“Hopefully my little story—my story—will make an impact and make some changes in the corrupt system.”

Those were Britney Spears’ words when she spoke out about winning her battle against the conservatorship that had a stronghold on every aspect of her life for 13 years. She shared how she wants to be an advocate, which made me think about what kind of activist Britney could be.

I came of age in the late ’90s and early 2000s, meaning that, like so many people of my generation, I was a die-hard pop fan. And Britney was one of my favorite childhood stars. Her positive impact on both music and culture cannot be denied. Britney was the “It” girl in the late ’90s and early 2000s; you cannot talk about this era in pop music without uttering her name. The same culture that revered her was the same culture that spent nearly a decade tearing her down.

I remember vividly the “controversy” about her midriffs and the alleged negative influence she had on young girls—this was my first glimpse into the public policing and gossip Britney would endure in her life.

The harmful discussions about Britney over the years continued well beyond her outfits, treading into sanism and ableism territory when it came to her mental health. It was difficult for me to watch the media tear her apart, not only as a fan but also as a disabled person—and it is difficult for me to watch her struggle now. Being misunderstood and ridiculed by those around you, both privately and publicly, is something no one should experience, but it is something with which disabled people are all too familiar. The jokes and scandals that surrounded Britney regarding her mental health and well-being highlighted the lack of compassion people with mental illness endure.

Like many of us, I was shocked, but not surprised, at the invasiveness of her conservatorship. To have every detail of your life controlled—right down to your fertility and family planning—is gut-wrenching. To be forced into silence by those who supposedly have your best interests in mind, and then to realize that isn’t the case, is the ultimate betrayal. It was emotional to watch that first video Britney posted to Instagram in November of last year after she was freed from the confines that kept her captive for over a decade.

Britney recently shared that she was extended an invitation to speak to Congress about her conservatorship. This could be a powerful moment for her. It could push forward the conversation about the ordeals that disabled people endure under conservatorships, many of which society is unaware of. If she accepts the invitation, she could bring much-needed attention to conservatorships and, potentially, spur a turning point for possible legislative action to protect the rights of those living under these provisions.

Over the past several months, I have been thinking about working with Britney to bring her into the disability activism and advocacy fold. Her powerful voice has broadened the discussions surrounding conservatorships and the rights of disabled people, and I believe I have the experience and temperament to help her grow as an advocate for disabled people.

Since I began this work in 2013, corporations and institutions large and small have hired me to provide customized consultations and training sessions that target barriers to inclusion and access in their respective fields. I believe I can help strengthen Britney’s knowledge on disability issues and intentionally avoid the harmful ways many celebrities talk to and engage with the community. Far too many celebrities use outdated or offensive language, share inspiration porn about disabled people, or seek to distance themselves from the disability community. When I heard Britney’s passion and determination, I could see a future where she uses her voice to ensure that others in the same predicament feel validated and know that they matter.

If I had the opportunity to work with Britney, both as a social worker and as an activist mentor, I would make sure she knows she’s not alone, I would make sure she feels safe, and I would encourage her to think about intersectionality.

Being part of the disability community means being part of an extremely diverse community —this is what makes these communities so beautiful. But as much beauty as there is, the disability community has not traditionally valued diversity, neither in its history nor in the way people in the community interact with one another. Activists like me are changing that by demanding more diversity and working to make intersectionality the foundation of disability activism. And I believe it is critical to ensure that Britney’s disability activism takes this diversity into account; intersectionality must be the core of her activism, not an afterthought.

I would like to support Britney on this journey. Allowing Britney to release her feelings, the myriad emotions she held for so long, in a safe environment has to be a priority to any and everyone who desires to be in community with Britney. I understand that deeply. As a social worker, my number one rule when discussing topics during which people may disclose experiences that put them in a vulnerable place is to let them explore and learn without unjust criticism. Giving Britney the space to dig into her feelings is key to not only her healing but also her ability to connect with others and provide them with the support they need in their truth-sharing.

And ensuring that her disability activism is intentionally intersectional will allow Britney’s disabled fans to see themselves in her.

I am intimately aware of what can happen when white people with disabilities fail to have an intersectional scope in their disability framework, and helping Britney avoid these pitfalls is one of the main reasons why I would love to work with her. I would love to talk to her about the racial disparities that disabled people of color—especially disabled women and femmes of color—face when it comes to reproductive access, the carceral system, education, health-care access, and housing and employment discrimination, among other things, to help develop her view into the lives of disabled people who frequently go unnoticed in society.

Her knowledge about these matters would help her grow as an advocate and give her the tools to continue to conduct her activism work in a way that recognizes that others face challenges she does not. (Notably, she seems to already understand that she has privileges many people living under conservatorships do not—she said as much in her video.) She has intersectional leanings, even if she may not have a deep understanding of what intersectionality means.

Celebrities who are disabled and knowledgeable in disability activism have the resources to reach the very people they want to support, and that is the kind of legacy in activism I would love for Britney. Disabled celebrities who are not only knowledgeable but who also align their views and language with the disability community’s progressive stances will resonate more deeply with disabled people than celebrities who lack this ability. (An example of someone who leaned into their identity and thus received tremendous support from the community is actor Selma Blair, who in 2018 disclosed that she has multiple sclerosis. Selma has been interviewed by and brought in members of the community for the work she’s doing surrounding her documentary. Such intentional interaction matters more than most disabled celebrities realize. I would love for Britney to have something similar in a long-lasting way.)

Like many members of the community, I would welcome Britney with open arms when she’s ready to be embraced. I wish her the best on her journey and would welcome the opportunity to work with her so that she can have the most positive impact on the disabled community, particularly her disabled fans.

Britney, I’m ready to work with you when you are.

For decades, anti-abortion lawmakers have operated under the false pretense that their only target was abortion providers. Pregnant people, depicted mostly as victims of the predatory abortion industrial complex—or some other unhinged, alarmist framework—were safe from their wrath.

But their tone has shifted as of late. The concept of fetal “personhood,” which defines life as beginning at conception, has become mainstream, and those advocates are pushing for the laws around abortion to reflect that.

For folks working in the abortion movement, this comes as no surprise. The absence of explicit references to so-called personhood never meant this wasn’t the endgame. It was always going to end up here: with abortion legally construed as murder, and anyone who performs one or has one a murderer. Fetal personhood is the most extreme manifestation of the anti-abortion agenda. While it’s framed as a means to create “equity” between fetuses and people, in actuality, it creates a world where a fetus’ rights are regarded with more sanctity than those of pregnant people. A sort of fetal supremacy, if you will.

