We can’t let this painful moment hold us back

Lifted whole from CNN because, hey, I'm so proud of my younger friend and her life work; Renee demands that we listen.

Renee Bracey Sherman

This moment is incredibly painful for all of us, but the reality is that it has been building for well over a decade. Anti-abortion politicians used voter suppression and gerrymandering in their quest to consume and consolidate power while exploiting abortion access and trans justice to spread a White supremacist message. This has been a long time coming.

The modern anti-abortion movement grew out of the religious right’s effort to organize against school integration, secularism and busing of the late 1960s. When they could no longer use openly racist arguments, the 1973 Supreme Court decision provided an opening allowing them to divide the electorate along the same Jim Crow lines. The call for abortion bans became their dog whistle for politicians who fought tooth and nail to demonize immigrants, criminalize poor families and brutalize Black communities.

This moment is incredibly painful, and it’s a moment to rebuild and right the wrongs of the past. In order to rebuild abortion access, we must look at the root causes that got us here: anti-Black racism, misogyny and economic injustice.

We must create a nation in which everyone is able to access abortion care – and all health care – no matter who they are, how they identify or how much money they have in their pockets. We must call for the end of prosecuting people or putting them in jail for the outcomes of their pregnancies, for self-managing their abortions, or for parenting in poverty.

Our nation’s budgets are examples of where we want to put our priorities. They must become moral documents that prioritize the health of pregnant people and those living in poverty over violence and policing.

It starts with us creating a culture in which everyone who is pregnant is treated with love, dignity and respect. We cannot rely on politicians’ vague and empty promises to fight back when the campaign is over. We have to ask how they plan to do it now and get involved in our communities to make that vision of reality possible.

This moment is incredibly painful, but it is the perfect moment for us to rebuild a vision of reproductive justice for the future.

Renee Bracey Sherman is the founder and executive director of We Testify, an organization dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who have abortions and seeks to shift the way the public understands the context and complexity of accessing abortion care.