On abortion access, the Supreme Court’s signal is clear: Our fight must continue
Three years ago — almost to the day — I stood under the dome of the Texas Capitol with thousands of Texans. They turned the building into a sea of orange, lining the balconies three levels high.
We were there standing with then-Sen. Wendy Davis — who filibustered for 11 hours in her pink shoes trying to stop the Legislature from passing HB2. The Legislature eventually passed the bill — and lit a fire under an army of folks who had had enough.
On Monday, the Supreme Court affirmed the principle that kept Wendy and thousands of activists on their feet long into the night. In a decisive 5-3 ruling, the court found the restrictions placed on abortion providers — which shuttered half of the state’s health centers providing safe and legal abortion — unconstitutional.
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt is the most important abortion case in a generation. The court’s ruling sends a signal to politicians who have in practical terms eliminated access to safe and legal abortion, based on the smokescreen that they’re “protecting” women. Monday’s ruling laid bare that these laws are merely attempts to put safe and legal abortion out of reach.
Already the ruling has sent shockwaves through the country. In just four days, six anti-abortion laws faltered:
On Monday, the Alabama attorney general said he wouldn’t continue an appeal of a court’s decision finding a similar state law unconstitutional.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined to hear appeals on admitting privileges laws from Mississippi, where the law is now permanently blocked, and Wiscon- sin, where it will remain preliminarily blocked while the trial court considers whether to permanently block it.
On Thursday, a district court in Indiana granted a preliminary injunction in a case against another unprecedented abortion restriction.
A few hours later, a district court in Florida granted a preliminary injunction stopping measures that would block patients from coming
to Planned Parenthood for care like birth control, cancer screenings and sexually transmitted infections testing and treatment.
The right to make decisions about pregnancy belongs to women — it doesn’t belong to politicians, judges or bureaucrats. Sarah Weddington made the case 43 years ago when she successfully argued Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court. Whole Woman’s Health, led by Amy Hagstrom Miller, was the lead plaintiff in the case to strike down this unconstitutional law.
Texas women have a long history of demanding and defending our rights. But a right on paper doesn’t mean much if you can’t access it. No one knows that better than the Texas women who have spent the past three years driving hundreds of miles, missing work and finding child care in order to access safe and legal abortion. Or the women for whom those things were impossible, and who went without the care they need and deserve. As new numbers released by the Texas health department this week showed, the number of safe and legal abortions in the state dropped significantly during the first full year with the restrictions — the largest drop in 15 years and more evidence that women simply cannot access abortion services under these laws.
Women deserve better than what Texas politicians have given them. Deciding when and whether to have children is one of the most important, personal decisions anyone makes in their life — they deserve to make it freely and without patron- izing laws meant to shame and demean them.
They deserve compassion and care. They deserve to be trusted.
Over the past several years, every time the Texas Legislature passed another bill aimed at restricting women’s access to reproductive health care, the doctors, clinicians and staff at Planned Parenthood have done everything in their power to continue providing care to their patients. That includes opening new health centers in Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio. And we’re not done. We’ll continue to expand access for our patients and fight to expand reproductive freedom any way we can.
With a decisive ruling from the Supreme Court and hundreds of unjust laws on the books, we’re redoubling our efforts to repeal laws like HB2 as well as other laws that restrict access to safe and legal abortion, including in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and more.
At Planned Parenthood, we know that you only get the justice you fight for. The Supreme Court ruling was a victory, but it was only the beginning in our fight to ensure that all people, no matter where they live, can build the future they want.