Dear John,
“[For] 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it. And I’m proud to have done it.”
These words were uttered by former President Trump at a Fox News town hall Wednesday. Since the Dobbs decision that he so proudly takes credit for, we have seen the horrific and sometimes deadly results of abortion bans play out.
The consequences include the recently uncovered case of Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick, a 29 year-old woman in Texas who died from pregnancy complications including hypertension and suspected preeclampsia just weeks after the overturn of Roe. As reported by the New Yorker, If the Catholic hospital she went to had allowed her to have an abortion, the piece makes clear, she could still be alive today. But she was not.
The fall of Roe is not solely to blame for Glick’s death. Texas’s draconian abortion ban—and the abortion deserts it has created—is also to blame, as is our country’s dependence on healthcare facilities operated by religious institutions. And in the wake of last week’s federal court ruling that emergency rooms are not required to provide life-saving abortions if the decision would run up against state laws like Texas’s, far more cases like Glick’s are sure to come.
We now live in a country where women also are being criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes—and where lawmakers would sooner let them die than have an abortion. This is evident in the case of Brittany Watts, the Ohio woman who was recently charged with felony abuse of a corpse after she miscarried at her home. Thankfully, a grand jury declined to indict Watts this week, and the charges against her will be dismissed. But as cases like these continue to mount, and women continue to lose their lives, there is no excuse for any of us to remain complacent.
As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day this Monday, we are remembering his legacy as a firm supporter of reproductive rights. As Ms.’s Dr. Michele Goodwin reported, King noted a “striking kinship” between the fights for reproductive rights and civil rights, and saw the movements for each as “natural allies.”
“Dr. King would likely be horrified by the state’s oversized role in determining how and when women can control their reproductive health,” Dr. Goodwin writes. “He highlighted the urgency and necessity to pay close attention to the dignity of poor women, especially poor women of color. He recognized the profound cruelty and indignity associated with the stigmatization of poor mothers.”
We’re also remembering how the MLK day holiday wouldn't exist without the advocacy and determination of one very important feminist activist: Coretta Scott King—a woman whose “vision of ‘the beloved community’ was bolder and more revolutionary than her husband Martin’s,” as Beverly Guy-Sheftall wrote in Ms.
Scott King was deeply devoted to issues of racial and economic justice, and was an advocate for women’s rights (including the Equal Rights Amendment) and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as advocating for issues like universal health care, world peace, gun control, and other social issues that “situated her outside the mainstream of American politics and the civil rights establishment.”
“She believed that the U.S. would be better served if resources [devoted to war] were expended for improved schools, college tuition support and training programs for at-risk youth,” Guy-Sheftall wrote. “Speaking to the Antioch College graduating class of 1982, she asked, ‘Isn’t it strange how the leaders of nations can talk so eloquently about peace while they prepare for war? … There is no way to make peace while preparing for war.’”
Far too often women like Scott King are overlooked in the American historical narrative. But they have always been at the vanguard—when it comes to abortion and reproductive rights, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and ongoing fights for justice. This MLK day, let’s recommit to honoring their legacy too.
For equality,
