More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Abortion is an essential healthcare service. Abortion access is varied across the world and throughout the United States due to anti-abortion legislation. Access is often dependent on social factors such as income, race, geographic region and citizenship status.
For years, anti-abortion groups have dominated the American landscape with billboards. Now abortion rights supporters are battling back with their own.
Shout Your Abortion recently posted six abortion rights billboards along interstate 55 through five states that have banned abortion—from Memphis, Tenn., to Carbondale, Ill. The billboards include messages like, “God’s Plan Includes Abortion” and “Abortion is Okay: You Know What’s Best for You.”
On Tuesday, Sept. 26, Massachusetts-based Reproductive Equity Now, formerly NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, announced an expansion of its work into Connecticut and New Hampshire to create a regional organization to strengthen abortion access across New England. As more states ban abortion, advocates hope this regional strategy will ensure abortion health care for New Englanders and patients traveling to the region for care.
“As 20 states have moved to restrict or ban abortion, wiping out access to care in broad regions of our country, we must focus on state-by-state work to build regional blocks for abortion access. This work will begin in New England, and we hope that this model can be replicated to advance reproductive freedom nationwide.”
While the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade one year ago was a shock to our system, we must recognize that overturning Roe is not the anti-abortion movement’s end goal—it is to upend sexual and reproductive rights and freedom for millions of people. And number one on their list of priorities is banning abortion across the country, at any point in pregnancy.
Like other restrictions on reproductive healthcare, the harm that will be done if the Supreme Court decides to overrule the authority of the FDA and to further restrict access to mifepristone cannot be overstated.
Last summer, the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding precedents of Roe v. Wade, representing the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. A series from Ms., Our Abortion Stories chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post-Roe. Abortions are sought by a wide range of people for many different reasons. There is no single story. (Share your abortion story by emailing myabortionstory@msmagazine.com.)
“I wanted that baby, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
“The law was forcing this decision for me. I cried because I knew I needed to get an abortion but didn’t know how.”
“My life is better because of my decision.”
Too often, we hear stories of people unable to obtain the abortions they desperately want and need—like Ashley, a 13-year-old rape survivor in Clarksdale, Miss., who was forced to continue her pregnancy due to financial constraints.
Resources like the National Abortion Hotline and other abortion funds could have helped Ashley and her mother understand their options, plan their travel and even cover the costs of gas, food and a place to stay during the trip. But Ashley’s doctor isn’t to blame for the incorrect and insufficient information given to Ashley and her mother—anti-abortion lawmakers and extremists are.
As a medical professional, I felt it was my duty to give the millions of pregnant people misled by people like David Reardon the correct information regarding this life-saving medication.
Self-managed abortion through pills is a life-saving method for many. And Americans deserve to know it’s safe, private and effective.
Anti-abortion activists and elected officials hope to keep abortion seekers walled in within the borders of their home states.
Today, Texas is home to approximately 50 sanctuary cities, and they have expanded into six other states, including the dreaded border state of New Mexico, which the Guttmacher Institute ranks as “very protective” of abortion rights, as well as the “protective” state of Illinois. If the campaign succeeds, those seeking cross-border abortion services may find their path out from under Texas’ draconian ban an increasingly risky one, especially if trafficking is defined to include the provision of financial assistance.
On Tuesday, Sept. 12, reproductive health experts launched a new online chatbot named Charley to help abortion seekers in all 50 states find quick, accurate and confidential abortion information, tailored to their individual needs and circumstances.
Charley only asks for a user’s zip code and date of their last period to determine how far along they are in their pregnancy. Charley also makes referrals to medical and legal support services, as well as community support networks. Co-founded by former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards and the former head of Planned Parenthood’s digital department Tom Subak, Charley launched in partnership with INeedAnA.com, Plan C and the Miscarriage + Abortion (M+A) Hotline.
“There’s a lot of fear and confusion out there about how abortion is available, especially in restricted states, and there are different resources out there. But there hasn’t been a single resource that includes all the information. Charley does that,” said Elisa Wells, co-director of Plan C. “Charley walks people through their options and then directs them to the resources that are available to help them find more specific information.”
The Mexican Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday, Sept. 6, that national laws prohibiting abortion are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights. The sweeping decision entirely removed abortion from the federal penal code. The ruling also required the federal public health service and all federal health institutions to offer abortion to anyone who requests it. In a statement, Mexico’s Supreme Court said the “criminalization of abortion constitutes an act of gender-based violence and discrimination, as it perpetuates the stereotype that women and people with the capacity to get pregnant can only freely exercise their sexuality to procreate and reinforces the gender role that imposes motherhood as a compulsory destiny.”
The increased access to abortion in Mexico stands in stark contrast to decreasing access in the United States, where 14 states now ban abortion entirely and another eight states ban abortion early in pregnancy.
Proponents of the ballot measure to amend Ohio’s state constitution to protect the right to abortion always knew they faced an uphill battle. Challenged to both gather enough signatures to make the ballot and defeat a Republican-led measure that would make it more difficult to amend the state constitution—aimed at derailing the amendment—advocates in the Buckeye state are rising to the task.
(This article originally appears in the Fall 2023 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get the issue delivered straight to your mailbox!)
