Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade took effect, we’ve been doing everything we can to secure our reproductive rights for every single person, in every single state. Their decision reversed our right at the national level to choose when, and if, we want to have children and threw that power to the states. At this moment, we need everyone’s voice, including yours! 

→  Here’s what we need from you: Sign our letter to the President and his Administration urging them to continue to rapidly move forward executive actions that help protect our reproductive rights and public safety.  

Here is our list of emergency priorities: 

1. Utilize available public health and disaster authorities, including but not limited to declaring a national emergency and a public health emergency. We are in solidarity with calls by Congresswoman Pressley [1] and Black women leaders in Congress that the time is now to utilize all emergency authorities as abortion clinics close. We must communicate to the public how dire the situation is and this would, first and foremost, treat this crisis like the public health [2] emergency that it is. 

2. Defend and expand abortion coverage and affordability. 

3. Appoint judges who will defend abortion, democracy, and LGBTQIA+ human rights. In this moment of intense threat, we need judges who will halt, not deepen the attacks our communities are facing.

4. Ensure immigrants can access abortion care without fear of deportation, detention, or criminalization. Not only is detention unsafe and inhumane for pregnant, postpartum, and nursing people, but as states ban abortion at the earliest stages of pregnancy, it is imperative that people who are seeking this time-sensitive medical care are free to access it as quickly as possible.

5. Stop the criminalization of pregnancy outcomes, miscarriage, and self-managed abortion. We are concerned that the overturning of Roe and Casey will compound the ongoing criminalization of women and birthing people, especially Black people, as well as immigrants seeking basic reproductive health care, including abortion care and IVF services and urge the Administration to explore robust strategies to stop this harmful misuse of the law. According to the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, the past 15 years have seen a shocking increase in arrests and prosecutions for crimes related to stillbirths, miscarriages, and alleged drug and alcohol use during pregnancy, especially among low-income and Black people.

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As we appreciate and applaud President Biden’s Executive Orders [3] so far  to defend reproductive rights; we also know they are the starting first steps of many steps to come. As activists, advocates, and people who love someone who may one day need an abortion, it is critical that the Administration immediately add o his action planto further protect our reproductive rights. 

This is a big deal.  It’s an important moment in history where our sustained engagement is going to be needed because while the actions the President takes can help, the President of course can’t solve this crisis alone: It’s going to take a combination of national legislation which Congress must pass, work at the state level, Presidential action, and ongoing engagement to restore our reproductive rights. (And we’re committed to keeping in touch with you and letting you know how to lend a hand along the way).

Our voices, our power, our work is important.  Millions of women will be, at some point, impacted by this tortuous U.S. Supreme Court decision and as I write this email, thousands of people are currently living in the consequential realities of a post-Roe society. The burdens that folks are forced to face at this very moment are endless and expand far beyond denying our rights to make decisions about our bodily autonomy. Financial, physical and virtual safety, immigration protections, and privacy rights have been or are in threat of being stripped away from us as well. All people deserve access to abortion care when they need it, on the timeline they choose, and in the community they trust. 

Sign our letter to President Biden urging him to continue to move swiftly to protect our rights by adding our list of demands to his reproductive care action plan.  Lives are on the line. 

Sincerely,

Diarra, Tina, Monifa, Kristin, and the entire MomsRising Team

[1] https://pressley.house.gov/media/press-releases/pressley-leads-black-congresswomen-urging-biden-declare-public-health-emergency 

[2] https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/193302/20210921172339465_19-1392%20Brief.pdf 

[3]  https://apnews.com/article/abortion-biden-us-supreme-court-government-and-politics-0e6496122de46f1039cbb2b5145d6d60  and https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/07/08/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-protecting-access-to-reproductive-health-care-services/