Few people know more about the impacts of fetal personhood than the team at National Advocates for Pregnant Women, who for decades has been fighting for the rights of people charged with crimes related to their pregnancy and birth and parenting.

Lynn Paltrow, NAPW’s founder and executive director, spoke with Rewire News Group about the impact of fetal personhood on all pregnant people, the white-supremacist roots of personhood, and how these laws fit into the landscape of a larger attack on abortion access.

Rewire News Group: Let’s start with some background. How do you define “personhood”?

Lynn Paltrow: Roe v. Wade did more than recognize a fundamental right to choose abortion. Consistent with the plain language of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (“all persons born or naturalized in the United States”), it also rejected the argument that fetuses at any stage of development are constitutional persons, and by doing so effectively recognized the personhood of pregnant people at every stage of pregnancy.

Advocates seeking to overturn Roe believed that if they could get fetuses recognized as separate persons under various state and federal laws—such as wrongful death and criminal feticide laws—that recognition could be used to persuade the Supreme Court to revisit Roe and, eventually, overturn it. The so-called fetal personhood movement grew out of that strategy and now argues that the “unborn,” from the moment of fertilization, should be treated as if they are actually rights-bearing persons separate from the pregnant person.

This argument not only threatens to remove from the community of constitutional persons the people who get pregnant, it also distracts attention from true personhood movements, such as Black Lives Matter.

How does personhood legislation impact the rights of all pregnant people?

LP: Adopting the legal and biological fiction that fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses still inside the pregnant person’s body are somehow already separate provides the basis for denying pregnant people virtually every right guaranteed by the Constitution.

The fiction of separateness for eggs, embryos, and fetuses has been used to justify denying the rights to life, liberty, equality, and privacy to pregnant people. The argument that the unborn are entitled to “equal” rights was used to justify forced cesarean surgery on Angela Carder, even though the judge who ordered that surgery knew it could kill her. Neither Angela nor the baby survived. The argument that the unborn are entitled to “equal” rights has justified the interpretation of numerous criminal laws—such as child abuse, child endangerment, contributing to the delinquency of a minor—to permit arrest and prosecution of women who were pregnant and fell down a flight of stairs, delayed having cesarean surgery, planned to have a home birth, didn’t get to the hospital quickly enough on the day of delivery, or used any amount of alcohol or a controlled substance, including marijuana.

If the unborn are full constitutional persons, then exercising the right to travel while pregnant becomes the crime of kidnapping, and experiencing a pregnancy loss or having an abortion becomes the crime of homicide and its numerous variations—including manslaughter, depraved-heart homicide, and first-degree murder. If the unborn are separate children, we have to presume that from the moment a person becomes pregnant, they will lose rights to privacy in medical information, since the state can claim a “parens patriae” interest—as the legal protector of citizens (the unborn) unable to protect themselves.

All threats to the health of the unborn could be prohibited, including some or all kinds of employment by pregnant people. And decisions people make about their pregnancies based on their religious beliefs could be denied, and one religious view of when legal personhood is recognized would be established under the law.

Lawmakers who support fetal personhood argue that it’s about giving a fetus equal rights to a human being, but can you explain how they act to put the rights of a fetus over those of the pregnant person?

LP: Courts have consistently ruled that no living person has the right to force someone else to undergo surgery or any medical procedure for their benefit—even if refusing to donate an organ, bone marrow, or blood could result in the other person’s death. So-called fetal rights or personhood would empower the state to take custody of pregnant people and force them to submit to surgery for the benefit of another. The pregnant woman loses her status as a full constitutional-rights-bearing person, and the fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus is given more rights than any born person.

In a post-Roe, fetuses-as-persons world, not only would the state presumably have the power to review a pregnant person’s medical records (to protect the unborn child), [it] would also have the legal authority to appoint a guardian ad litem or legal representative for the unborn from the moment of fertilization, and in every legal context involving a pregnant person.

The nightmare just keeps growing.

This concept of fetal supremacy—like all restrictions on abortion and pregnancy—is rooted in white supremacy. Can you talk a little about that connection?

LP: The United States was founded on the principle that some people could own and control the lives and bodies of other people. State-enforced restrictions on abortion and pregnancy are based on the premise—rooted in both white supremacy and male supremacy—that the government and people acting on its behalf may deny some people the right to own and control their own lives and bodies.

Loretta Ross and Jennifer Morgan are among those who can speak to this question. Additional ways of understanding the roots in white supremacy include Alan Abramowitz’s work.

What can you tell us about the endgame of fetal personhood, and how does it prove that this is really about putting the rights of a fetus ahead of the pregnant person?

LP: The endgame of claims of personhood for eggs, embryos, and fetuses still inside of and dependent upon the pregnant person is to have Roe v. Wade overturned and to undermine legal precedent protecting principles of privacy and equality that protect LGBTQIA people; Black, brown, and Indigenous people; women; and religious minorities.

The endgame is to empower the state—legislators, law enforcement, child welfare authorities—and others to have power and control over certain populations that can be carried out in the guise of “protecting unborn lives,” while actually increasing risks to their lives and health. For example, we know that threatening arrest of pregnant women for fetal endangerment deters them from getting prenatal care and from speaking openly with their health-care providers and getting whatever help they may need.

Did you know that Jewish women have only one sexual partner in our lives, and that it protects us from cervical cancer? Neither did I!

Last week, Kentucky state Rep. Danny Bentley, a Republican and pharmacist, expounded on Jewish women’s sex lives and the purported historical link between the abortion pill and the Holocaust. During a floor debate last Wednesday on HB 3, an omnibus anti-abortion bill that includes medication abortion restrictions, Bentley claimed Jews developed the abortion pill mifepristone (formerly known as RU-486) during World War II to make money. He also claimed that mifepristone is the same as Zyklon B, a gas used to kill millions of Jews in concentration camps.

If you think that wasn’t bad enough, it gets much worse.

After one of his Democratic colleagues suggested that Jewish women be exempt from the restrictions on medication abortion on religious grounds, Bentley decided to explain Jewish women’s sexual habits and rates of cancer since, as he put it, “the Hebrew family” (as Bentley refers to Jews) had been brought up that day.

