Private Right, Episode 3: The Alaska Rescue Project

Hosted By: Lisa Phu - December 2, 2022

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Rebecca Hinsberger was raised thinking the right to abortion was a good thing. 

“My mother was a very outspoken supporter of abortion,” she said. “So I grew up in that atmosphere: that abortion was perfectly OK and shouldn’t be stigmatized.”

Hinsberger started adulthood this way. She lived in a yoga ashram for six months. She called herself a feminist. When she moved to Alaska by herself, she built a cabin and led meditation sessions. 

But, at some point, her views on abortion changed dramatically. And Hinsberger ended up devoting a lot of her life in Alaska to the anti-abortion rights cause. She spent years standing outside a health clinic in the Kenai Peninsula, singing hymns and waving signs that say, “Pray to end abortion.”

“I consider it the murder of a human being, in every circumstance, no exceptions,” she said. “I believe that, biologically, life begins at conception.”

Hinsberger described when she came to have this view: “probably during the abortion that I had, while it was happening.”

Private Right from the Alaska Beacon is a show about abortion in Alaska, a conservative state with a strong right to choose. Lisa Phu is the host. In this series, you’ll hear Alaskans talk about abortion, and its impact on the state and their lives.

Episode credits: Lisa Phu, writer, reporter and producer; Andrew Kitchenman, editor; and Dave Waldron, engineer. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Read more:

Alaska activist describes decades dedicated to anti-abortion work

Transcript of this episode