Friend,

This week, our country’s most extreme and restrictive abortion ban took effect in Texas.

The disturbing Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) bans abortions at six weeks of pregnancy, a time when many people don’t even know they’re pregnant. With 85-90% of abortions performed after six weeks, this effectively mades all abortions in Texas illegal—for the first time since 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision.

Other states have recently tried to similarly restrict abortion access, but those laws have been blocked by courts. However, SB 8 was written to try to get around court challenges. And for now, it’s worked: The Supreme Court just refused to block this unconstitutional attack on our reproductive freedom.

The Texas bill lays out a roadmap for how other Republican-controlled states can also get away with overturning Roe v. Wade. Florida’s state senate, for example, just announced that they will pass a similar law.

A new wave of abortion bans would especially hurt low-income people and Black women, who are less likely able to take off work and may be unable to afford out-of-state travel or abortion pills. And it would particularly endanger Black women’s lives, who are already 2 to 3 times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy and giving birth.

Legislation like SB 8 has a massive impact on the LGBTQ+ community, who already experience disproportionate challenges in access to sexual and reproductive health care. Abortion rights and queer rights are linked as queer people are more likely to depend on health clinics that offer abortions for primary health and reproductive care.

Sign the petition: We support the fight against Texas’s abortion ban. We support our sovereignty over our own bodies, our reproductive freedom, and reproductive justice for everyone.

Photo credit: Montinique Monroe for The New York Times

Unlike other abortion bans, this ban leaves enforcement of the law to private individuals. That’s what makes it hard to challenge in court, since the typical process involves suing state officials for breaking constitutional precedent.

This inversion of the law is designed to protect the state, and it’s why SB 8 is the first bill of its kind to actually go into effect.

So we’re facing an unprecedented nightmare: SB 8 deputizes ordinary people to act as bounty hunters, awarding them at least $10,000 if their court challenge is successful. This incentivizes vigilantes—including abusive partners and even anti-abortion activists who have no connection to the patient—to terrorize people.

Now that the bill is in effect, any person around the country can sue any Texan who helps patients access abortion care after six weeks—including religious leaders, counselors, family members and friends, rideshare drivers, providers, and abortion fund staff and volunteers.

In Texas, abortion clinics are already shutting down or turning patients away.

We need federal leadership right now. Not only must we expand the Supreme Court, we must end the filibuster so we can finally pass federal legislation to protect our right to abortions. That way, our rights would no longer be at the mercy of unelected Supreme Court justices or gerrymandered state governments.

Sign if you agree: Abortion care is healthcare, and it’s a human right. We must ensure that anyone can safely get an abortion without fear.

In solidarity,

Rashida

P.S. Do you need an abortion or do you know someone who does? Check out this online abortion clinic, which is offering Texans a discount on abortion pills