“Did you know that a Jewish woman has less cancer of the cervix than any other race in this country or this world?” Bentley asked, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. “And why is that? Because the Jewish women only have one sex partner … They don’t have multiple sex partners. To say that the Jewish people approve of this drug now is wrong.”

Reader, when I first read this I was speechless, which is an extremely rare occurrence.

Phew! Where to start? As a Jewish woman, let me be very clear: Jewishness is not a race, most Jewish women have more than one sex partner, and, statistically speaking, Jewish people support abortion rights. Even if we have only one sexual partner, most of us still support abortion. Hell, we might even need one! What we don’t need is a Kentucky Republican speaking for us.

Bentley’s history on medication abortion is nonsense he concocted to try to support comparisons between abortion and the Holocaust. French researchers developed mifepristone in the 1980s. Saying Jews developed the abortion pill to make money is pretty low-hanging fruit, as far as anti-Semitism goes. As for his claim that RU-486 is the same as Zyklon B, mifepristone obviously has absolutely nothing to do with a poisonous gas made in the 1920s and used to kill millions of Jews in concentration camps.

And as an aside: As a slutty Jewish girl, I’m pretty insulted by the claim that Jewish women don’t have multiple sex partners over the course of their lives. Moreover, there are many aspects of Judaism that are explicitly sex positive. Did you know that Jewish men have a duty to make their wives orgasm and enjoy sex? Or that kosher sex-toy shops exist? Religious acceptance of multiple partners varies based on the sect, but I assure you, we are not a prudish sort. Even the most common anti-Semitic stereotypes cast Jewish women as sexual temptresses (I’m obviously not condoning these stereotypes, but seriously—where did Bentley get his idea from?).

The more I think about Bentley’s bizarre claim regarding Jewish women’s sex lives, the more I think he once hit on a Jewish woman whose excuse to get away from him was to say Jewish women have only one sexual partner in their lives, and she had already used hers up. Presumably, he was so scarred by this experience that he never talked to another Jewish person again.

But back to Jews and abortion and Bentley’s regressive views on both. Bentley launched into his anti-Semitic diatribe that day because Kentucky state Rep. Mary Lou Marzian introduced a floor amendment to the omnibus bill that would exempt Jewish women from the proposed restrictions on medication abortion. Marzian rightly recognized that the Jewish faith does not believe life begins at conception. Instead, Judaism sees life beginning at first breath, which translates to whenever a baby breathes for the first time outside the womb. Additionally, Judaism requires that life be prioritized above all else, and since only the mother is alive until the fetus is born, most rabbis consider abortion to be necessary in some cases and allowable in many others.

Not only is Bentley’s claim that Jews don’t support abortion rights patently ridiculous (83 percent of Jews think abortion should be legal in all or most cases), but Marzian is also correct that anti-abortion laws often restrict Jewish religious freedom. How can we prioritize the health of the pregnant person if we can’t be assured access to later abortion? I’m thrilled Marzian raised this issue, and I hope we can have more Jewish challenges to anti-abortion laws.

Bentley’s “apology” later in the evening was wholly insufficient. He said he was sorry for any harm his comments caused, and that he should have been “more sensitive” with his comments. But he didn’t admit to the multiple falsehoods he espoused, nor did he specifically address any of his nonsense. He actually emphasized he was speaking to the history of the abortion pill as a pharmacist—that’s even more reason Bentley should have walked back his totally incorrect information about RU-486 and Zyklon B.

While I enjoy laughing at Bentley and the other bizarre things he said about sex and abortion, unfortunately, we have to take him seriously. The United States has a long history of equating abortion to the Holocaust. It’s a form of Holocaust denialism that minimizes the real harm done to victims of the Holocaust and appropriates the outrage to try and turn public opinion against reproductive rights. Bentley knew exactly what he was doing by invoking the horror of Zyklon B during that debate. I hope Marzian is successful in carving out a Jewish exemption to the bill—we need every tool we can get against anti-abortion politics in the United States.

If it feels like we talk about Florida a lot, well, we do. And you can blame their lawmakers for that after they passed an unconstitutional 15-week-abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or human trafficking.

In addition to banning abortions starting 15 weeks after the first day of the pregnant person’s menstrual period, the bill also adds additional restrictions that would force them to carry a fetus with a “fatal abnormality” for even longer and revises language about tobacco-prevention programs to include “women who may become pregnant” as targets for state surveillance—a hint of what’s to come after Roe v. Wade falls.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill, which would take effect July 1.

Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando) released a statement against the ban, tweeting that “there is no such thing as a reasonable abortion ban … this is a sad day for reproductive rights in Florida, but our fight is not over.”

The Florida Senate just passed HB5/SB146, Florida’s 15 week abortion ban. Here’s our statement in response. We will keep fighting for reproductive freedom and abortion access. pic.twitter.com/wf3jOi1VPX

— Rep. Anna V. Eskamani 🔨 (@AnnaForFlorida) March 4, 2022

Arizona and West Virginia are considering similar abortion bans—all of which are modeled after the case at the heart of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s 15-week ban that’s awaiting a ruling at the Supreme Court.

Until now, the southeasternmost U.S. state has been a destination for out-of-state abortions in the region. Even with a 24-week abortion ban and parental consent law, among other restrictions, Florida is still more lenient than its neighbors when it comes to access.

So where do they—and Floridians who need abortions—go now? And what happens to the people who can’t travel out-of-state for an abortion, including immigrants and especially those with undocumented family members or without documents themselves?

There are a lot of unanswered questions, but there are two things we know for sure: This will be devastating to pregnant people in the South, and the anti-abortion movement will not stop here.

This post was adapted from a Twitter thread.

This is the third in a three-part series; check out parts one and two.

The atmosphere was both figuratively and literally chilly at the Texas Capitol in June 2013, a testament to both the power of Texas air conditioning and Texans’ righteous anger over renewed attacks on abortion access. Hundreds had descended upon the Capitol Complex, filling overflow rooms and hallways as they waited in line to testify against an omnibus anti-abortion bill that was expected to shutter all but a handful of clinics in the state. Around the country, supporters watched live video feeds and followed live Twitter feeds. They ordered pizzas and cookies delivered to the Capitol, attaching notes of encouragement for the Texans shuddering in sweaters even as the general mood heated up outside.

But when a Republican committee chair tried to shut down a hearing that had stretched into the wee hours, complaining that opposition statements against the bill were getting “repetitive,” things got downright cold.

