The nonprofit United State of Women is helping train people on how to fight anti-abortion laws locally and nationally.
Last year while I was sitting on a beach with my mom, an alert on my phone announced the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Dobbs ruling hit the shore like a tidal wave; the families, friend groups and other women around us all seemed to have gotten the message at the same time. I could overhear chatter; in our small groups, all of us on that beach were having similar conversations about the loss of our reproductive autonomy.
This Saturday, June 24, marks exactly one year since that news came crashing down. Over the last year, women, feminists and allies have marched, shouted, cried and organized to have the right to our bodies solidified in law.
Immediately after the fall of Roe, trigger laws that limited or completely outlawed abortions went into effect in 13 states: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. And in the last year, 26 states have enacted legislation restricting or banning abortion access. States with the most severe restrictions, such as Texas, have put in place measures that not only criminalize the person seeking an abortion but also people who assist them in obtaining one; this can include family members and medical providers. These laws do not speak for the average U.S. citizen, 78 percent of whom believe abortion should be a choice between a woman and her doctor.
As more states attempt abortion bans, the feminist movement has pushed back with loud and righteous anger as if our lives depend on it—which they do, in a country with a maternal mortality rate like the United States. In Indiana, Montana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio and Wyoming, organizers and public officials have successfully blocked abortion ban attempts.
Now, the nonprofit United State of Women (USOW) is helping people prepare to fight these laws locally and nationally: To commemorate the fall of Roe, USOW is hosting a month-long virtual series dedicated to educating future and current organizers on how to rally around reproductive autonomy through digital organizing.
In the first class, held on June 14, participants discussed self-managed abortions and the safety of abortion pills and were trained on how to use relational organizing to spread information on self-managed abortions using Impactive, a digital organizing tool.
Two more opportunities for filling your organizing toolkit are coming up.
- Training two’s topic, “Spread the word about the Women’s Health Protection Act,” will be held on June 21 at 6 p.m. ET.
- Training three’s topic on “Community care and how to be an abortion advocate” is June 28 at 6 p.m. ET.
Register here. (Registration closes 24 hours before each session.)
By signing up for at least one of the events, registrants will receive a link to the recordings of each of the three sessions, even if they missed one or are unable to attend all three.
Now is the time to show lawmakers that the noise we have been making over the last year is only the beginning; nothing will stop us from demanding reproductive freedom.
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