I want people to know that despite the constant attacks by our opposition, we are still standing, we are building power, and most importantly, we are providing care.
In a series of cases tackling the issue of racial gerrymandering before the Roberts Court Monday, the possibility of abortion rights jurisprudence protecting voting rights started to emerge.
It is no longer acceptable—at least in theory—for state legislators to announce that a particular restriction advances an interest in women’s health and to expect courts and the public to take them at their word. The same goes for, as it turns out, voting rights.
A return to data should aid in dismantling other laws ungrounded in any real facts, such as Texas’ onerous "informed consent” law—HB 15—which forces women to get an ultrasound that they may neither need nor afford, and which imposes a 24-hour waiting period.
With the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, change may be afoot—even in some of the reddest red states. But anti-choice laws are still wreaking havoc around the world, like in Northern Ireland where women living under an abortion ban are turning to drones for medication abortion pills.
Even if we are able to celebrate a favorable outcome in the case Monday, the battle for reproductive health will continue in dozens of states across the country.
Carol Sanger, a professor of law at Columbia University and an expert in the proliferation of abortion restrictions, told Rewire that she was surprised by how the bill was handled in the Tennessee house. She has not seen lawmakers in other states proceed with such trepidation.
Reproductive rights advocates say that should the Court rule in favor of the Texas Department of State Health Services this summer, the second-largest state in the country will be down to nine or ten clinics providing abortion care.