This ruling came to pass because of decades of skillful, systematic organization on the part of anti-abortion activists, including those who stacked the highest court in the U.S. with extremists.
This ruling will impact for all birthing people — women, trans men, nonbinary people. It will especially impact Black people and people of color, people without financial means to travel or pay for medical care. People in rural areas.
I have never had an abortion, and I probably won’t ever be pregnant again, but last night I told my husband I felt dehumanized, demoralized, ashamed and scared. Why had I trusted that this somehow wouldn’t happen, despite all the evidence that it was happening?
Am I crazy?
The historian Heather Cox Richardson assures me that I am not.
“The Dobbs decision marks the end of an era: the period in American history stretching from 1933 to 1981, the era in which the U.S. government worked to promote democracy,” she wrote last night.
“But Republicans are engaged in the process of dismantling that government.”
My mom, who told me her story of a having an abortion before it was legal, has never regretted her choice. My friends and family members who had abortions did so tearfully — to protect their own lives, or to end an unviable pregnancy — or joyfully — for any reason they had, because of a choice that was theirs to make.
I keep thinking about a conversation I had earlier this month with Heather Thompson, from Elephant Circle, a birth justice organization based in Denver.
The birth equity needs — access to perinatal care, the support of a doula, even for people who are incarcerated — all of that “was at the tip of our tongue from having spent years helping people in the community organize around their own issues,” she told me.
My cousin reminded me this morning to look to the Global South, where abortion rights have expanded in Latin America. How did that happen? They organized a “green wave.”
The Green Wave achieved victories over such obstacles and could find success elsewhere, with aggressive campaigns and mass popular protests organized around legal action and legislative demands that center broadly on women’s autonomy and rights, especially protecting women against violence, writes Ximena Casas, a human rights researcher.
Get organized. Stay organized. Keep widening the circle.
Wonderful--and helpful in our process of action & healing. Thank you for that Crenshaw quote.
Perfect. Thank you for this.
Thanks for this report. Especially powerful are the quote from Crenshaw and the tender video.