Friend,

The Supreme Court is now deciding on a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. We won’t see their ruling until this summer, but based on some justices’ statements in recent oral arguments, it appears the majority of Supreme Court justices are in favor of allowing states to pass more restrictions on abortion, including total bans.

If that happens, half of U.S. states will immediately ban or extremely restrict abortion access, or they could be able to do so quickly due to pre-Roe laws still on the books (such as in my home state of Michigan).

Make no mistake, this is about controlling women and people who can get pregnant. But it would especially harm low-wealth people, Black women, trans people, and other communities who are already facing systemic racism and oppression in our healthcare system, and already hit hardest by restrictions on abortion rights.

Not everyone can take time off of work or afford out-of-state travel for an abortion, especially given the growing racial wealth gap. And due to structural racism, Black women are 2 to 6 times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy and giving birth, so their lives would be particularly endangered.

There has been a lot of debate about whether the reactionary ultraconservative justices on the Supreme Court will further weaken what abortion access we still have, or allow states to completely ban it. Either way, we will lose when abortion care has already been pushed out of reach for so many.

Even with Roe v. Wade in place, the legality of abortions has not guaranteed access to abortions. We need not only affordable and accessible abortion in our communities, but a fuller set of rights as laid out by the reproductive justice movement, started and led by Black women.

Reproductive justice is defined by the organization SisterSong as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.”

Can you sign our petition now to declare that you will fight back against threats to abortion rights, and fight for reproductive justice?

Please sign our petition if you agree:

• We need expanded abortion rights and access, not any more limitations or even the status quo. It’s not just about “keeping abortion legal” because even with Roe v. Wade in place, abortions are already inaccessible or hard to access for communities who face oppression such as Black women and trans people.
• We must ensure that anyone who needs or wants an abortion can get one. More broadly, we need to ensure that everyone in our country can actually access quality healthcare, including reproductive care. As part of this, we’ve got to address structural racism and other barriers to access.
• Our government must provide more support to parents and children, particularly people in poverty. The U.S. House passed the Build Back Better Act, which includes policies like parental leave, expanded childcare and pre-k, and continuing the newly expanded Child Tax Credit to financially support low-wealth families. Now we need the Senate to act.
• We need to abolish the filibuster to enable the passage of more House-passed policies, including a bill to ensure nationwide standards protecting abortion rights and a bill to end the discriminatory Hyde Amendment, which denies abortion coverage to people already more likely to be underserved by our health system and struggling to make ends meet.

We need reproductive justice. Can you join us in the fight?

Thank you. I want to end with a quote from In Our Own Voice: Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda:

“For nearly five decades under Roe, Black women have been fighting to make our right to abortion accessible. Roe is the floor — not the ceiling. And that floor is about to be pulled out from under us. We cannot settle for the court to just uphold Roe; we demand real justice — the human right to control our own bodily autonomy. We demand Reproductive Justice.”

In solidarity,

Rashida