Today we’d like to introduce you to Cara Hile.
Hi Cara, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am Cara Hile and I am the Senior Organizer at Abortion Action Missouri.
When the draft opinion leaked that roe v. wade was going to be overturned I was on a medication for my auto-immune disease that would cause birth defects. It would not be safe for me to be pregnant so I always planned that in the event of that I would get an abortion. Once I learned the news that it was going to be overturned I was really upset and scared and I decided I needed to something about it.
I started volunteering in Kansas on their campaign to protect the right to abortion in their constitution. I signed up to canvass and phone bank and I had never done either of those things before but this was too important to not do something. I was canvassing and phone banking every week and an organizer took notice. She asked if I would like to lead canvass and phone bank trainings. I’m pretty introverted but I agreed to do it anyway because that is how important it was to me. I worked all through the summer of 2022 on that campaign and we won.
The organizer then told me I could get a job doing this and connected me to where I work now, Abortion Action Missouri. They had never had an organizer in Kansas City and hired me in October 2022 to begin building up a base of volunteer leaders and members to fight for abortion access in reproductive freedom. I worked all through 2023 finding people who felt just as passionately as me about abortion access and reproductive freedom.
We canvassed for pro-abortion legislative candidates, kansas city city council candidates, and eventually worked on gathering signatures for the healthy families and fair wages campaign to raise minimum wage and win earned paid sick leave for Missouri workers.
At the beginning of 2024 we learned that we would have the opportunity to gather signatures to put abortion on the ballot so Missourians could vote to protect abortion access and reproductive freedom in the constitution. We held our first signature gathering training on February 12th, 2024. 81 days later we delivered more than double the amount of needed signatures– and 267 days later we won.
Thousands of volunteers all across the state of Missouri made that win possible.
And from the beginning, anti-abortion politicians did everything in their power to sabotage the campaign and the initiative petition process to make it as hard possible to gather the signatures needed to put abortion on the ballot.
They even tried to strip Missouri voters of the opportunity to vote on this essential issue. But Missourians fought back and defied their expectations.
Last year, we achieved something remarkable. We defeated one of the most strict abortion bans in the nation, and in a presidential election year that heavily favored anti- abortion conservatives. Missourians made their voices heard. We demanded legal abortion. We demanded reproductive freedom.
But the anti-abortion politicians in our state government don’t actually care what Missourians want. They care about their own power and political ambition no matter the cost to Missouri families.
We gave them the opportunity to do the right thing – to respect the 1,538,659 Missourians who voted to legalize abortion and protect reproductive freedom in the Missouri constitution.
While they spent the entire 2025 legislative session fighting to get a new abortion ban on the ballot, we spent it organizing Missourians.
Thousands of Missourians traveled to the capitol over and over and over again to voice their support for abortion. They took time off work, arranged childcare, and upended their lives to drive anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours to make the trip to Jefferson City.
Many of them had never testified before, but the stakes were too high for them to sit on the sidelines. Witnessing the treatment of some of these Missourians by their own elected representatives was appalling to say the least.
But Missourians did not back down. They kept showing up and sharing their stories, staring down those same anti-abortion politicians over and over again. Making them bear witness to the pain they cause.
These politicians don’t care about the devastation their abortion bans cause Missouri families. They don’t care that Missourians just voted to legalize abortion.
Because of them a new abortion ban will be on the ballot in 2026 These corrupt politicians know banning abortion is a losing strategy, so they’re doing everything they can to trick voters into voting away our abortion rights, NEVER mentioning in their ballot summary that the new Amendment 3 would ban abortion.
We’re not going to let them win.
When I look back over these last two years, the thousands of volunteers, the hundreds of thousands who signed the petition across every county in the state, and the more than one million who voted— it’s impossible not to see the power of Missourians when we come together and take action.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What I am most proud of is all of the work we did to get abortion access and reproductive freedom in the constitution. Many thought this was impossible and many told us it was impossible. But we did it and on November 5th, 2025 we celebrated 1 year of legal abortion in Missouri!
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Like I said in my story I am very introverted and had never done work like this before. I really push myself through my fear and that is what got me to where I am today
Contact Info:
- Website: https://abortionactionmissouri.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abortionaction/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AbortionAction
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/abortionaction
