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Good afternoon,
Two years ago yesterday marked the end of women's health as we knew it. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it reversed 50 years of reproductive rights that women across the country could rely on.
As OCP board member and Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski writes in the latest Medium post, the Dobbs decision's domino effect knocked down the law of the land and turned back time, reviving old bans and pulling trigger laws into effect. New abortion laws are still being passed. While the constitutionality of these laws is being determined in the court systems, Sarah argues that we cannot rely on the courts to set public policy. After all, it was Trump-appointed judges that helped bring down Roe in the first place.
Instead, we must fight to pass federal legislation like Senator Tammy Baldwin's Women's Health Protection Act, which would instate abortion protections as the law of the land. Powerful legislation guaranteeing access to abortion — and to contraception, IVF, and other maternity care — secures a future where our daughters and granddaughters won't have to worry about whether they can make their own health care decisions: they'll be free to make their own choices about their own bodies.
Read the full blog post here.
Here's what else you need to know this week...
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Each week, this newsletter highlights what's going on in rural states, counties, and communities, and what One Country Project is up to around the country. If you value this content, please consider donating to One Country Project. Your contribution supports our efforts to connect with rural voters and to promote greater opportunities for rural communities.
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BACKING ABORTION ACCESS ON THE BALLOT
- Abortion is currently banned in South Dakota and limited to 6 weeks in Florida. Their measures would allow abortion up to the third trimester or to viability, respectively. While Maryland and Colorado have no abortion bans on the books, their ballot initiatives seek to establish a right to reproductive freedom, enshrining abortion access in their constitutions.
- You may recall that restricting abortion access is unpopular throughout the nation, with voters across gender, age, race, and education level saying abortion should be legal. Of the six states that have put abortion on the ballot, all – including red states Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio – have favored abortion access thanks to high turnout.
- Seven more states – New York, Montana, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Nevada, and Arizona – are in the process of adding abortion amendments for the 2024 ballot. However, 25 states lack a process for citizen-led ballot initiatives or referendums, and will have to rely on state legislature-led constitutional amendments or state laws to protect abortion access.
BIDEN-TRUMP DEBATE
- This Thursday, at 9:00 p.m. EST, President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump will hold the first debate of the 2024 election.
- While Biden has been campaigning, Trump has spent his time since his criminal conviction ranting and raving to gymnasiums emptier than the National Mall on Inauguration 2017. Trump has even begun changing his tune when mocking Biden, noting that the president, who he often refers to as "Sleepy Joe," will be "a worthy debater" – in an attempt to lower expectations in the likely event Trump's extremist rhetoric fails to rebuke the Biden administration's accomplishments.
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