| For 250 years we have been “living inside of someone else’s imagination,” to quote adrienne maree brown. This is true about abortion and reproductive justice and how we connect with one another on these and a host of other issues. We see these natural occurrences of our experiences as humans as removed from who we are as people because of the underlying structures that constrict how we live and relate to one another. But we have the capacity to exist bigger, imagine beyond what we know, and build something greater than anything we’ve ever known.
If we were to use the nation’s founding as our starting point, we can see that abortion was fundamental to how people lived and survived in early America, for enslaved Black women, for more than one founding father, and for their kin. That knowledge helps us to see through the lies of the Dobbs decision, which came down four years ago this month. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority, “The Court finds that the right to an abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition.” But in reality, people were having abortions before, during, and after 1776. Abortion is very much an American tradition. The issue is not, How do we fit abortion rights into a framework that was never going to give us liberation?, but rather, How do we create a better framework? For me, that starts with rebuilding the healthcare system, which has been fundamental to the injustices women and trans people have experienced when it comes to our reproductive health, which includes our sexual health, maternal health, and our access to abortion care. How do we build a system in which lawmakers and elected officials cannot determine what care we can receive, where doctors or other medical staff cannot turn patients away? That, to me, is a future worth fighting for.
In Solidarity,
Regina Mahone
Deputy Editor, Print, The Nation
Co-author, Liberating Abortion |
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