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Dear Neighbor,
By now, I'm sure you've seen the shocking and heartbreaking news. The Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, in a dangerous and divisive rollback of a half century’s worth of progress and legal protections.
Women across the country now have less rights to make their own health care decisions than their mothers had decades ago. And many others are watching, frightened that their rights and freedoms may be next. If there is no meaningful right of privacy in the Constitution, as this partisan court apparently believes, then any right built upon that constitutional foundation may be struck down.
This decision is a betrayal of the commitments made by justices during their confirmation hearings, who indicated under oath they would uphold decades of legal precedent. It is also a result of policies enacted by Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump which ultimately made it possible for right-wing justices to hold an unrepresentative supermajority on the Court. Expanding the bench is our only remedy against this imbalance — and we must work toward that goal with the urgency this moment demands.
The fact that this disastrous opinion does not come as a surprise does not make it any less traumatic for the millions of women now stripped of their access to safe and legal abortion. It does not make it any less frightening for the millions of people now worried about whether their fundamental freedoms will be the next to fall. But it does lay bare the cost of Republican policies which take our country backward, despite the fact that the majority of Americans want to keep moving forward.
Make no mistake, this court is not conservative — it is partisan, with a partisan and socially backward agenda.
We have come too far and fought too hard to enshrine the right to choose for partisan extremists to roll back the clock. We must codify Roe, and ensure women control their health care decisions for generations to come. If that means doing away with filibuster, then so be it; that arcane Senate practice has been around for far too long and done far too much damage anyway. We should have abandoned it decades ago.
Nothing must be more important than protecting the rights of our people. Nothing.
Congress must act immediately to restore Roe as the law of the land.
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