Democratic lawmakers and abortion rights advocates rally on the Pennsylvania Capitol steps on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022. (Capital-Star photo)
By Alexis McGill Johnson, Dayle Steinberg, Melissa Reed and Sydney Etheredge
We knew what would happen when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
We knew politicians in many states would ban abortion. We knew patients would be forced to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to get care. We knew many would be forced to stay pregnant against their will. We knew doctors would be put in impossible positions, knowing they had the skill and knowledge to help their patients, but their hands were tied by the state.
There are now 21 states that have banned abortion, and 29 million women, trans and nonbinary people of reproductive age are living under those bans. That’s 44% of all women of reproductive age, and 55% of Black women.
We knew women would die because of these bans, but we didn’t know how many, or where, or who they would be. But now we have names. Two women — both Black women, both mothers — in Georgia died in 2022, in the first months without a federal constitutional right to abortion. According to Georgia’s Department of Public Health maternal mortality review committee, Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died preventable deaths, as a direct result of Georgia’s abortion ban.
Women and families have been telling their stories everywhere anyone will pay attention — on social media, on national television, in local newspapers. They are telling the world that abortion is essential health care, that women, trans and nonbinary people are suffering under these bans. They’re reminding us that access to sexual and reproductive health care is not a luxury to be awarded to the few; it is essential if we are to call ourselves a free country.
The stories continue to accumulate, some of them heartbreaking, some of them enraging, some of them achingly familiar to our own experiences or those of people we love. After all, one in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime, which means we all know someone who has had an abortion, whether or not they’ve shared that story.
And we know what will happen in Pennsylvania if politicians against reproductive freedom take power this election. We know because they’ve already shown us.
In the two years since the fall of Roe, there have been nearly two dozen bills introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature to restrict abortion in addition to a constitutional amendment proposed to strip our rights from the state constitution. The attacks will not stop, and just because they haven’t been successful so far, doesn’t mean they never will be. It would be a mistake to let our guard down and think that the law is safe and settled in Pennsylvania.
The damage caused by abortion bans will come to Pennsylvania if we don’t do something about it. What we can do is vote.
We can put in place leaders who will protect our right to make our own decisions about our bodies. Because there is no politician, of any party, who is more qualified, at any point in pregnancy, to make decisions about anyone’s pregnancy than patients and their doctors.
We know this: 92% of Pennsylvanians believe that abortion should be available. Ninety-two percent.
Every ballot cast in every election is an action taken toward a different future. Those actions, taken together, determine the path our country will follow. The moral arc only bends toward justice and freedom if we all pull together.
Let’s fight for the future we want, the future we deserve.
Alexis McGill Johnson is Planned Parenthood Action Fund President and CEO; Dayle Steinberg is President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania; Melissa Reed is President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Keystone; Sydney Etheredge is President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania