Sen. Laphonza Butler and Jodi Hicks: Blue States, Don’t Get Comfortable. Abortion is Still Our Fight.
Sen. Laphonza Butler and Jodi Hicks
Two years after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to abortion, the Supreme Court continues to adjudicate access to abortion nationwide. If you live in a state where the right to abortion access is currently secured, like our home state of California, do not be deceived. The relentless assault on abortion by extremist Republicans in state houses across the country and in the courts is not in our backyard – it is at our doorstep.
For decades, abortion opponents have sought a national abortion ban. While the overturning of Roe v. Wade was a significant step in their crusade, they were never going to stop there. Many of us assume a national abortion ban would come in the form of a federal law or executive order. While this reality is not only plausible but also possible, their efforts toward a national ban are in practice, more subtle and systematic. Because the opposition knows they cannot win in the court of public opinion, they continue to go to the court of law to try to undermine democratic institutions like the Food and Drug Administration and the federal right to emergency care.
By trying to prevent people from traveling to get necessary health care; taking medication abortion off the shelves; attacking access to birth control; promoting harmful restrictions on fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization; and denying patients life-saving abortion care in medical emergencies, they are whittling down every facet of abortion so it is inaccessible or nonexistent to tens of millions across the country.
Even the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today in Idaho and Moyle, et al. v. United States, a case that would have not necessarily impacted states where abortion access is legal for now, sets another dangerous precedent for political inference in reproductive health care and speaks to the ensuing chaos within our country’s medical system—one that cannot be bifurcated state by state without grave consequences nationwide. It also begs the question of how far abortion opponents are willing to go if they are willing to debate whether pregnant patients can or should receive life-saving care in the first place.
Thousands of people across the country seeking abortions have already been forced to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles out of state to California and other states where abortion is legal, navigating financial costs of missed work and childcare obligations, enduring longer wait times, and risking their own health and safety.
For example, a patient from Georgia recently visited a Planned Parenthood health center in Los Angeles for abortion care after she had been turned away in three different states. Over ten weeks, she repeatedly found herself in a frustrating cycle of calling abortion providers, making the necessary travel and childcare arrangements, and then being turned away at the last minute as laws changed or when it was discovered that she was mere days beyond that state’s gestational limit. When she came to Los Angeles, she was finally able to get the care that she needed at no cost.
The effects of the Dobbs decision have been similarly hard on healthcare providers, many of whom are forced to question whether they can provide care in line with their medical judgment and expertise, delaying lifesaving medical care — if they are even legally allowed to provide this care. The ongoing consequences and subsequent state abortion bans have left patients desperate, confused, and fearful for their reproductive health, questioning what care is legal in their state.
As the nation marks the two-year anniversary of the disgraceful Dobbs decision, there are three truths that all of us who believe in the fundamental right to have an abortion must stand by unequivocally. First, healthcare providers shouldn’t be forced to worry about being targeted for providing care. They are medical experts who seek to give their patients the essential care they need, and they must be able to provide timely abortion care without fear or intimidation from politicians, prosecutors, and anti-abortion activists.
Second, Congress must do its part to protect reproductive health care access, post-Dobbs. The protections enshrined in Roe were always the floor and never the ceiling. To ensure comprehensive and meaningful access to abortion and safeguard reproductive freedom across the board, legislation like the Let Doctors Provide Reproductive Health Care Act, the Right to Contraception Act, the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act, and numerous others must be signed into federal law. That also includes the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would guarantee access to abortion everywhere across the country and restore the right to comprehensive reproductive health care for millions of Americans.
Third, as leaders in this national fight, those of us who live in states where abortion access is secure for now cannot become complacent in the struggle for reproductive rights. We cannot afford to sit back as our fellow Americans suffer. Because what happens in Washington D.C. and in states across the country does and will affect us. We must tirelessly use our voices to sound the alarm and to stand up for the rights of all. Our unwavering support and activism are crucial in this pivotal battle for nationwide reproductive freedom.
The American people have been clear: they want more freedom, not less. Republicans can choose to listen if they want, but ignoring the majority is nothing short of a race to the bottom.
U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler is the junior U.S. Senator for the state of California and Jodi Hicks is the CEO and President of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.
