Last night’s vote by Senators Burr and Tillis to confirm Amy Coney Barrett for a lifetime position to the U.S. Supreme Court was a vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and a vote to re-criminalize abortion, a common healthcare procedure that nearly 1 in 4 people in America who can get pregnant will access in their lifetimes. Like all abortion restrictions, the consequences of criminalization will fall hardest on communities that have traditionally been sidelined in our country, such as communities of color, people of lower income, immigrant communities, young people, rural communities, and the LGBTQ+ community.

Access to abortion is not all that is at stake for our reproductive freedom with this 6-3 conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court makes decisions every session that impact our daily lives, including:

• Access to birth control that is comprehensive, affordable, and free from interference from our employers, our doctors, and anyone else who thinks they should have a say.
• Access to affordable pre- and post-natal care, to cancer and STI screenings, and to accessible healthcare and support for domestic and sexual violence survivors. Even the practice of considering gender a pre-existing condition could return (the Supreme Court is set to hear a case on November 10th that could dismantle the Affordable Care Act).
• The right to have and raise children in a healthy and safe environment, which includes freedom from forced and coerced sterilizations or contraception use and from bans on which families can adopt children or can marry.
• The protection of people’s right to access abortion and reproductive health care free from violence, harassment, and intimidation.

In North Carolina, as across the country, the vast majority of people support access to abortion and oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. Conservative lawmakers have not been able to push their unpopular anti-abortion and anti-choice agenda legislatively and are instead hoping to do so by hijacking the U.S. Supreme Court.

The right to plan, grow, and structure our family as we see fit is a human right. No court, including the U.S. Supreme Court, should be telling us otherwise, and we will continue fighting to ensure reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy are a reality for all North Carolinians.