Concern amid possible repeal of Roe v. Wade
Black women, LGBTQ rights also at risk
Even before a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion revealed plans to overturn a nationwide right to abortion, activists and healthcare providers had been preparing to fight to protect access for people who have historically been most vulnerable — women of color and those who identify as LGBTQ.
Transgender activist Ciné Julien and colleagues at Florida Access Network, an Orlando-based nonprofit and abortion fund, spent weeks making calls to community partners to get them ready to rally to protect Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that legalized abortion across the country in 1973. Despite decades of threats and recent state legislation that left many communities with no abortion clinics, Julien said Politico’s reporting on the leaked documents came as a surprise.
“It was really just a feeling of shock and definitely not something I was planning to address so quickly,” Julien said.
For now, abortion is still legal and there is time for Supreme Court justices to change their position, but this potential death blow to federal abortion rights protection has sparked concern for Black women, who are more likely to die during pregnancy; poor people, who could struggle to afford safe options if abortions were made illegal; and LGBTQ people, who stand to not only lose control of their reproductive health but also see the draft decision as foreshadowing an attack on other freedoms, like the hardwon right to marriage equality.
“The reproductive rights movement has always included everyone — especially those who are Black women, Black queer and trans folks, and just the
LGBTQ+ community at large,” Julien said. “We kind of get swept under the rug.”
Reesa Roberts, a reproductive rights activist and physician assistant who spent her 25-year career helping patients access reproductive healthcare, including abortions, joined Julien in a statewide call for Black people concerned about the leaked Supreme Court opinion.
“My entire career has been looking at how folks who look like me — Black women, poor folks, indigenous people — have been marginalized in healthcare and working to address those barriers,” Roberts said. “So when we look at the leak of this draft ruling, what I see is an even bleaker future for Black women.”
Activists fear more Black women may die
State abortion data is limited because private physicians are not required to report to the federal government when they help patients end unwanted or dangerous pregnancies.
Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2019, more than 66,000 abortions were performed at hospitals and other facilities that are required to report in Florida. That number does not include people who traveled to the state from other parts of the nation with stricter limits on abortion access.
Though Black people make up less than 17% of the state population, they made up about 35% of the abortion patients in Florida, the CDC found.
That over-representation is visible across the nation.
In his draft opinion, Justice Samuel Alito questioned the motivation of pro-choice activists, saying that even if reducing the Black population by way of abortion was not the goal of those who support abortion rights, that was the result.
“It is beyond dispute that Roe has had that demographic effect,” Alito wrote a footnote included in the draft shared by Politico. “A highly disproportionate percentage of aborted fetuses are black.”
But State Rep. Fentrice Driskell (D- Tampa) said Alito’s assessment fails to look at the state of maternal healthcare for Black women to see that more Black women would die if forced to bring all babies to term.
“The U.S. leads the developed world in infant and maternal mortality; the U.S. ranks 50th in the world for maternal safety,” Driskell said in a virtual press conference this week. “Nationally, for Black women, the maternal death rate is nearly four times that of white women . ... And it’s 10 to 17 times worse in some states. So if we want to talk about a world where women can carry a pregnancy to term and feel safe, let’s have a broader conversation about health care.”
Driskell called Alito’s conclusion offensive and said his logic was misplaced.
“If what we actually want is a world where women will feel safer to carry a pregnancy to term, then let’s have a conversation about what we’re talking about, which is healthcare, which is economic opportunity, education, investing in our public schools. All of this is interconnected,” Driskell said.
LGBTQ rights at stake
In the draft opinion, Alito called the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision “egregiously wrong from the start” and added that it should be overturned because “the Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”
For Roe to be constitutionally appropriate, it would need to be proven that the right is “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition” as required by the 14th Amendment, Alito wrote.
That reasoning gives LGBTQ activists pause as they question if other rights, like same-sex marriage, interracial marriage and even access to birth control could also be called into question if the court one day decides those too are not “deeply rooted” in American tradition.
“Make no mistake: this will embolden attacks on not only reproductive freedom, but LGBTQ rights and beyond,” said Nadine Smith, executive director of LGBTQ rights organization Equality Florida. “The same logic that’s being used to control people’s bodies and medical decisions is at risk of being used to turn back the clock on LGBTQ equality. … These fights are deeply intertwined. They’re rooted in the fundamental rights of all to personal autonomy and control of our own sexuality.”
Julien said the abortion ruling alone will harm LGBTQ people.
“For folks who are abortion seekers, it’s already hard enough for folks to work and make enough money and make ends meet,” Julien said. “And imagine when it’s someone like myself who’s black, trans, queer, a college student . ... Things like this can affect everyone differently, but especially those who are marginalized.”
It could be months before the Supreme Court finalizes its opinion on Roe v. Wade and the nation learns the fate of abortion rights. In the meantime, Amy Weintraub, reproductive rights program director for Progress Florida, said abortion providers should be preparing by setting up abortion funds and organizing so they can plan quickly to help patients access safe abortion, even if that means patients must travel outside their communities or states.
“Providers have been building unprecedented levels of interstate networks of care, and abortion funds have been building relationships with providers all over the United States, to make sure that Floridians who need abortions later in pregnancy will be able to get those,” Weintraub said.
Roberts said the draft opinion was discouraging but she and her fellow reproductive rights activist are prepared to continue their fight.
“I do have a hope, though,” Roberts said. “And the hope is that when we look at the right to bodily autonomy, 70% of the individuals in this country want some sort of choice.”
She’s counting on that 70% to vote and remove the lawmakers intent on making abortion illegal.