Supreme Court Issues Dystopian Decision, Reversing Roe

We knew this day would come. Anti-abortion forces have been laying the groundwork for years to reverse Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed abortion rights (if not actual access) to all Americans. That the Supreme Court would strip millions of Americans of their reproductive freedom is unprecedented and grotesque.

And now, here we are. Living in a country that just went back on the idea held for the past half-century that all genders should have equal rights to privacy, bodily autonomy, and reproductive freedom. Abortion is now illegal in the 13 states that had trigger bans waiting for Roe to fall. Another dozen or more states are poised to outlaw abortion as soon as possible.

That leaves a patchwork of states to somehow continue providing abortions for their own residents while also taking on the necessary task of providing care to patients coming from more restrictive states.

It also leaves people in restrictive states who need or want an abortion with the undue burden of arranging the payment, time off work, childcare, transportation, lodging, etc. to travel out of state to get one. And it forces people who assist them to risk legal charges for violating tattletale laws such as those already on the books in Texas and Oklahoma.

How astonishingly dystopian.

The vast majority of Americans who support legal abortion need to be as dogged in their fight for abortion rights as those who oppose reproductive freedom have been in their decades-long effort to achieve its vicious and volatile “victory” in quashing those rights.

We knew this day would come. We also know that a new day will come when abortion rights are returned to all Americans. Let’s work together to make that day arrive sooner rather than later.