| Repro Nation Monthly | September 2022 |
| Signs of hope are starting to flicker |
| Remember how desperate and defeated we felt in the days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade? Well, things are looking different now. As the midterm elections heat up, polls across the political spectrum are telling Democratic leaders what the abortion rights movement has been saying for years: Americans support legal abortion, and Democratic candidates can stoke turnout by championing this issue. Women are registering to vote in record numbers. We’ve already seen several surprise Democratic wins in special elections, and Kansans voted overwhelmingly to protect the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Our abortion access correspondent, Amy Littlefield, witnessed that historic vote and wrote that it felt like she was seeing the rebirth of the grassroots abortion rights movement.
So, signs of hope are starting to flicker across the country. At the same time, we can’t take our sights off the devastating on-the-ground impact that the Dobbs decision has already had. Just in the last few weeks, Indiana and West Virginia enacted total bans on abortion; meanwhile, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and several other states are enforcing trigger bans that they already had on the books. We’ve now read dozens of media reports about the serious health risks and horrifying delays in treatment caused by these bans. The overturning of Roe has created a human rights emergency. As we cover the fight on the ground to restore abortion rights and the growing power of this movement, our job at The Nation—as well as yours as our community—is never to look away from that.
In solidarity,
Emily Douglas, Senior Editor |
| Amy Littlefield on How Kansas Kept Abortion Legal |
| Six days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, I wrote to my editor, Emily, asking if The Nation would fly me to Kansas. On August 2, I told her, Kansans would be voting on whether to repeal the constitutional right to abortion in the state. Most people expected the anti-abortion measure to pass, because Republicans had scheduled the vote during a primary to suppress turnout. But I thought there was a glimmer of hope that abortion rights would triumph in Kansas—so I wanted to be there.
During my three-day reporting trip to Wichita, I had a front-row seat to one of the most energetic and successful grassroots mobilizations in the movement’s history. People who had never canvassed or phone-banked or even put up a lawn sign before were getting involved in the campaign to save legal abortion. At the former clinic of slain abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, I watched the staffers tend to patients with warmth and compassion, even as the appointment slots filled with patients from Texas and Oklahoma and the phone never stopped ringing.
The next day, abortion rights supporters defeated the anti-abortion amendment in a landslide. I realized I’d borne witness to a historic moment. I’d seen the pro-choice majority awakening to a sense of its power. That’s why these days, whenever anyone asks me why I’m hopeful about the future of abortion rights and our democracy, I can tell them in a single word: Kansas.
Read more here. |
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