85% of Americans broadly support abortion rights per Gallup poll, June 26, 2024... and as such, women’s freedom of choice is a highly significant issue for voters in the 2024 election cycle.
1 in 4 women will need an abortion before the age of 45. In fact, “some 60% of women needing abortions have had children before and want their pregnancy, but face catastrophic medical issues that necessitate a medical intervention" /FoxNews 4/8/24. Yet across the spectrum of reproductive healthcare - abortion and miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, fetal abnormality, IVF and now even birth control - there are laws of extreme control and consequence being passed and proposed daily to control women across the nation, with the most intimate of decisions about their bodies, now being forced upon them by total strangers irregardless of their wishes, consultation with their doctors, support of their loved ones and perhaps even personal faith.
While there are many issues that motivate one to vote, across the ideological spectrum, women being denied freedom of choice, state by state post the overturning of Roe, is a catalyzing reality that legislators have crossed a line too far into personal freedoms. Now two years after the Dobbs decision, 1 in 3 women of reproductive age in the United States has been stripped of their freedom to make health decisions about their own bodies and millions more are under threat of pending judicial decision or legislation, including an endorsed national ban with zero exceptions within the 2025 Republican Study Committee. Budget. H.R. 431, the proposed Life at Conception Act, would inevitably restrict IVF and birth control options in granting equal protection to embryos.
Today’s realities include Arizona’s recent passage of a zombie abortion law written in 1864. Repealed only because THREE Republicans finally joined with Democrats after several attempts and a ballot initiative campaign began. Millions of women in Florida now live under a 6 week ban (when most women don’t even know they’re pregnant) eliminating the last option of access for many more millions of women in surrounding states already under severe or total restriction of abortion care. And Louisiana became the first state in the nation to compound their ban by classifying the two most common abortion and miscarriage management medications as controlled substances, criminalizing possession under penalty of 10 yrs in prison. A law sure to be replicated by other states with bans.
Two alarming post Dobbs cases taken up by the Supreme Court were further attempts to control women's reproductive healthcare. The highly regulated miscarriage and abortion management medication, Mifepristone, used in over 100 countries and approved by the FDA for over 20 years, was under consideration of being banned… nationally. Had the conservative majority decided for its restriction, women in every state would have be denied access to this medication by ONE federal judge, in ONE state, having unilaterally impacted the reproductive healthcare choices of every woman in the country as a blueprint for future restrictions. Shockingly, the 1873 Comstock Act was cited by both Alito and Thomas in that hearing; which would, and still may be, an end-around to a national ban on abortion, as it does not require Congressional approval. Of note, this "Chastity Law" was written by Anthony Comstock, a reputed serial child rapist. EMTALA, (the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act) was also reviewed by the Supreme Court this term. Brought by the state of Idaho and defended by the Biden DOJ, had it been struck down, it would have severely restricted emergency room abortion care for women - again nationally. Imagine doctors forced to weigh life and death decisions to treat women needing an emergency abortion due to a medical crisis, against the real risk of losing their license to practice, civil and criminal punishment, or incarceration. While the Supreme Court did not side with the plaintiffs in either case - they only said they did not have standing - leaving the door wide open for other cases to be brought on both these egregious restrictions. These decisions were not a win for women, just cans being kicked down the road... for now.
The cascading consequences of abortion bans are deep and lasting. Significant numbers of OBGYNs departing from states in which they practice, medical students choosing not to take residencies, maternal care being compromised at a time when dozens of rural hospitals have closed since 2020, fearful doctors deferring to see newly pregnant women until the 2nd trimester, rates of maternal and infant mortality rising, increasing numbers of young women choosing permanent contraception and a litany of vague restriction directives critically compromising women’s reproductive health, future fertility and very life. Amanda Zurawski shares of her personal story of the impact of these draconian laws in Willow’s Box https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wInNjr_9D28 ) She now has to use a surrogate to have a child due to the permanent damage to her fertility from TX abortion restrictions denying her timely care for the emergency abortion she needed to save her life.