“My presence isn’t repetitive,” said Lesli Simms, who’d been waiting all night to say her piece. Speaking in front of the committee, Simms gestured to the Texans lined up behind her, all of them similarly anxious to get a few words in. “Their presence isn’t repetitive. I’m a Black woman, and I’m coming back.”

Simms did come back. So did hundreds, then thousands, of orange-clad Texans over a week that would culminate with then-state Sen. Wendy Davis’ 13-hour filibuster and the legislation’s thrilling but short-lived defeat.

Even though the “people’s filibuster” helped defeat the first iteration of the omnibus bill, Gov. Rick Perry brought the legislation back up again in another special session, this time wise to the tactics of what Lieutenant Gov. David Dewhurst had termed the “unruly mob” of abortion supporters. The legislation ultimately passed with the support of longtime legislator and anti-abortion Democrat Eddie Lucio Jr., who stood with Republicans to ensure the abortion restrictions would make it to Perry’s desk for his signature.

The bill banned abortion after 20 weeks, required physicians to have local hospital admitting privileges, mandated that abortion clinics operate as ambulatory surgical centers, and restricted the provision of medication abortion care. Nascent versions of those restrictions had been proposed dozens of times since 1973, but it had taken 40 years after the ruling in Roe v. Wade for them to face a real battle in the Texas Legislature.

Davis’ filibuster made national news—President Barack Obama even tweeted his support for her efforts—but it was the “people’s filibuster,” with Texans from every corner of the state driving into Austin to testify against the bill in the days preceding Davis’ stand, that made it all possible.

Indeed, that summer set a new tone for abortion activism in Texas. Texans didn’t just have a cause, they had a team color—orange—to wear every time they returned to the Capitol to speak out against further restrictions. Lawmakers who rose to prominence during the filibuster became household names; Texans who’d never stepped foot inside their Capitol building learned the ins and outs of parliamentary procedure. Texas abortion funds and abortion rights supporters launched new coalitions and campaigns to support abortion access within and without the Texas Legislature. And many young Texans who’d testified and organized in 2013 went on to build careers in the reproductive health, rights, and justice movements.

But Texas lawmakers continued to pursue further abortion restrictions while challenges to the 2013 law made their way to and through the U.S. Supreme Court. Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte—the latter of whose parliamentary inquiry about not being recognized to speak kicked off the 15-minute roar that cemented Democrats’ victory over the omnibus bill—went on to run for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively, in the next election, but both lost to Republicans (Davis to Attorney General Greg Abbott and Van de Putte to Dan Patrick, who’d championed the omnibus bill as a state senator). It certainly didn’t help that Texas Republicans were attacking voting access even as they were busy rolling back reproductive rights. The state GOP teed itself up with racist gerrymandering efforts and new voter ID laws that made it easier for right-wing lawmakers to take and hold key districts and offices.

There seemed to be plenty of reproductive rights left to regulate, despite the Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling against Texas in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the case that challenged parts of HB 2, the House version of the Texas Senate bill that led to the 2013 filibuster. Anti-abortion lawmakers in Texas proposed nearly 90 abortion restrictions across the 2015 and 2017 legislative sessions, overshadowing activists’ attempts to improve abortion rights and access in the state as Donald Trump made his way to the White House, all the while stoking the fires of white patriarchal rage and resentment.

It would be a difficult fight to win even for a newly energized movement; it would become almost impossible once Texas’ anti-abortion lawmakers knew they had a Trump-stacked anti-abortion Supreme Court prepared to legitimize their efforts, however unconstitutional.

Abortion in the Trump and insurrection era

Seven new abortion regulations—many reminiscent of proposals from the ’70s and ’80s—passed in 2015 and 2017, including restrictions on insurance coverage and tighter rules for young people seeking judicial bypass, as well as stricter requirements for data collection and the disposal of fetal tissue. In 2019, two more anti-abortion bills: one creating civil and criminal penalties for providers who violate so-called born-alive provisions based on long-debunked lies and propaganda, and another banning public entities from doing business with abortion providers or affiliates.

Somewhere along this Trumpy line, Texas abortion restrictions became something more than prohibitive; they became retaliatory and even vindictive. Republican lawmakers introduced bans that didn’t just criminalize abortion wholesale but that would allow prosecutors to charge people who have abortions with homicide, a crime punishable by death. It was, at the time, an unprecedented step forward in mainstream abortion legislation in an area where anti-abortion lawmakers had already been pushing the envelope for decades.

At the same time, where Texas lawmakers had been unable to pass statewide protections for abortion rights, some municipalities stepped up. Austin passed city-sponsored funding for abortion access; the legislature’s earlier ban on public entities doing business with abortion providers, affiliates, or supporters appeared to specifically target the city’s longtime lease with a local Planned Parenthood clinic. But there was a flip side, too: Other Texas municipalities began proposing abortion ordinances banning and criminalizing care within city limits, though not always successfully.

2019 abortion rights rally (Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

But at the very moment that supporters of abortion rights and access were figuring out new, creative ways to expand and protect reproductive freedom despite everything they were up against, the Texas Legislature emerged with a trump card (if not a Trump card) in 2021. Lawmakers proposed more than six dozen restrictions on abortion care, including another death penalty bill, but one would rule them all: SB 8, a six-week abortion ban with a bounty-style bonus. The law allows any private citizen anywhere to sue providers and others who “aid or abet” an abortion for $10,000 or more.

A week ago, Texas SB 8 crossed the six-month mark of being in effect. It’s had disastrous effects for Texas families and for providers in surrounding and even far-flung states who are now tasked with providing care to Texans who can no longer access abortion where they live. Despite challenges, the Supreme Court has allowed the law to be enforced while also saying it must remain so because the Court doesn’t really know who’s supposed to enforce it, thanks to the civil action provisions that allow just anyone to sue for damages.

Other states—Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, just to name a few—have begun eyeing and proposing copycat legislation. And in late February, anti-abortion activists began the first legal proceedings against Texas abortion funds under SB 8, turning the law’s threats into reality.

Now along with Mississippi’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—an explicit challenge to Roe v. Wade that’s awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court—the country is facing the most significant challenges to legalized, clinical abortion care that it’s ever seen nearly 50 years after that historic decision.

So, we’re screwed?

If you’ve stuck with this series thus far, it might be hard to feel anything but despair at the current status of abortion rights. I don’t precisely feel great after digging up the history of abortion legislation in Texas. But there’s also so much that is happening, and has already happened, around organizing efforts in support of abortion rights and access in Texas, which have gone beyond—and persevered—despite the Texas Legislature, long known to be influenced by and beholden to the whims of too many political winds.

