In the face of a leaked draft Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe vs. Wade, and the failure of the Senate to protect abortion rights, the People’s CDC insists that abortion is fundamental to personal and public health, and that its availability and accessibility are crucial for upholding reproductive and health justice.
Firstly, we stress that this is a leaked draft opinion, not a final order of the Court. Right now, Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. Abortion is still legal and clinics are still open and ready to support patients in every state.
We uplift the tenets of the Reproductive Justice movement: the right not to have a child; the right to have a child; and the right to parent children in safe and healthy environments. And given that disabled people are at higher risk of violence, including sexual violence that can result in pregnancy, we recognize that reproductive rights are disability rights.
The draft decision denies these human rights to pregnant people by interpreting the Constitution to allow criminalization of a person’s most basic and intimate health needs, via appeal to “states’ rights.” The campaign to criminalize abortion is thus rooted in the white Christian supremacist effort to sustain racial segregation, and engages in “organized abandonment”: the government’s denial of resources to particular populations, leaving them to fend for themselves within the bounds of what the government deems legal, or be imprisoned for a refusal to do so. These same political motives underlie our country’s failure to manage the COVID pandemic effectively and equitably, and to create an equitable system of healthcare for all.
The effects of abortion’s criminalization are inequitably distributed – among already vulnerable people, especially poor people, people of color, incarcerated people, and people lacking documentation – just as the impacts of COVID have been.
In response to these inequities, the People’s CDC encourages efforts that increase access to abortion care, including fundraising efforts, direct action, and political mobilization at the state and federal levels.