The decision relegates women to a second-class citizenry and
undermines our ability to make the appropriate decisions when it comes
to our health and our wealth.
Supreme Court's abortion ruling disproportionately affects Black
people with low incomes in the Deep South
[link removed]
Rhonda Sonnenberg Read the full piece here
[link removed]
Friend,
Even before Alauni took an at-home pregnancy test just four weeks
after a single instance of unplanned sexual activity, she knew it
would be positive.
The 24-year-old Texas college student - a single, working mother
of three children under the age of 6, one of whom is autistic -
immediately felt the familiar signs of her pregnancies. She had
intended to buy the Plan B
[link removed]
"morning after" pill, but was in the process of moving to
another city and hadn't yet secured new housing.
Amid all her pressing concerns last December, Alauni - who is
Black and whose name has been changed in this story to protect her
identity - forgot to go to the pharmacy. By the time she
remembered, it was too late. When she took an at-home test at four
weeks - two weeks before the detectable fetal
"flutter"
[link removed]
- her fear was confirmed.
"My first thought was, I need to be able to self-manage an
abortion," Alauni said. "I stressed if I would be able to
get the medication. I worried that I would be having another child at
a time in my life that wasn't right. ... I didn't
want my family to know. I didn't go to a doctor. I was scared
because nowadays if you go to a doctor and you later aren't
pregnant, it's suspicious. They can report you. I was most
scared of the people in my city."
So began Alauni's frantic scramble to obtain an abortion after
the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2022, ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson
Women's Health Organization
[link removed]
that a woman has no constitutional right to abortion. The ruling
overturned the court's landmark Roe v. Wade
[link removed]
decision of 1973 and overnight brought sheer panic and a sense of
desperation to economically vulnerable Southerners needing an
abortion.
Texas
[link removed]
, where Alauni lives, is one of 15 states
[link removed]
, mostly in the South, with laws that ban or highly restrict abortion
in most or all cases unless the patient's life is at risk from
or related to the pregnancy. Some of the states have no exceptions for
rape or incest, and anyone obtaining an in-state abortion after six
weeks of pregnancy can be criminally charged.
While legislators in some conservative states - including South
Carolina and Nebraska - have rejected bills prohibiting the
procedure
[link removed] .
, Dobbs gives states the power to decide whether a woman can or cannot
legally have an abortion.
"The Dobbs decision has had a crippling effect on women in
Mississippi," said Waikinya Clanton, the Mississippi state
office director for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The plaintiff in the Dobbs case was the last abortion clinic in
Mississippi. It closed because of the decision
[link removed]
.
"The decision relegates women to a second-class citizenry and
undermines our ability to make the appropriate decisions when it comes
to our health and our wealth," Clanton said.
Read More
[link removed]
Sincerely,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond,
working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.
Friend, will you make a gift to help the SPLC fight for
justice and equity in courts and combat white supremacy?
Donate
[link removed]
--
Unsubscribe [link removed] | Privacy Policy [link removed] | Contact Us [link removed]
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Avenue
Montgomery, AL 36104
334.956.8200 // splcenter.org
[link removed]
Copyright 2022