I am struck most by how so much of the way abortion regulations have come to be (or not) in Texas can be attributed to the political power of just a handful of people who, I think, have never really reflected the views of average Texans. Over the last 50 or so years, several men (and a few women) have done most of the driving when it comes to how our abortion politics look today, and some of those folks aren’t even Texans—they’re Supreme Court justices. For example, Texans in general—even most Republicans—don’t support the six-week abortion ban.

A number of factors have affected Texas abortion supporters’ ability to claim or reclaim enough power in the state to pursue protections for and expansions of abortion rights and access, and I don’t mean to discount them here. Republican gerrymandering and the GOP’s dogged dedication to disenfranchising voters of color and repealing voting rights have undoubtedly prevented the full democratic and capital-D Democratic representation of Texans’ values and political will, particularly on subjects such as abortion.

And Texas is not unique in its pursuit of abortion restrictions. Lawmakers across the country have proposed and passed more abortion restrictions in the last decade or so than in the first 30 years following Roe v. Wade. I think we can attribute a great deal, if not absolutely every last bit, of the current zeitgeist to white supremacy, patriarchy, and bare power grabs by people who believe that justice for all is an injustice to the most powerful among us.

I know this because I know supporters of abortion rights and access have dreaded this day for decades. I know that we have long warned our “pro-choice” lawmakers that playing the politics of compromise with abortion restrictions would get us nowhere but here, even as some of the most powerful reproductive rights organizers and organizations have discounted and eschewed calls for racial justice and gender inclusivity in this work. I also know that networks now exist to help people access safe abortion care outside of a clinical setting—and that the conflation of “safe” abortion with “legal” abortion is on the way out, thanks to new advancements in medicine and technology.

The past is already written, but the future is full of possibility, even in a state that never became the safe haven for abortion care that opponents feared decades ago. We do not live in 1973, nor do we need to live with the same old fears and prejudices of 1973. Federal protections for reproductive freedom seem to finally be gaining ground, perhaps too late—or maybe just in time to rebuild on our own terms after Roe, with stronger protections and better expansions on reproductive health, rights, and justice in the decades to come.

For more Texas SB 8 coverage, check out our special report.

Roe v. Wade will fall, and abortion will almost certainly become illegal in most of the South and Midwest when the Supreme Court rules in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

In places like my home state of Texas, abortion is already only a hair’s breadth away from inaccessible. As clinics fight to stay open, we must continue supporting abortion funds so those organizations are able to help their clients travel the ever-greater distances to cities in other states that still have abortion services. And all of us must step up our efforts to protect and expand abortion access in those cities. While it’s late to sound this alarm, I’m hopeful that much can still be done.

Given the horror show that is the current news about abortion rights and access, maybe it is not surprising that when voters in Lubbock, Texas, approved a city-level abortion ban last May, there was not much coverage in the mainstream media. After all, Lubbock is in Texas, where the state government has been in all-out assault mode against abortion rights, so news like this wasn’t much of a surprise.

Every couple weeks for the past few years, a small city in the United States passes a municipal-level abortion ban, all instigated by the work of one Texas pastor. But until Lubbock, not one of the towns that passed such a ban actually had a clinic operating there. Unfortunately, Lubbock won’t be the last.

As the founder and director of Equity Agenda, an organization that partners with city governments and mission-aligned nonprofits throughout the country to increase gender equity at the local level, I have spent nearly two decades working in gender equity, abortion rights, and city government. When I started my career in reproductive rights, we in the younger generation were fighting to direct our attention and resources to state governments because we knew then that Roe was insufficient. Twenty years later, we finally have at least a critical mass of reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations and funders focused on the state level. Unfortunately, this came after the anti-abortion movement had already developed broad state-level infrastructure and expertise that is effectively interconnected with the broader conservative movement—coordination on a scale that abortion rights organizations can’t yet match.

Today, I see us repeating the mistake of ignoring a particular field of battle, of ceding ground at the city level that needn’t be lost because of the belief that such efforts aren’t as effective or powerful as working at the state or federal levels.

But abortion clinics exist nearly entirely in cities, and city governments have the power to make it easier or harder to ensure access. For instance, cities can regulate protests and sidewalks and street access and noise (Spokane, Washington); subject clinics and health facilities to zoning regulations—aka TRAP laws—designed to burden providers and make it difficult to obtain abortion care (San Antonio, Texas); and direct resources toward keeping, or at least attempting to keep, providers and patients physically safe (Knoxville, Tennessee), to name just a few areas of concern.

The likely outcome of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health puts an even finer point on the risk to access posed by not prioritizing cities. There are signs of the opportunity that pushing back against these bans can be successful, but there’s also a tremendous risk in failing to marshal resources and expertise at the city level. A proposed ordinance in Lindale, Texas, would criminalize providing help to people to access abortion outside the city limits.

Lubbock’s ordinance should have been a wake-up call to all of us—especially those in the abortion rights movement, including funders—if all the small-town bans leading up to it weren’t enough already. At the end of January, the appeal to overturn the Lubbock ban was abandoned, illustrating clearly the limits of relying solely on a defensive legal strategy at the local level.

I’m thrilled to partner with the National Institute for Reproductive Health, one of the only organizations funding proactive local work, in generating progressive abortion wins in big liberal cities. But it’s also crucial to invest in defending abortion rights, especially in the Midwest and the South, and that reproductive rights, health, and justice organizations work to increase their expertise in municipal government operations and local politics. Local city coalitions that are built around a framework of issues that impact people who are not white, straight, cis men—issues such as abortion access, police violence, public safety, and care infrastructure, among others—could be incredibly powerful foundations for progressive action.

I also work with women mayors around the country. During a recent conversation, I discussed with one West Coast mayor the likely tsunami of abortion-seeking people the clinic in her city will likely see after the Supreme Court issues its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health later this year. Such a deluge of patients is easily foreseen: Clinics in states around Texas continue to face similar waves of abortion-seekers months after the Texas Legislature passed a six-week ban. And many of the states currently seeing abortion patients from Texas may end up with no clinics of their own after the Court’s ruling in Dobbs, increasing the pressure on cities with clinics even more.

