With Roe gone, where do we go from here?

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/07/abortion-where-do-we-go-roe-dobbs-rewire/

Even though I knew this moment was coming, I’m disoriented by the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and upending abortion access across the country.

The map of abortion access changes almost daily, as statewide “trigger” laws take effect, are blocked by state courts, and then take effect again. Nightmare stories have emerged of a 10-year-old abuse victim forced to travel out-of-state< for an abortion, while arthritis and lupus patients are suddenly without the life-saving medication methotrexate in states with abortion bans. Methotrexate is used to treat various autoimmune conditions and cancers, but because that drug is also an “abortifacient” used to treat medically doomed ectopic pregnancies, pharmacies have now become reluctant to fill those prescriptions. In places like Ohio, advocates worry about being able to train and retain doctors in this post-Roe landscape.

That’s just within the first weeks since the Supreme Court released its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

While the immediate fallout from the decision is disorienting, the response from national Democratic leadership has been downright disappointing. Despite having a month between the draft opinion leak and the formal opinion release, national Democrats have done bupkis. Their response to this escalating human rights crisis? Urging their constituents to just vote harder. The Biden administration has met advocates’ cries for court reform measures and pleas to release executive orders declaring a public health emergency first with an insistence that political and institutional norms—rather than actual human lives—are what needs to be saved. Only when the political pressure became too unrelenting did Biden issue an Executive Order Protecting Access to Reproductive Health Care Services, though it offers more hope than it does action.

It is a good thing the Biden administration has vowed to protect the digital privacy of abortion patients, promised to expand access to medication abortion, and to facilitate and protect patients traveling out of state for care. The task force of volunteer attorneys and government agencies are promising steps, but without details from the administration for how these protections are to be enforced, as well as specific calls for agency rule-making and a call for the Food and Drug Administration to permanently end restrictions around medication, it feels like too little at a time when what is needed is big and bold action.

*snip*

[niyad]

1. Heartsick KNR

[2naSalit]

2. K&R

[samnsara]

3. im glad im in a Free and Green state...

...also everyone i know..men/women/ all ages have downloaded the FLO app....they cant chase us all down.

[uponit7771]

4. Protecting mixed race marriages, that's where we should go IMHO because its on the table and

... its the easiest to claim its at threat by Dobbs.

The messaging here is important and dems can raise holy hell on USSC and MAGA for their mindset