by Noriko Nakada for the Women Who Submit Leadership Team
This week my ten-year-old had her annual physical. Her dad took her, but that afternoon, when she came home to tell me about it, she said, “I’ve never had a man before.” In her ten years, every pediatrician she’s known has been a woman or non-binary physician. She is growing up in a world where women can be and do so much: they are doctors, they run for president, they play professional sports. In my work in a public middle school, I see young people pushing back against sexist dress codes, and exhibiting so much freedom in what they want to do with their bodies and their lives, but the leak of the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade cast a long, dark shadow across any of the improvements to women, non-binary, and transgender folks’ rights, reminding us that our bodily autonomy is under aggressive attack.
We have seen this coming in the election of a blatant misogynist, in the efforts at the state level to restrict abortion access, to silence stories through book and conversation bans, and in the appointment of conservative justices to the Supreme Court. We have watched this unfold slowly, like the shifts in our planet’s climate, but with this ruling, for the first time in many of our lives, abortion will no longer be protected in the United States.
Over the course of the pandemic, chapters and memberships have sprouted up across the nation and globe, and while some of us might reside in solidly blue states where access to safe and legal healthcare remains intact, but even there, care can become precarious as clinics shut down, or voting restrictions make it more likely that the conservative minority will come to power. We watched this over the years as in so many places the reasonable availability of abortions has eroded. And for those of us living in poverty, no matter where we reside, healthcare options are often financially out of reach.
Women Who Submit supports safe, legal, affordable abortion access for all and encourages members to support and lift one another up as we navigate these hostile waters. We see you and acknowledge the range of emotions this week’s news might have triggered. We urge you to take care of yourselves and those around you as you seek out opportunities to turn the tide. We acknowledge that the ways we all push back are diverse and unique. Maybe you are grieving silently, writing a story you have about your reproductive struggles or health, or having difficult conversations with loved ones about the significance of this ruling. However you are processing, we are here, we are creating, and we aren’t going anywhere.
If you have the wherewithal to push back financially, here are some funds and resources to pass along. Most are set up to help people in areas where access to abortion and healthcare is already limited and is likely to become more challenging in the coming months.
Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund
ARC Southeast supporting Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee
Tea Fund serving northern Texas
Whole Women’s Health Alliance with clinics in Austin, Minnesota, Charlottesville, and South Bend
Jane’s Due Process supporting Texas teens
Women’s Health Center of West Virginia
Kentucky Health Justice Network
Holler Health Justice serving Appalachia
Arkansas Abortion Support Network
National Network of Abortion Funds
Reproductive Legal Defense Fund
Keep Our Clinics