The mayor’s politically moderate city is only one of the foreseeable targets for a ban by anti-choice activists. Unfortunately, very few resources are available to help the city prepare to support the clinic as demand dramatically increases, or to brace for a local abortion-ban effort, because of the paucity of resources for municipal work.

Last July, the Guttmacher Institute reported that 30 cities in six states had passed abortion bans over the previous three years. In just six months’ time, the 40th city in Texas alone considered a ban; the city council rejected the proposal in January. Nearly all these municipal-level bans are the result of just one activist’s organizing efforts, which have been well-resourced and paid for by anti-abortion funders. Their strategy has always been to chip away at our rights, and now we can see clearly the landslide that has been created at the state and federal levels as well as in the courts. We can’t allow this same dynamic at the city level.

It’s also worth mentioning that the roots of the bounty-style Texas abortion ban are the same as those of the local bans. We can and must fight back. Federal, state, and legal work is as critical as ever, and even though resources for abortion rights are always less than we would hope, even comparatively small investments in creating robust local government efforts will be meaningful. Working at the community and city levels will create returns on investment for our work at every level of government and at the ballot box, but we can’t just reuse the same strategies and tactics.

We know that a majority of Americans support abortion rights. This is true even in small towns. We can defend and increase access to abortion at the local level in many parts of the country if we increase resources dedicated to local government work, and especially local government expertise, within the movement.

Cities could be where we create the world we dream of, one with unrestricted abortion access and full equity. And we can build from there. To address the risks and take full advantage of the opportunities, we must adapt and learn how to be effective at the local level.

This is the second in a three-part series; check out part one here, and come back next week for part three.

To understand the story of Texas SB 8, which went into effect six months ago today, and how we got here, we have to talk about George W. Bush and Rick Perry.

Despite being largely unqualified for the positions of power to which they aspired and later held, Bush and Perry, two profoundly careerist and deeply unprincipled men, managed to identify early on the right (and right-wing) anti-abortion coattails they needed to ride to carry them to political success.

In 1989, before he became famous for his hair, Perry switched parties from Democrat to Republican because he saw the winds of change coming in the Lone Star State. Bush never did much of anything (he was a bigwig in the Texas Rangers baseball franchise) before he traded on his father’s name—and his father’s anti-abortion politics—to move into politics.

Over the course of my research for this series, it became increasingly apparent that, despite literal decades of warning signs, gargantuan red flags, and Republicans’ outright statements of their intent to pass abortion restrictions at the first possible moment, many of the people who were best situated to protect abortion rights and access in the Texas Legislature—both before and during the rise of Bush and Perry—either neglected to do so, willfully chose not to, or openly assisted in anti-abortion efforts not over a few years or sessions, but over decades.

After all, if Rick Perry and George W. Bush could figure out that adopting the classism, racism, and misogyny of the growing, mostly politically unopposed anti-abortion movement in Texas could help propel them to success despite their demonstrated lack of personal and professional investment in anti-abortion principles, it is hard to believe no one saw these two clowns coming. Indeed, many abortion rights advocates and abortion providers on the ground repeatedly issued warnings that anti-abortion politicians and lobbyists were doing exactly what they said they were doing: trying to outlaw abortion by any means necessary.

But as the anti-abortion right became bolder and more assured, the ostensibly pro-choice political left in Texas, reluctant to take these warnings seriously, seemed to stagnate or even move backward, helping Republicans pass legislation that would open the floodgates for restrictions to come.

Texas targets young people

On January 22, 2000, the New York Times headline read in part: “With Help From Democrats, Bush Managed a Coup on Abortion Bill.” The Times published this story on the 27th anniversary of Roe v. Wade amid Dubya’s first bid for the presidency. It is an alarming piece of journalism that describes Democrats’ fecklessness in addressing the threat of the anti-choice movement in Texas.

The bill referenced is Texas’ 1999 parental notification law, which required abortion providers to notify a parent of an unemancipated minor seeking abortion care at least 48 hours before performing an abortion, or else the minor must navigate the courts in hopes of obtaining a “judicial bypass.” (Judicial bypass is a legal process that compels a pregnant minor to ask a judge for permission to get an abortion without informing a parent.)

In the piece, Democrats admit to helping Bush, who as governor pushed for Texas’ parental notification law to curry favor with the anti-abortion right and Christian evangelicals as he prepared for his White House. Texas House Democrats helped Bush nudge the bill over the finish line because, according to one unnamed lawmaker, they “like[d] him,” and because Democrats, who had already lost control of the Texas Senate, felt they would ultimately lose the battle anyway, so why cause a big to-do about it?

A former Planned Parenthood worker and Texas Democrat pooh-poohed concerns about Bush’s anti-abortion agenda, telling the Times that the bill was purely to “placate the religious right” because Bush wasn’t “strongly anti-abortion.” Another Democrat described the parental notification bill as both a “big loss” and a “nothing-burger” that “clearly had to be given to the religious coalitions.”

I doubt the young people who have been forced to expose their most intimate and personal experiences to strangers and judges in court or else carry an unwanted pregnancy to term would describe forced parental involvement and the judicial bypass process as a “nothing-burger” that “clearly” needed to exist for anyone, least of all “religious coalitions” or Bush’s political aspirations. But in light of the previous 25 or so years of Texas abortion politics, and with Texas Democrats largely viewing abortion rights as a subject to be avoided—or something to restrict—rather than actively expanded or protected, the dismissal of young people’s rights as inconsequential and immaterial to abortion rights more broadly makes a certain kind of sense.

And, of course, some Democrats reported getting some things in return for their support of the 1999 parental notification law: The Times notes that Bush was “willing to reward” those who helped him out, notably by not campaigning against “friendly lawmakers in the other party.”

In short, some Texas Democrats threw young people under the bus not to secure landmark progressive legislation or support for key left-wing initiatives, but in hopes of saving their own political asses. And for what? To live to fight abortion restrictions another day? Their records on that are pretty scarce, too.

The last time a Texas Democrat was elected to state office was in 1994; Democrats lost majority control of the legislature in the 1996 elections. The one piece of pro-abortion-rights legislation I could find from the mid-to-late ’90s was proposed by Democrat Ron Wilson, who in several sessions introduced a constitutional amendment “prohibiting the state from requiring a woman to complete a pregnancy.” His bill never made it out of committee.

