The US Supreme Court has acknowledged the authenticity of its leaked initial draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade. While the draft opinion is genuine, it is not the final ruling, and for now it remains legal to access abortion and reproductive healthcare in the United States.
Should the court’s final decision resemble this outrageous draft, SCOTUS would abandon a 50-year precedent and the will of 70% of the American people to impose one of the worst contractions of freedoms in modern US history. Such a move would directly harm the welfare of our union sisters and kin, and therefore we must respond strongly.
We know well the catastrophic consequences that follow when authoritarians legislate control over our wombs, bodies, and lives. Taking away the option to receive compassionate reproductive care in the form of safe, legal abortions will disproportionally harm working-class people, force unwilling parents into poverty, worsen the already unacceptable maternal mortality crisis, imprison innocents for their biological functions (including miscarriages), and cut short far too many bright careers and lives.
If the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision stands as is, the court would have built a pathway to nullify other rights Americans fought and died for. Rights Americans build our lives around today. The draft language opens opportunities to take away contraceptives and birth control, Civil Rights legislation, interracial marriage, LGBTQ+ marriage equality, Title IX, and even Brown v Board of Education. If extremist justices will blatantly ignore established legal precedent and lie about it in their confirmation hearings, how far will they go? Even the First Amendment right to form or join unions and our very existence may be at risk.
We stand together as sisters, brothers, and kin to ensure liberty and justice for ALL. We call on lawmakers at all levels to defend reproductive healthcare and Americans’ other fundamental freedoms immediately, or face being replaced by those who will.
