For those of us who were of child-bearing age before Roe v. Wade was decided, the Dobbs decision is particularly painful because of memories of our own abortions or those of women we helped obtain one. For those of you who are among the ⅔ of the U.S. who were not yet born 50 years ago, and, as the dissent in Dobbs stated, “have grown up expecting Roe’s and Casey’s protections… (T)he disruption of overturning Roe and Casey will therefore be profound…. Women may count on abortion access for when contraception fails. They may count on abortion access for when contraception cannot be used, for example, if they were raped. They may count on abortion for when something changes in the midst of a pregnancy, whether it involves family or financial circumstances, unanticipated medical complications, or heartbreaking fetal diagnoses. Taking away the right to abortion, as the majority does today, destroys all those individual plans and expectations. In so doing, it diminishes women’s opportunities to participate fully and equally in the Nation’s political, social, and economic life.”
The women who tell their abortion stories in Stand UP, Speak OUT Episode 3: Reproductive Rights know the effects of this decision all too well. They know it will subject countless women to unnecessary pain and punishment. They know, as the dissenting Justices put it: “Closing our eyes to the suffering today’s decision will impose will not make that suffering disappear.” That’s why BC Voices continues our mission to promote women’s rights by telling women’s personal stories in the context of history.
As the dissent expressed, Roe and Casey set forth how the fundamental right to abortion is a core constitutional concept of individual freedom, and of the equal rights of citizens to decide on the shape of their lives. “Those legal concepts, one might even say, have gone far toward defining what it means to be an American. For in this Nation, we do not believe that a government controlling all private choices is compatible with a free people.”
We must keep on keeping on. It’s vital that we get out the vote in 2022 to:
• Reclaim the federal judiciary
• Block any national ban on abortions and contraception
• Block any national personhood bill
• Pass the National Women’s Health Protection Act, which overturns Dobbs. Republican Senators and Senators Manchin and Sinema have thus far refused to vote for it.
And, very importantly, to vote down ballot to:
• Support the constitutional right to abortion
• Support the constitutional right to contraception
• Support the constitutional right to interstate travel
• Protect women’s ability to undergo in-vitro fertilization and treatment for miscarriage
• Refuse to criminalize women, health care providers and helpers from obtaining or providing abortions
• Refuse to prosecute crimes related to abortion
Abortion clinics and abortion provider training institutions need our donations in States where abortion is legal. In States where abortion is illegal, nonprofits need funds and volunteers to help women with transportation, lodging, and child care to secure appointments for legal abortions in other states, our generation’s Underground Railroad.
It’s a desperate time, only to get worse for women. We can and must take action to protect and defend women’s right to make their own decisions about their own bodies and lives. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1993, “This is something central to a woman’s life, to her dignity. It’s a decision that she must make for herself. And when government controls that decision for her, she’s being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices. The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.”
Watch our Stand UP, Speak OUT docuseries to learn more about women’s history and hear from women who experienced its impact on their lives.
