WASHINGTON, D.C. — We’ve been ready for this. We knew that with the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court, abortion rights were hanging by a thread. Today, that thread—that lifeline—has been cut.
The Supreme Court’s ruling endangers women and pregnant persons with low-incomes, women and pregnant persons of color, women and pregnant persons living in poverty, and women and pregnant persons from disenfranchised communities. Historically, these communities have faced barriers to reproductive health care and have experienced worse health outcomes because of systemic oppressions in the health care system. Sadly, these barriers and this racial trauma continue in our present-day experience. As clinics close and new restrictions that keep quality, affordable reproductive health care are voted into law, the burden of access is exacerbated.
Dozens of states will now pass or enact the “trigger laws” already signed into law to make abortion illegal. These laws have nothing to do with women’s health and everything to do with political power, and control over women’s bodily autonomy.
But this is only the beginning. Extremists who have pushed for decades to undo abortion rights have announced that they are coming after marriage equality next. And we’ve already seen how determined they are to restrict voting rights and to seize control of how elections are administered. Their attempts to seize control over constitutional rights are boundless.
NOW members have always been ready to fight for women’s lives. We’ve marched, lobbied, organized and worked for feminist candidates at every level. In 2022, we must vote for women’s lives—to keep the feminist majority in the House of Representatives—and elect an abortion rights majority, abortion rights majority in the Senate.
What’s more, we must flip the key Governors’ races and state legislative contests that will determine where abortion rights are protected, and where they are taken away.
NOW members will be active wherever grassroots grow—in our communities, through NOW’s state and local chapters, in every election at every level.
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The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the nation’s leading membership-based advocacy group dedicated to defending women’s rights, advancing equality and combating injustice in all aspects of social, political and economic life. Through educating, mobilizing, and convening a vast network of grassroots activists across the country, NOW advocates for national, state and local policies that promote an anti-racist and intersectional feminist agenda. Since its founding in 1966, NOW has been on the frontlines of nearly every major advancement for women’s rights and continues to champion progressive values today. More about NOW’s efforts and resources is available at NOW.org.