Since the overturning of Roe, JAMA Internal Medicine cites that in 2023 alone, “64,565 pregnancies by rape occurred in the 14 states where abortion was quickly banned post Roe”/NPR. Women, girls, and even children, denied in-state options, face forced birth from assault as their terrifying reality, regardless of age or trauma endured, with few having the financial means or support for out-of-state medical care. Abortion bans come with great inequity of impact, from healthcare availability, medical coverage, derailment of education or employment, and financial security hardship. For millions of women and girls, the loss of freedom of choice, is the loss of choice in their future and dreams.
In the Dobbs decision, the majority wrote that “women are not without electoral or political power”. The power that must now be engaged in order to take our bodies back. Voting on November 5th, for a President and Senate who will protect women’s rights is critical, as they’re the ones who nominate, confirm and appoint federal judges and justices who will determine women’s future freedoms or ensure further restrictions for generations to come. And voting to take back the House, will allow for women’s reproductive freedom of choice to be restored, protected and enshrined in the constitution so that this never happens again.
While 1903 suffragettes wore white to 'wake up the nation' to a women's right to vote, in 2024, we’ll wear pink, for a women’s right of choice to reproductive healthcare, from abortion to IVF to birth control - all of which is at risk nationally and at state level, depending on who wins elections up and down the ballot. It’s up to voters to elect only those who will end the cruelty of control in banning medical care, criminalizing women and doctors; even controlling the physical movements of women across state lines. Idaho is the first state to explicitly restrict interstate travel and criminalize helping a pregnant minor obtain an abortion as a felony, with no exceptions. A state in which many women now have to drive over an hour just to see an ObGyn as most have left to safely practice women's reproductive healthcare elsewhere.
JoeandRoe is designed as a teachable forum, for young women and men, fathers and their daughters, grandmothers and their granddaughters, college students, friend groups, community members, and beyond, to learn about and gain insight into the facts of what’s at stake and combat the flow of misinformation. In these times of deep divide in our nation, perhaps it’s this issue of personal bodily freedom, holding in the balance, the future of the women and girls we know and love, that may just be the sea change to healing that divide. In learning, discussing, and reflecting on what we’re voting for… the very bodies and freedoms of our loved ones, there can be found commonality and just cause of humanity and heart amongst us.
This election on November 5th, 2024 is not about red vs blue, current or prior political affiliation, or if you’ve sat out the last vote… or two. It’s about human lives… women’s lives, and the untold stories of women now suffering, especially underserved women, with limited means or options, who live in states banning abortion care, even in the horrifying case of rape or incest. In November, we have a choice - either to stand with our daughters, grand daughters and all the beautiful women and girls in our lives, in their right to bodily autonomy - or endorse their losing that freedom of choice that women had for over 50 years in the United States. Also at stake in this election is the very real possibility of a national abortion ban and the potential to appoint at least two or more, much younger, Supreme Court justices, making permanent the 6-3 conservative, lifetime appointed majority and ensuring multi-generational loss of personal freedoms for women and young girls.
Please share of this community and this site within your own circle of life. It's going to take more than a village to win this fight. With gerrymandered districts, voter suppression laws, ballot restrictions, malicious disinformation about election security and threats to the safety of election officials - it's going to take nothing short of an historic level of voter turnout to take our bodies back. But despite these daunting hurdles … We can do this! There are more of us who believe women should have equal rights, as do men, to make decisions about their own bodies… then there are those who seek to take away these rights, subjugating women as second class citizens. We all just need to vote!
Terry Tempest Williams, celebrated author, naturalist and social justice advocate recently said, “The heart is the first home for democracy. Trust your heart. Trust your fellow citizens. And trust the power of a community who cares.” For the future of our loved ones, and the future of our democracy…
If you love a women, join us in voting for her Freedom of Choice (early voting begins in September, through election day, November 5th, 2024 🕊️