Disinformation is the Common Thread, a guest post by Seema Yasmin

I never meant to write a novel about teen abortion. I didn’t mean to write a novel at all. I’m a disinformation researcher and a doctor, but in the summer of 2019, I sat on the grass outside Stanford University’s Green Library with my stack of books about propaganda and misinformation, and I wrote a few lines in my notebook. Those lines would become the beginning of the young adult novel, Unbecoming.

The lines that came to me that day were the thoughts of Laylah Khan, a character who arrived fully formed. Laylah was 17; she wore a hijab and lived in Dallas, two things we had in common (I used to live in Dallas and I wore a hijab a long time ago, when I was a teenager in England); and she was deadest on becoming a doctor. She had her whole life mapped out in a document titled the Laylah Life Plan. But here she was,  lying on a silver food prep table inside a taco truck, of all places, with two doctors examining her crotch. 

Laylah was pregnant. And although it would be three years before the Supreme Court would overturn the constitutional right to abortion, Laylah was telling me in 2019 that a post-Roe America was exactly where we headed. A post-Roe America was the America she lived in. It’s why she was in the back of a taco truck-turned-roving-abortion-clinic with a doctor and a nurse, all three of them risking their lives to get Laylah the abortion care she desired so she could get her life back on track. 

At the time, I was studying the spread of anti-science, especially anti-vaccine, mis- and disinformation. What falsehoods were spreading, who was spreading them, and why did people fall for lies about science and health, were questions I asked myself daily. (Quick primer: misinformation is false information spread without knowledge that it’s false and without any intent to cause harm. Disinformation, on the other hand, is information that’s known to be false and is spread with the hopes that it will wreak havoc.) 

My research would eventually culminate in my first young adult book, the non-fiction title What the Fact?! Finding the Truth in all the Noise. WTF is a toolkit for teens on how to navigate the murky worlds of social media and the news. (It even comes with a free teaching guide.) But all the while, and especially as Covid emerged and I studied anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, Laylah, and then her best friend, Noor, stayed on my mind. 

It was disinformation that spurred me to continue writing the novel long after I abandoned the half-written manuscript. I spotted a news story about women in Texas and Louisiana who had waited too long to talk to a doctor about abortion because they wrongly believed it was already banned where they lived. It wasn’t, but it might as well have been, that’s how tricky it was to navigate the many barriers between a pregnant person and abortion care. Rumors and hoaxes were spreading about what was illegal, who would be punished, and how; the information ecosystem created a climate of distrust and fear.

What the Fact, my first YA non-fiction book, and Unbecoming, my debut YA novel, appear unrelated. One is a navigation guide to the real world, the other is the story of a teenaged girl in a near-future America where all abortion is banned, IVF is illegal, hormonal medications are policed and aiding and abetting abortion is a criminal offence. I never expected my scholarly work to inform my creative writing, especially not a young adult novel. 

But misinformation and disinformation appear as the common threads in all my writing because the lies we tell and who they hurt permeate every aspect of our being. Even the long poem that runs through my debut picture book, The ABCs of Queer History, weaves in a line about the power of false information and the importance of countering lies with truths: K is for knowledge, the power of facts, because knowing your truth will help you fight back; against hateful old stories and myths that are spread, to silence queer people, to hurt and oppress.

Science has shown that stories are engines for empathy. My hope is that with non-fiction, novels and picture books, we remind ourselves that stories are our best antidote to the spread of misinformation and disinformation.  

Meet the author

Dr. Seema Yasmin is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, Pulitzer prize finalist, professor and poet. She served as a disease detective in the Epidemic Intelligence Service after working as a hospitalist in London. She was a medical analyst for CNN from 2014-2021 and a science reporter at The Dallas Morning News where she covered Ebola, Zika and the rise of the anti-vaccine movement. Dr. Yasmin is director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative and clinical assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University. She is the author of eight books including Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them, The ABCs of Queer History, If God Is A Virus: Poems, Djinnology: An Illuminated Compendium of Spirits and Stories from the Muslim World, and the novel Unbecoming.

About Unbecoming

Two Muslim teens in Texas fight for access to abortion while one harbors a painful secret in this funny and heartfelt near-future speculative novel perfect for fans of Unpregnant.

In a not-too-distant America, abortions are prosecuted and the right to choose is no longer an option. But best friends Laylah and Noor want to change the world. After graduating high school, they’ll become an OBGYN and a journalist, but in the meantime, they’re working on an illegal guide to abortion in Texas.

In response to the unfair laws, underground networks of clinics have sprung up, but the good fight has gotten even more precarious as it becomes harder to secure safe medication and supplies. Both Layla and Noor are passionate about getting their guide completed so it can help those in need, but Laylah treats their project with an urgency Noor doesn’t understand—that may have something to do with the strange goings-on between their mosque and a local politician.

Fighting for what they believe in may involve even more obstacles than they bargained for, but the two best friends will continue as they always have: together.

ISBN-13: 9781665938440
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date: 07/09/2024
Age Range: 14 – 18 Years

Filed under: Guest Post