Last year, the thing that advocates and people who can get pregnant have been dreading for decades finally happened: Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in the decision for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. The fallout between the leaked draft of the opinion and now has been a slow-moving horror movie for countless Americans who relied on Roe as law of the land and as a protection for accessing the healthcare they need when they need it.
Now there are four states with constitutional amendments that do not protect the right to abortion (or allow public funds to be used for abortion-related healthcare) and just 17 states have laws protecting the right to abortion, three states have protections in their constitutions, and just four states (plus DC) have “codified the right to abortion throughout pregnancy without state interference,” according to the Guttmacher Institute. 24 states have near-total abortion bans or are anticipated to pass such bans in upcoming legislative sessions. A third of American pregnant people are forced to travel more than an hour to access the healthcare that should be their right. It’s rough out here.
And that brings us to this January, 22, 2023 — a day that should have been the 50th anniversary of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that changed so many women, birthing people and family’s lives by giving them the legal right to make reproductive healthcare choices for themselves. We didn’t get here by accident and there was a calculated movement to see these protections stripped away — and underneath it all, like in the case of so many injustices, there’s a whole lot of ignorance (with a dash of racism, misogyny and cruelty) to acknowledge.
Unfortunately, there are far too many anti-choice politicians who have spent the bulk of their careers being both loud and wrong about reproductive healthcare — spouting some of the strangest, most absurd and anti-science nonsense imaginable (on the record!). And that loud and wrong energy has ultimately cost women and birthing people their lives, their safety and their right to make their own reproductive health choices.
To acknowledge what’s a pretty terrible and sad would-be anniversary and to recharge your energy to push for an expansion of reproductive rights and protections where you live, please check out this nightmarish list of deeply ignorant, uninformed and dangerous things actual grown-ass politicians have said about reproductive rights.
Source: Read Full Article