Today marks the second anniversary of the devastating Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, when a conservative, anti-abortion majority on the United States Supreme Court rolled back nearly 50 years of legal precedent and progress on gender equity to overturn Roe v. Wade. Ignoring medical science, the already complicated landscape of abortion access, and human rights, the Court stripped millions of people across the country of the fundamental right to control our own bodies and make our own healthcare decisions. 

In the two years since Dobbs, the landscape for reproductive freedom has become more dire in North Carolina and across the country. Immediately post-Dobbs, we began hearing nearly daily stories of patient and provider confusion and chaos, with providers forced to consult attorneys about medical care and patients fleeing their home states to access needed, and sometimes emergency, abortions. We also saw the first significant roll-back of abortion access in North Carolina in years, with the rushed, underhanded, and undemocratic passing of SB20 in 2023. 

The stories of denials of care have only increased these past two years, as extremist anti-abortion elected officials and judges have dug in their heels when faced with the real world consequences of their policies. Anti-abortion judges are ignoring patient and provider experiences to claim there is nothing harmful or unconstitutional about the laws being passed. Anti-abortion lawmakers are racing to see who can pass the most oppressive and egregious bans, targeting people’s right to travel, seek information, or receive emergency, life-saving care in their efforts to ban all abortion and roll back access to reproductive healthcare. 

Additionally in this past year, we’ve witnessed extremists in state legislatures and in the courts target birth control and reproductive assistance technologies, like IVF. These bans and restrictions are all in service of an unpopular and dangerous ideology, one that seeks to erase decades of progress on gender and racial equality and to ban all abortion, everywhere, giving fertilized eggs more rights and protections than pregnant people. As always, these increasingly draconian restrictions will fall most harshly on Communities of Color, young people, rural communities, people with lower incomes, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and immigrant communities, all of which is by design within our current unjust power structure. 

These same conservative and anti-abortion lawmakers and judges are also attacking our democracy and voting rights, and while they are attempting to make us feel powerless, we are not. We have many tools to pushback against these efforts! We are countering misinformation and anti-abortion propaganda and combating abortion stigma. We will work with partners to help people still get care within the confines of restrictive laws. We will continue to lift up the voices of those most impacted by these bans. We will hold anti-abortion elected officials accountable for the harm they are causing our communities.

And in this critical election year, we will take our values to the ballot box where reproductive freedom is absolutely on the ballot, because the people we elect into office will either defend and advance abortion access and reproductive rights, or they will continue attacking access and care. As we are increasingly governed by laws that are not meant to protect us, we have a powerful opportunity this fall to put a stop to this dismantling of our most basic rights. 

While the past two years have been difficult, we remain resolute and more committed than ever to restoring and expanding access to reproductive healthcare. We will never accept this attack on our bodies and our rights, and we will keep fighting until we achieve a world that recognizes reproductive freedom for all.