It has now been one year since the fascist Supreme Court ripped from women their fundamental right to abortion.

Millions of women in Alabama, Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Idaho and nine other states now live without the right to abortion. It is now routine for hospitals to turn away miscarrying women, sending them to bleed out in parking lots and bathtubs at the risk of infection, infertility and even death. Every day women are being forced to have children against their will. They are being driven over the edge. Trapped with abusers. Forced out of school. Robbed of their dreams. Told by society and the law that their bodies are not their own. Their safety counts for nothing. Their biology is their destiny. No different than the Dark Ages. Already, Christian fascists are pushing a nationwide abortion ban. Already, fascist judges have resurrected arcane legal codes from the 1800s and even the 1500s, laying the groundwork to eradicate birth control and worse. And all this is just getting started.

No one with a beating heart, no one who claims to respect women, no one who has an ounce of compassion for our daughters and for justice as a whole can continue to lie down for this!

But, face it: lay down is precisely what the Democrats—and their slavish appendages in the so-called pro-choice “movement”—are telling you to do. They tell you to dig in for some decades-long “long haul.” They tell you to celebrate a few rear-guard ballot initiatives that protect abortion rights for some women in some states, while turning a blind eye as millions and millions lose this right and the Christian fascist juggernaut picks up speed. This is akin to a “strategy” of climbing to the higher decks of a sinking ship—ignoring those who are drowning below and ignoring the reality that you'll soon drown too.

This is not only unconscionable, it is downright delusional! And, it is wasting time we cannot afford to waste.

Radical change is coming. It is already on its way. Abortion rights are gone. A war is being waged against LGBTQ people. White supremacists and fascists have already gone into armed battle against the “peaceful transfer of power,” and Trump is promising “retribution.” Meanwhile, the planet burns and the Democrats are aggressively waging a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia and threatening China.

Society as we know it is being ripped apart.

The revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (BA) has analyzed:

These divisions among the ruling powers, and in the larger society, cannot be resolved within the framework that has existed, and has held things together, for nearly 150 years, since shortly after the end of the Civil War which led to the abolition of slavery—they cannot be resolved on the basis of the capitalist “democracy” that has been the “normal” means of capitalist rule (dictatorship) for so long.

Left to its current course, this is going rapidly towards something truly disastrous.

But BA has also analyzed that because they cannot rule in the old way, a lot of what people took for granted can get called sharply into question by events themselves. So this situation also holds a heightened chance to wrench out something truly emancipating—a real revolution. This is because millions and millions of people's lives and assumptions about this country are being jolted and torn apart—the ripping away of abortion rights is just one example of this.

Wrenching a just and liberating future out of this situation is possible, but it requires making a real revolution and nothing less. It requires abolishing and dismantling the existing system of capitalism-imperialism and its institutions of government. It requires replacing all this with a new socialist system as set forth in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic In North America. Consider just one portion of what this new Constitution and society will make possible. The rights of LGBTQ people and of women will be guaranteed. They will be protected and enforced by the government of that new socialist republic. This includes the fundamental rights to abortion and birth control.

This Constitution emphasizes—right in its text—that oppression of women arose together with, and for thousands of years has been woven together into, all relations among human beings based on exploitation. This includes the capitalist-imperialist USA that we are currently forced to live under. And this Constitution makes clear that one of the most important objectives of this new revolutionary society is uprooting this oppression. Name one other founding document that even comes close to that!

But if we don’t make a revolution, if we don’t establish a new society, the nightmare we face will only get worse.

So, now, one year after abortion rights were stolen from women with much worse on the way, ask yourself:

Are you going to continue to put up with a system that allows women and girls to be turned into chattel and forced to have children against their will?

Or will you fight for a revolution and a new system where they are guaranteed the right to legal abortion and birth control on demand and without apology for whatever reason and in whatever circumstances she goddamn chooses?

Will you continue to put up with a society where doctors are hunted and even killed for providing abortions or terrorized for treating trans youth?

Or are you going to fight for a new society where doctors and the whole system of healthcare is guided by science, best medical practices, and the needs of their patients?

Ask yourself, will you continue to go along with a society that treats children like they are a punishment to women for daring to have sex? You know what I am talking about, “If she didn’t want a baby, she shouldn’t have spread her legs!”

Or are you going to fight for a radically different kind of society with a radically different and liberating culture? One where children are brought into this world because they are wanted. Where they are viewed as the future—and treated as the responsibility—of society as a whole. And where a culture is fought for where sex is engaged in by people of all genders and sexual orientation free of stigma or coercion and based on mutual respect and shared pleasure?

And seriously ask yourself: Will you continue to keep your head down as this system allows Christian fascist fanatics and other oppressors to use the levers of state power to trample the will of the people and impose outmoded moral codes that enslave women, restore open white supremacy, unleash genocidal repression against immigrants and other depravity?

Or will you settle for nothing less than a real revolution and a whole radically new system and society where the fury and determination of women and girls to uproot thousands of years of subjugation is given the backing of the law and the courts and the culture and the government as a whole? And where the same is true of the struggle to overcome white supremacy, xenophobia and all the backward relations and thinking among people? Will you lift your sights to, and settle for nothing less than, a society and new system where the most fundamental right of all—the right of the masses of people to debate and shape the direction of society towards putting an end to injustice and oppression everywhere throughout the world—is protected and fostered?

It's one future or the other. One system or the other. There is no in between.

Every day you sit on the fence or waste your time tinkering around in the bullshit the Democrats are selling or just obsessing in yourself, the nightmare is advancing. Women’s lives are being shattered. Books are being banned. Nazis are terrorizing trans youth and others. The planet is on fire.

A different future—a liberating future—is possible, but time is running out.

Right now is the time for you to get with this revolution. Right now, as society is splitting apart and the system is coming apart at its seams. Right now, when millions are being shaken awake but don't have any idea what to do with their fears or their fury. You need to be part of putting this revolution on the map. Be part of giving these millions a way to make real a future, and ultimately a world, free from all forms of slavery, all exploitation and oppression based on class, race, sex, and gender. A world free of all relations in which one part of humanity is subordinated to and dominated by others. And, as part of building up the strength to make this revolution and for as long as we are forced to live under this current monstrous system, you need to join in fighting with all you've got to defend the right of all women and girls everywhere to: LEGAL ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!

Radical change is coming. Which side are you on?