"Imagine a world worth fighting for"

On Saturday morning, I volunteered at Planned Parenthood as an escort. It was cold and rainy, but 40 or 50 evangelical protestors came out to pray and harass women as they walked into the clinic. I was one of eight or so volunteers, so my presence wasn’t vital, but I still felt useful. The experience also helped me feel some of my feelings about the past week that were otherwise bottled up. I felt anger and disgust towards the protestors. It also made me deeply sad to see people being so unnecessarily cruel to others. I felt protective and angry on behalf of the women who had to navigate vitriol to receive healthcare. The two hour stint was exhausting. I had to ask myself what it might feel like for those who have been fighting this fight their whole lives.

The leaked decision from the Supreme Court did not surprise many people, but it still hurt. Cutting child-bearing people off from safe abortion invites large scale suffering, particularly for poor and BIPOC people. This decision also opens up a Pandora’s Box of criminalization and death.

As I contemplate this, I can feel my breathing getting short and an uneasiness throughout my body. It feels so heavy and overwhelming.

I don’t feel like I have much to offer on this topic, other than sharing some of what I’ve read. Through Twitter and elsewhere, I’ve tried to make sense of what the end of Roe means, and what a path forward might look like.

How It Happened

One point worth understanding, which doesn’t explain the Supreme Court’s decision specifically, is that anti-abortion/forced birth activism has long had ties to white nationalism. One of the driving fears of white supremacists in the United States is replacement theory, the idea that white people are being replaced by Jews and people of color. Forcing all women to have babies is apparently one way to fight this outcome.

Rebecca Traister, writing in The Cut, argues that while Democrats were definitely out-organized by the right in regards to reproductive rights, they also failed miserably at storytelling. This feels true of practically every progressive issue and I appreciated Traister’s insights here.

What It Means

When things go bad, Twitter can always tell you how they’ll get worse. This might sound like a recipe for spiraling into despair. But I think it can also be a necessary way to prepare for the future and direct energy accordingly. Please keep in mind that this information is deeply upsetting, and consider scrolling down to the next section if necessary.

Three major dangers that arise from the end of Roe are criminalization, a rise in maternal mortality, and a rise in domestic violence and femicide. Black women and Indigenous women already face these dangers disproportionately.

With Roe gone, new and existing laws banning abortion will go into affect across the country. These laws will not be enforced evenly and so more poor women and women of color will be incarcerated.

There is no way to ban abortion. Republicans have only banned safe abortion. The end of Roe means that women without access to money will terminate their pregnancies through whatever means available. And if something goes wrong we know that institutional healthcare is already less safe for Black women and women of color.

Lastly, without abortion, women are at greater risk from men who do not want to bear responsibility for fatherhood. When a friend shared this point with me, it hit me right in my stomach.

Beyond these terrifying outcomes, it seems likely that the Supreme Court’s ruling opens the door for restrictions on birth control, consensual sex between two men, and other freedoms. Understanding the realistic short and long-term consequences of the end of Roe is unsettling, but necessary.

What Happens Next

Any strategy moving forward has to come from a clear-eyed assessment of how we lost Roe and what’s now at stake. That means fighting legally, politically, and narratively. Elie Mystal writing in The Nation argues for a legal approach to forced births, taking a page from the conservative playbook.

Anat Shenker-Osorio shared two examples from Ireland and Argentina of wins for reproductive justice. She writes from a perspective that focuses on messaging.

Besides big picture messaging and strategy, those of us who can must share our time, money, and resources to help people access safe abortions. Organizer and educator Mariame Kaba shared a number of ways to help that have been compiled into this Google doc.

One fact that Kaba shared on Twitter is that independent clinics, who are not affiliated with Planned Parenthood, provide 6 in 10 abortions in the U.S. Therefore it’s incredibly important to support abortion providers who are not well-funded like Planned Parenthood.

Here is another Google doc with more ways to help.

I share all of this with humility and gratitude for the people in my life and strangers on the internet who have taught me so much about this issue and about justice. I don’t know what happens next. I know I’m incredibly sad and worried. But I believe in fighting back.

I just finished reading a book called Stone Butch Blues and I’ve been sitting with these words from one of its characters: "Imagine a world worth living in, imagine a world worth fighting for." I know that all of us deserve so much more than fear and oppression. The only way we will get the world we deserve is by refusing to give up.