Amplify Values In These Emerging Issues
We Must Act Now to Defend Reproductive Justice
For nearly 50 years, Roe v. Wade has protected everyone’s constitutional and basic human right to control their own reproductive destiny through access to safe, effective abortion care. Last week, however, a five Justice majority of the Supreme Court refused to block Senate Bill 8 (SB8) from going into effect. The Texas law bans abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy, threatening access for the roughly 85 - 90 percent of Texans who seek abortion care after that timeframe.
The current attack is the latest in a sustained, multi-state legislative campaign to chip away at access to affordable reproductive healthcare, with particularly damaging impacts on people of color, rural communities, people living with low incomes, and immigrants without documentation. And it comes at a time when Black women in Texas are already suffering stark disparities in maternal mortality.
While SB8 makes its way through lower courts, the Supreme Court is also scheduled to hear oral arguments in a similar case this Fall. That case concerns Mississippi’s anti-abortion law that directly challenges Roe v. Wade by implementing an outright ban on abortions after 15 weeks. Before the Supreme Court reconvenes on October 4, advocates and organizers are mobilizing communities nationwide to show our collective power and political will to defend reproductive justice.
People can pledge to join The Women’s March on October 2 for the “National Call to Mobilize and Defend Our Reproductive Rights,” with marches in all 50 states. Advocates with The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights are also urging Congress to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act.
For background and guidance on how to talk about SB8, please see:
- ACLU Plantiffs’ Joint Statement on SCOTUS’ Decision;
- National Women’s Law Center Responds to SCOTUS’ Failure to Block SB8;
- The Leadership Conference: The Supreme Court and Congress Must Protect Reproductive Freedom;
- Lupe M. Rodríguez’ op-ed in Salon (Executive Director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice);
- The Opportunity Agenda’s Ten Tips for Putting Intersectionality into Practice and our general advice for Talking About the Supreme Court;
- Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column in The Washington Post; and
- The New York Times’ The Daily podcast episode, “How Texas Banned Almost All Abortions.”
Take Action: The Women’s March “National Call to Mobilize and Defend Our Reproductive Rights.”
Hashtags: #WomensMarch2021; #AbortionIsHealthcare; #BansOffOurBodies; #SB8
Narrative Research Lab Webinar on September 17
Join us on September 17 at 2 p.m. EDT as Sarah E. Lowe and Adrián Escárate from Define American present original research, funded by the National Geographic Society, to understand the mental health impact to undocumented storytellers of using personal narratives for immigration advocacy. American Dreaming is a mixed-method study that evaluated mental health indicators via a survey of 40 participants and life history interviews with 15 participants to understand the roots of stress and resilience among undocumented storytellers, who loosely identify as “DREAMers.” Register here.
Photo by Stephen Melkisethian of the Moral March on Raleigh in February of 2014 (Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
