Securing the Right to Abortion When Protests Aren’t Enough
In June 2022, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, rejecting constitutional protections for the right to abortion and returning the issue to state legislatures.
Divisions in the country quickly intensified. Republican-controlled state legislatures allowed “trigger” laws, previously set up to automatically ban abortion in most or all cases after the overturning of Roe, to proceed.
In August, Indiana became the first state to pass legislation banning abortion post-Roe. As of September 15, 2022, all abortions in Indiana are banned other than in the circumstances of rape, incest, a major risk to the life or health of the mother, or a fatal fetal abnormality. The way the legislation is written, in practice it will be difficult for most women to demonstrate their need for one of these exceptions.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said she fears that if Republicans take the House majority in 2022, they will pass legislation mandating a nationwide abortion ban.
So what do we do?
Protest effectively—and safely
For many supporters of abortion rights, protest is the answer. The right to peaceful political protest is a time-honored value, guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.
Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights organizations offer some practical recommendations when exercising this right:
Bring water, sunblock, a face mask, and any medication you might need while out protesting.
Make sure your phone is charged. Out of an abundance of caution, many activists increasingly recommend that abortion rights protestors use anonymous, pay-as-you-go cellphones. This helps avoid intrusive surveillance by anti-abortion groups or hostile local law enforcement.
Plan ahead by learning the meeting place, route, and timing of the protest, and strategize how you will get home safely afterward.
Protest with a group of people you know, and have a plan for contacting each other if you become separated.
Don’t let anti-abortion protestors’ shocking, inaccurate insults and imagery provoke you to engage with them. Ignore them. Keep focused on your right to make your voice heard with positive messages of empowerment.
Remember that words used at protests about such a sensitive issue can sound out-of-touch or offensive to some people. Planned Parenthood suggests phrases for protest signs that speak to core American values of civil liberties, bodily autonomy, and positive collective action. These phrases include “Abortion is health care” and “Bans off our bodies.” For call-and-response actions with crowds, the group suggests phrases like, “We are unstoppable! Another world is possible!”
On the other hand, some phrases and imagery used in previous generations of protests aren’t as effective and can evoke trauma or spur feelings of antagonism. For example, the image of a coat hanger is meant to represent the deaths stemming from the self-managed abortions that women turned to before Roe. But it also stigmatizes abortion and leads to the assumption that all self-managed abortion is unsafe. (In fact, the medications used to self-manage abortion, mifepristone and misoprostol, have a better safety record than Tylenol and Viagra.) Today’s best-informed activists have stopped using the coat hanger in protest imagery.
It’s especially important to remember that the term “pro-choice” can be offensive in communities of color. For generations, Black, Latina, and Native women have been routinely denied life-saving care, as well as the autonomy to participate in decisions about their own care, that are regularly available in white communities. So to many, the assumption that they can exercise “choice” over their health care rings hollow.
That’s the protest part. But protesting alone won’t get us where we need to be.
Push for state and federal legislation
On July 15, the House of Representatives approved the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would safeguard access to abortion in all 50 states and invalidate current anti-abortion state laws. But as of August 2022, this legislation stands no reasonable chance of gaining enough Republican votes in the evenly divided Senate to pass.
Stay in touch with your congressional representatives and urge them to commit to voting for it. Looking toward the upcoming congressional midterm elections, organize and vote out the anti-abortion legislators in your districts and vote in those who will support the federal-level codification of Roe.
But there’s a problem here, too: the Supreme Court could in theory overturn a new federal law codifying the rights upheld in Roe. The current ultra-right-wing Court could very well rule that there are no valid constitutional rights in an abortion-protection law.
We also need to focus on state legislatures, again working to oust incumbents who support bans and elect those pledged to support abortion rights.
Some much-needed state-level inspiration came with Kansas voters’ overwhelming rejection of a referendum to amend the state constitution that would have negated the right to abortion. Pro-abortion rights activists in Kansas—a deep-red state—succeeded through focused organization and a determined effort to turn out the vote.
Expand the Court, reject the filibuster
Elie Mystal, The Nation’s justice correspondent and author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, makes a strong argument for the expansion of the Supreme Court. More justices, appointed by Joe Biden and successors committed to human rights, will look—and think—more like America, diluting the narrow extremism of the current Court. But achieving Court expansion will require the Senate to get rid of the filibuster, a custom rather than a practice enshrined in the Constitution.
Stay in the fight
So, the most effective approach to ensuring real, lasting establishment of the right to abortion isn’t just to protest, as important as that is. The answer is multi-faceted. We’ll have to overcome the tendency to think it will be easy or quick. It’s going to be a long-haul fight, and all of us who support the right to abortion will need to vote, protest, organize, and work as if the lives of those we love depend on it. Because they do.