RULING IS A DANGEROUS AND VILE ATTACK ON WOMEN
Overturning Roe v. Wade will put thousands of women at risk, and it will disproportionately impact people of color, people with low incomes, immigrants and young people. Limited access to health care, lack of choices in no-cost birth control, comprehensive sex education and the cost of transportation are all existing barriers. Access to reproductive health care continues to be a right in name but not a reality in many communities across the country.
Restricting access to safe abortion will not only mean putting thousands of women in danger across the nation, but it will accelerate the undoing of more than 100 years of work to advance and protect women’s right to equity. It also has the potential to threaten other sexual rights and will further erode sexual freedoms that have been gained from years of advocacy and change . ...
We need to stand with organizations that advocate for these freedoms and ask the question of everyone who is on any election ballot, will they openly and intentionally defend our rights? Representation matters, and now more than ever, we cannot take it for granted.
From an essay by Vernita Gutierrez, vice president of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest:
Even now, while the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling is still the law of the land, people of color, immigrants, people with low incomes and those who live in rural areas already experience added barriers to access abortion care. People in communities that have historically lacked access to health care services continuously encounter challenges — lack of insurance, taking time off at work, the cost of transportation and lodging, securing child care and more. Once Roe v. Wade is overturned, these barriers will be exacerbated, and more and more people will be forced to flee their home state to get abortion care and struggle to meet their basic health care needs. The Guttmacher Institute recently issued a report showing a nearly 3,000 percent increase in out-of-state women of reproductive age who would now find their nearest clinic for abortion services located in California. We’ve already seen an increase in out-of-state patients at our health centers since the beginning of this year, and we anticipate this number will increase.
California, where abortion will remain legal and protected, will serve as a safe haven for reproductive freedom.
From an essay by retired Rancho Peñasquitos resident Judy Piercey:
In 1972, when I was a sophomore in college, my best friend got pregnant. This was before the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the lawsuit that led to justices establishing a nationwide right to abortion. She was in a toxic relationship with a Vietnam veteran who had post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues. He was not a good candidate as a husband or a father. And she wasn’t in a financial position to support a child herself. After much thought, she made the difficult decision to have an illegal abortion. It was an expensive, traumatic and dangerous experience — she flew to Mexico to suffer the procedure alone in a foreign country. It was a choice she made, and the right one at the time. Thinking of my friend and the many women before her who faced life-threatening danger with an illegal abortion, I marched in May against the potential Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade at nearly 70 years old. It was the first protest march of my life. I joined the “Bans Off Our Bodies” rally in Carlsbad along with hundreds of other passionate women — and men — who came together to fight for women’s choice. I marched to support reproductive rights so that my young granddaughters will have a choice in their future.
From an essay by Eva Posner and Aaron Brennan, co-chairs of the San Diego Chapter of the Truman National Security Project:
As part of an official policy, young women are separated from the Navy when they are unable to develop a plan ensuring round-the-clock care for an unexpected child. Stationed far from their support network with limited financial resources, such women find it nearly impossible to meet the requirements of the Navy family policy. This cuts careers short, ends any possibility of receiving retirement benefits, and costs the United States ready and willing defenders.
In San Diego, at least, a service member contemplating this situation could choose an abortion. But that same service member transferred to any of the 26 states poised to ban abortion with the expected Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which would overturn the court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, would be out of options.
Military members and federal employees are transferred in and out of San Diego at an incredible rate. Due to the high federal presence in our region — which includes nine military bases, the FBI, Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection — we are a collection of people from everywhere. We are also sending our born-and-raised Californians to bases all over the country.
In a post-Roe world, Californians sent to places like Missouri, Alabama and Texas will no longer enjoy the rights and privacy so many of us take for granted here. They could be arrested, jailed, marked as felons and lose their right to vote — all over a medical procedure.