all examples of conflicts and falling actions that come from the climax, but many others would come from choosing a different path than travelling for an abortion.

  Continuing the narrative, you call over 30 clinics in legal states and the closest available clinic that can give you an appointment is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, over 450 miles away. You can choose to go alone, with a friend, or with your mom for support. You can also get financial support for travel costs and the procedure, or pay for it yourself. I’m basing the clinic on a real abortion clinic in Albuquerque called Southwestern Women’s Options, since the Mississippi clinic in the article no longer practices abortions. In 2022, this abortion clinic had the most reviews and the highest rating of all the clinics in the city, including ones from actual Texan residents who travelled there to get abortions. Although you must deal (either calmly or not) with anti-abortion protestors outside the clinic, you will go through with a calming, safe procedure, and all the staff will be friendly and supportive. This is where the main narrative arc ends, with one possible ending being that you had a comfortable but emotional experience at the abortion clinic and went home back to your life as a 21-year-old college student with no baby. Up until this point, in the spirit of my body, my choice, you will get many choices where you can decide if you still want to go through with the abortion or not, always leaving the possibility for your path/story to change. I included notes on how privileged the main character of this story is, since she can ask her parents for money, get support to come with her on the trip, find an abortion clinic in a neighbouring state that could take her, etc. After the viewer makes their choice, I include a fact or statistic to show how much worse it can be for others in her position. For example, say you choose to go through with the abortion at the clinic and have a safe, successful procedure with no complications. After the choice is made, text appears saying “About 2% of all abortions in the U.S. involve some type of complication for the woman.” (Diamant, 2022). Given the depth of this topic, I will be limiting the number of choices and paths that would be realistically possible to respect timing restrictions, but the story will still explore very plausible narratives of a young woman’s struggle to regain control of her body and fate in the U.S.A.

  Research Material & Sources Cited

  “Southwestern Women’s Home.” Southwestern Womens, 12 Sept. 2022, https://southwesternwomens.com/ 

  Diamant, Jeff, and Besheer Mohamed. “What the Data Says about Abortion in the U.S.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 24 June 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/24/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-u-s-2/ 

  Lenharo, Mariana. “After Roe v. Wade: US Researchers Warn of What’s to Come.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 24 June 2022, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01775-z 

  The New York Times. “Tracking the States Where Abortion Is Now Banned.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 May 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html 

  Scott, Rachel, et al. “’My Body Is Not Their Property’: Texas Woman’s Journey across State Lines for an Abortion.” ABC News, ABC News Network, 15 Oct. 2021, https://abcnews.go.com/US/body-property-texas-womans-journey-state-lines-abortion/story?id=80602289  

• First Prototype & Run-through

  Once I finished testing and implementing all the links, my story was ready to be played. I did not publish it anywhere yet, but I shared it with my class to get their feedback. Here’s a run-through of the main narrative for the first prototype of Madi’s Story:

• Updated Game for Itch

  For my Game Engines class in 2025, I decided to update this Twine story with my improved game development skills and upload it to Itch.io.

  Some of the improvements I made:

  • Added images to every screen where relevant using Imgur
  • Added more variables to affect story and choices
  • Updated UI and colours to reflect actions (green for POSITIVE)
  • Added pauses/transitions so the story would flow better
  • Created cover art and background for Itch.io

  Click here to view the Itch.io page and play the game!

  Game Banner

  

• Credits

  All research and resources are linked in-game.
  Story inspiration from ABC News.

Play Madi’s Story on itch.io

Testimonials

Comments from Itch.io game page:

• This was a really captivating and powerful story to play through. Learning afterwards that it’s based on a true story really illustrated how real an issue this is and the effects these laws have on the lives of women in Texas. I love the informational facts included in the gameplay. This is very informative, and I think every US lawmaker should play this game and hear the stories of the affected individuals before voting on these types of laws. (or even better, just not be able to have a say on controlling the bodies of others) – natsirtmo
• Really powerful game. The incorporation of links elevates the game to an important resource for people in need.  You can really feel the stress of the situation , and I think the game was really informative. 10/10!! – NotSophie
• An interesting story-driven game. I like the branching options, giving the game some replayability. I like the use of text enhancers, like colour and bold, to add to the atmosphere and immersion, as well as making important things stand out.  I think the clickable action/choice texts should have an extra line space apart from the normal story text. I think this would help isolate the actual choices from the story and give it more of a focus, which the colours do help it with already. Overall, great work. – CheesyChurros21
• Loved how it was super informational and realistic. I also like how there’s different endings based on your choices. Had a great experience with this one! – idkchief
• What a powerful statement on the importance of preserving women’s bodily autonomy. Thank you for creating this impactful interactive experience.
  – horseplaystudios
• Thank you for sharing. There are no words foul enough to describe the evil of someone who would force anyone to be pregnant against their will. It honestly ended my hope that humans as a species could ever get better when it happened.
  – Vorox

Interested?