[1] The Supreme Court is on track to gut or overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that established women's fundamental right to abortion nationwide, by late spring of 2022.
In a case called Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court is considering whether to uphold an unconstitutional 15-week abortion ban out of Mississippi. In their hearing on December 1 of 2021, the conservative majority of Supreme Court Justices indicated their inclination to uphold this abortion ban.
[2] If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, 21 states would immediately ban or severely restrict abortion.
In some states, laws criminalizing abortion remain on the books from before Roe. In other states, anti-abortion fanatics have passed abortion bans which are currently blocked from being implemented by Roe. But, if Roe falls, all these laws immediately go into effect. For example, Ohio would outlaw abortions as early as five or six weeks into a pregnancy and in Alabama doctors who perform an abortion could face life in prison.
[3] In Texas, almost seven million women of reproductive age have been living under a near-total abortion ban since September 1, 2021.
The Texas Abortion Ban (SB8) bans all abortions after about six weeks into pregnancy, long before most women even know they are pregnant. The law makes no exception for rape or incest and is enforced by anti-abortion vigilante bounty-hunters.
[4] 566 abortion restrictions were passed into law between the beginning of 2011 and April 30, 2021.
These include forcing women to wait 24 hours or longer before an abortion, forcing minors to tell their parents, forcing women to undergo medically unnecessary sonograms, forcing doctors to read dishonest scripts about supposed risks of abortion to women. (Abortion is approximately 14 times safer than childbirth!)
Abortion escorts in front of the "pink house," the last abortion clinic in Mississippi. Photo: revcom
[5] Six states have only one abortion clinic in the entire state! (Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia.)
[6] Abortion restrictions hit poor women, and especially Black and other women of color, particularly hard. In Mississippi, 80% of women receiving abortions are Black. Meanwhile, Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. In Louisiana, women of color are 74% of those who receive abortions.
Escorts protect woman seeking an abortion from anti-abortionists.
[7] Everywhere, Christian fascists harass and shame women and clinic staff as they enter abortion clinics. They viciously call women “murderers,” shame and lie to women and try to pressure them into having children they don't want.
[8] 11 abortion doctors and other clinic staff have been assassinated by anti-abortion fascists.
[9] There have been thousands of acts of violence—clinic bombings, kidnappings, and threats—against abortion providers, clinics, and clinical staff. In 2018 alone, there were 1,369 reported violent acts. The National Abortion Federation reported that in 2020, clinics nationwide experienced an “increase in vandalism, assault and battery, death threats/threats of harm, stalking, and hoax devices/suspicious packages from 2019.”
[10] The core of the theocratic movement behind the assault on abortion also aims to eliminate birth control, LGBTQ rights, divorce and much more.
Citations for all these facts available at RiseUp4AbortionRights.org
Join the fight to defeat this assault on women by mobilizing mass, determined, and courageous political struggle in the streets on a level that cannot be ignored. Print and spread this factsheet. Go to RiseUp4AbortionRights.org to read, sign, and spread the Statement, “We Refuse To Let the Supreme Court Deny Women's Humanity And Decimate Their Rights!”
Nationwide:
Take to the streets on March 8th,
International Women's Day
info@RiseUp4AbortionRights.org
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