Friends, I have no ask for you in this email – I just want to share my thoughts on what would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Last year’s would-be anniversary should, by all accounts, have been a tougher milestone than today. We were just months into a post-Dobbs reality, and the trigger bans that we saw going into effect were downright terrifying. They still are. But somehow, this year feels even harder.

In the past 12 months, we’ve watched people die as a direct result of dangerous abortion bans. Both maternal and infant mortality rates have spiked. People have been cruelly denied care over and over and over again, despite their doctors’ orders and their sincere wishes to be treated.

And all the while, we’ve watched Republicans politicians make perfectly clear that THIS is what they wanted all along.

Donald Trump – the criminal who’s en route to locking down the Republican nomination for President – has been downright cheerful in his credit-claiming.

I did it, he said.

It’s a miracle, he said.

I’m a woman of reproductive age, so this is deeply personal to me. But I know I’m not the only one struggling with this day, and this reality. Abortion bans don’t just affect women, for starters. Trans men, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people have lost their right to bodily autonomy, too.

And even if you’ll never, or never again, become pregnant, living in a society whose leaders are gleefully trampling on more than half the population’s basic freedoms takes a very real toll. It can become easy to feel hopeless.

So, I’m going to take back what I said at the beginning of this email – I do have an ask for you. It’s the same ask I’m making of myself right now: Don’t lose hope.

We just can’t afford to – because we’ve got serious work to do. Not only is this fight not over, we actually have a shot at winning it this November.

We can vote out extremists. We can elect and re-elect champions of reproductive rights. We can hold onto our hope – and deliver some to the next generation who is looking to us to right these wrongs.

I’m ready if you are.

Thanks for reading.

-Sara