It’s one thing to grow tired of a losing battle. It’s another thing entirely not to have entered the fight before it’s too late. And I think that, when the parental notification bill passed in 1999, it may have been in many ways too late for Texas. Not because we Texans as a people didn’t value reproductive freedom (we do and long have, just like the rest of the country), or because a few passionate, pro-choice Texas lawmakers and politicians never made it their business to support abortion rights and access. They did.

But because so much rhetorical, narrative, and political ground on abortion had already been ceded and seeded from day one of Roe, the case’s predication on a right to privacy was almost certainly flawed from the jump. The ink was barely fresh on Roe before the Supreme Court started to become openly hostile to abortion rights and access, and while political representation has very slowly improved over the years, the vast majority of early political decision-makers in Texas were (and continue to be) people who would never face an unwanted or untenable pregnancy.

More than anything else, Texas’ legislative record on abortion up until and including 1999 shows the fear of and even hostility toward affirmative, expansive reproductive rights. Seventeen abortion bills were proposed in the Texas Legislature in 1999, at that point the most ever in a single session. Just one—Ron Wilson’s proposal—supported abortion rights.

If those years in Texas politics had seen new, fresh-faced political leaders who were ambivalent about—or at least minimally motivated to pass—abortion restrictions, things might be different. But along came Dubya and Rick Perry, both of whom needed to wield little more than a good-ol’-boy charm offensive to meet the demands of an anti-abortion movement that never intended to stop encroaching on young people’s abortion access.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and perhaps abortion rights supporters in the Texas Legislature in the late ’90s and early 2000s could not have predicted how thoroughly the body would turn against abortion access, despite repeated warnings of the coming storm from abortion rights groups and the plainly stated intentions of anti-abortion politicians and lobbyists. Even so, it is hard to imagine looking forward at the time and predicting that, over the next 30 years or so, no Texas Democrat nor pro-choice anybody would be elected to statewide office, no matter how “friendly” they played with Bush.

Clearly, more than a few Democrats had bet on their bipartisan cooperation paying off politically. But if they hoped that supporting forced parental involvement laws would be the key to retaining Democratic seats in an increasingly Republican state, they were mistaken.

Instead, cooperation backfired into concession, and it wasn’t long before Republicans needed no help in passing Texas’ first omnibus anti-abortion law.

A new playbook in abortion politics—for both sides

If the abortion restrictions passed in Texas up to and including 1999’s parental notification law were incrementalisms, mere placations, and “nothing-burgers” meant only to shore up political careers, 2003 marked a dramatic shift in the anti-abortion playbook.

That year, Texas passed the “Woman’s Right to Know Act,” an expansive package of restrictions on abortion rights ranging from mandatory pre-abortion waiting periods to ambulatory surgical center requirements to forcing providers to share medical misinformation with patients seeking abortion care. States across the country would begin replicating those restrictions, as well, while anti-abortion sentiment grew stronger at the federal level, too.

Outside the Texas capitol in 2021. (Jordan Vonderhaar/Getty Images)

Just after the 2003 Texas legislative session, Congress passed the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act,” which capitalized on decades of anti-abortion lies and fearmongering about the provision of later abortion care but was nevertheless championed by President George W. Bush, building upon his early success convincing Texas lawmakers to restrict abortion care for young people.

Meanwhile, Rick Perry had won the governor’s seat in Texas, and in the 2005 legislature, state lawmakers proposed 21 new abortion laws, eight of which would have repealed existing restrictions, expanded abortion access, or protected abortion rights—15 years after Gib Lewis suggested that “both sides” might try to propose 25 or 30 bills every session to influence abortion provisions in Texas.

Despite the eight bills filed in support of abortion rights and access and a slew of efforts by Texas Democrats to derail anti-abortion proposals, the 2005 Texas Legislature, by then under total Republican control, passed more abortion restrictions—a 24-week ban, plus a requirement that minors obtain parental consent, not merely notification, for abortion care—by tacking them onto other legislation as amendments. During that same year, Texas also created its “Alternatives to Abortion program,” a scheme directing public funds to religiously backed “crisis pregnancy centers” that exist to dissuade people from seeking or accessing abortion care.

Texas got a reprieve from further abortion restrictions in 2007 and 2009. The 2009 session in particular saw a surge of Democrats ride the enthusiasm for Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy into office, tipping the balance of power not quite back in favor of Texas House Democrats, but closer to it than Dems had seen in either chamber in a decade. Nearly 30 abortion bills were proposed between the two sessions, almost half of which were in support of either abortion rights and access or of basing the state’s sex education standards on medical science, not religious abstinence. Texas’ strongest champions of abortion rights and access gained steam, growing adept at heading off anti-abortion proposals and becoming more confident and vocal in their support for reproductive freedom.

It’s no coincidence that this new cohort of lawmakers were women and men of color who did things differently—and took threats to abortion access much more seriously—than the aging white men who’d dominated Texas abortion politics for the previous 30 years.

So what came next was no accident: the racist Tea Party backlash to Obama’s first term as the country’s first Black president.

The Tea Party takes Texas

Abortion supporters in Texas had already warned in decades prior that abortion restrictions were predicated on racism, classism, and misogyny; the enthusiasm with which a new wave of anti-abortion Texas lawmakers, many of them Tea Partiers, approached the 2011 legislative session exposed those warnings as truth all too clearly. Even though Texas’ white, mostly (but not always) male conservatives didn’t really have any lost power to reclaim in terms of abortion—remember, no affirmative expansions or protections for abortion rights or access had ever passed in the state—they nevertheless aggressively pursued further attacks on reproductive freedom.

Anti-abortion lawmakers, the vast majority of them Republicans, proposed 36 new restrictions on abortion in 2011, surpassing previous records as the most ever introduced in one session One new restriction passed: Texas’ mandatory sonogram law, thanks to an assist from anti-abortion Texas Democrats whose support was needed to bring the bill to a vote.

Texas also ratcheted up efforts to “defund” Planned Parenthood, drastically cutting state family planning funds to health-care entities affiliated with abortion providers, which in the long term would reduce access to preventive screenings and reproductive health care of all kinds for tens of thousands of Texans. (A number of these abortion restrictions seemed to be supported by dark-money groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council, which provides right-wing “model legislation” to conservative lawmakers.) One House bill in the 2011 session sought to mitigate the worst effects of the defunding measure; it didn’t make it to the floor.

But as successful efforts to restrict abortion were ramping up, so too was a statewide political will in support of abortion rights and access. When the Texas Legislature convened again in 2013, it would see the state’s first real, all-out fight over abortion access, complete with a takeover of the state Capitol. The time for cooperation and concessions was over.

For more Texas SB 8 coverage, check out our special report.

Twelve years ago, one of us met with a small group of women of color to envision lifting the Hyde Amendment and doing so in a way that would transform our movement. This federal policy, which prevents Medicaid insurance from covering the costs of abortion care, had been spreading its ugly tentacles for decades and disproportionately harming people of color and low-income people. Since that fateful meeting, a campaign launched that has changed the game in terms of how we imagine the future of abortion care.

From day one, our work centered the voices, experiences, and expertise of women and people of color, especially those who are most impacted by abortion coverage bans and inaccessible reproductive health care. This approach has been central to how we tackle both the challenges to abortion access and the potential solutions. Understanding how someone’s race, economic status, immigration status, gender identity, and age can multiply barriers to abortion is not only necessary, but also the key to effectively combatting anti-abortion policies and building power in BIPOC communities.

Embracing intersectionality in our work has taught us how to best advocate for ourselves and our communities; so too has embracing fresh ideas and welcoming new voices and leadership to the table. After more than 10 years of leading All* Above All—as we pass the torch to a new era of justice warriors—we’re reflecting on what has enabled us to make change against the odds.

While we’ve been uncompromising about our vision for change, we’ve also been pragmatic and have embraced a willingness to evolve our ideas, strategies, and approaches. Building power for and by BIPOC communities has driven our commitment to openness, collaboration, and welcoming different perspectives, which in turn earned the trust of our partners and resulted in stronger coalitions. We built power, devised influential strategies, and created groundbreaking campaigns by investing in a networked approach. Partnering in intentional ways with economic justice and immigrant justice organizations helped us align our shared visions, goals, and values with those who, like us, are in it for the long haul and committed to lasting change.

All* Above All’s strategies have resulted in some major wins, most notably that our movement—and lawmakers—are aware of the harm that comes from denying insurance coverage and have committed to ending insidious policies like the Hyde Amendment after decades of letting them stand unopposed. A few years ago, coalition partners and politicians alike viewed Hyde as a third-rail issue—untouchable, unfixable, and even politically dangerous. We proved that with perseverance, effective strategies, and women of color at the forefront, we could make progress to expand abortion coverage. Today, there is strong public support for ending Hyde, and in 2021, President Joe Biden released the first presidential budget in decades without the amendment.

We’ve also seen wins at the state and local levels, with cities allocating budgets to fund abortions and states repealing Medicaid coverage bans and ensuring immigrants’ access to abortion care. And equally as significant are some of the cultural wins—every major Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 opposing Hyde, increased media coverage of abortion, and greater understanding and empathy among the public.

For decades, reproductive justice advocates have known that legality alone is not and wasn’t ever enough—the harms of the Hyde Amendment and its impact on people working to make ends meet are just one example of that. Given the threats we now face from the Supreme Court and hostile states, there has never been a more important moment for a bold vision. So this past year, All* Above All made the decision to apply our innovative strategies to more issues, expanding our mission and scope as a catalyst for abortion justice.

To that end, alongside more than 130 partners nationwide, we recently released our Action Plan for Abortion Justice, a visionary platform that addresses the barriers to abortion access for those forced to navigate the harshest restrictions. We hold close our vision of creating a world where abortion care is affordable, available, and supported for everyone who needs it.

Since our inception, All* Above All has proven that we must be courageous, resolute, and committed to challenging the status quo if we want to achieve abortion justice. Now more than ever, we need know that bold, powerful ideas and action are needed and will continue to guide our work ahead of and beyond the most consequential Supreme Court case on abortion rights in our lifetime.

We cannot overemphasize the power of perseverance, sheer grit, and a collective vision that centers BIPOC communities in the work and leadership. We take great pride that so many of our local, state, and national partners and colleagues directly reflect the people most impacted and those with whom we are building power. We are endlessly inspired by the emerging generation of reproductive, immigrant, racial, and economic justice leaders who are more dynamic, diverse, and determined than we could have dreamed.

Our movement is stronger than it was when we met in that room 12 years ago. While we face much uncertainty and hardship right now, we have no doubt that we can make progress, that we can thrive, and, ultimately, that we can transform our nation. We’ve never waited for permission to challenge power and enact change. From what we can see, the next generation of leaders won’t either. That’s what we need—because abortion justice can’t wait.

Destiny Lopez and Silvia Henriquez, are the former co-presidents of All* Above All.

“Red states” like Alabama are often written off by the reproductive rights movement as beyond help. But you can’t secure the right to abortion for anyone unless and until everyone has access.

Alabama still has its pre-Roe v. Wade abortion ban on the books, as well as a near-total ban that was temporarily blocked by the courts. But once Roe falls, all bets are off—and the Alabama Constitution even bars the protection of abortion as a right.

Last year, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit (appointed by Reagan, Clinton, and Obama, respectively) upheld a federal court decision blocking parts of Alabama’s parental consent law.

But the rest of the court, including several Trump appointees, took the case back on appeal and vacated the earlier decision, reinstating the state’s parental consent law—just one of many abortion restrictions effective as of January 1, according to the Guttmacher Institute, including:

• A patient must receive state-directed counseling that includes information designed to discourage the patient from having an abortion, and then wait 48 hours before the procedure is provided.
• The use of telemedicine to administer medication abortion is prohibited.
• A patient must undergo an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion; the provider must offer the patient the option to view the image.
• The state requires abortion clinics to meet unnecessary and burdensome standards related to their physical plant, equipment and staffing.

It’s also an election year, which means the state’s lawmakers are more concerned with introducing legislation to campaign on over passing laws that could actually help Alabamans, including a desperately needed Medicaid expansion.

Instead, Alabama lawmakers introduced a Texas SB 8 copycat bill in December, and last week, a House committee advanced a medication abortion ban. Republicans hold both chambers of the Alabama Legislature.

Nothing that starts in Alabama stays in Alabama. It was one of the first states to field test jailing pregnant people for failed pregnancies and has sent up several test balloons for fetal personhood.

As always, marginalized communities are harmed the most under this iron rule. Alabama has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country—and it’s even higher if you’re a Black woman.

But abortion providers in Alabama haven’t given up. And with abortion banned in Texas, West Alabama Women’s Center is taking on additional patients from out of state and can even provide single-day appointments after a waiting period at home, according to clinic operations director Robin Marty.

This post was adapted from a Twitter thread.