Since the Supreme Court’s decision, seven states have put some form of abortion on the ballot. egg. From blue states like Vermont and California to deep red states like Montana and Ohio, voters everywhere loudly advocated a ban on women’s bodies. Many other states are expected to have their say on abortion rights in November. One is my home state of Missouri.
Growing up in St. Louis with three sisters and a doctor father, I never thought of reproductive health as a political issue. It was real life. And policymakers were making life harder for women by restricting access to care.even below egg, It has become virtually impossible to obtain an abortion in Missouri. Strategic hurdles to access care and requirements were so narrow that ultimately there was only one abortion clinic in the entire state. The Trump administration then appointed a Supreme Court justice who ultimately overturned the decision. egg. Minutes later, Missouri became the first state to ban abortion in a small number of medical emergencies, such as “imminent death,” with exceptions for rape and incest.
If the clinic was their first tactic in chipping away at our rights, their next target is the ballot box. Missouri now has a chance to protect it. Missourians for Constitutional Freedoms is working to pass an abortion amendment on the November ballot. However, anti-choice Republicans are trying to make this difficult by weakening direct democracy.
First, Missouri’s secretary of state tried to add overtly partisan and misleading language to a ballot initiative to restore abortion rights. Thankfully, the Missouri Supreme Court stopped him.State Senate Republicans currently have a priority. By significantly raising the threshold for passing constitutional amendments, we will establish a 200-year precedent. Under their new system, a simple majority of voters statewide is no longer enough to pass an amendment. Instead, the amendment would need to win a majority in five of the state’s eight congressional districts, five of which are very conservative.
This is all part of a nationwide strategy to strip us of our freedoms. In Kansas, anti-abortion politicians tried to confuse voters with complicated language regarding an abortion referendum. In Ohio, a majority of voters sought to make it difficult to change the state constitution to protect abortion rights. Their efforts failed spectacularly, but that doesn’t stop lawmakers in Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida and Montana from trying similar tactics. Activists in these states are trying to give voters a say on abortion this November, and so are politicians. To shut them up.
For most people, reproductive health care is not about politics, it is deeply personal. It is fundamentally about freedom, dignity and bodily autonomy. That’s why I’ve been working on this issue since I was a teenager. In 2012, I trained as a clinic attendant to protect patients arriving for appointments at Family Planning in St. Louis. Years later, I became involved with the amazing team at CHOICES and dozens of other clinics across the state line from Missouri in Carbondale, Illinois.when egg When it fell, these clinics were overwhelmed. To fill this gap, I started an organization called the Gateway Coalition to direct funds to various groups in the Midwest to help provide accessible abortion care. And I continue to learn from organizations like the Abortion Bridge Collaborative Fund Advisory Committee and Abortion Care Network.
Through clinic visits and meetings with health care providers, center operators, and campaign leaders from around the country, we learn how patients desperately need abortion care and how clinics struggle to provide it. I learned what they are doing. Clinics are closed, doctors are unable to provide treatment, and women are forced to become pregnant against their will.
The Missouri I know stands for freedom. Missourians know that decisions about pregnancy, including abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization, and miscarriage care, are personal and private and should be left to the patient and their family. As a mother, sister, daughter, friend, and someone who cares deeply about the dignity of others, I am working toward a future where everyone has free access to affordable abortion on a schedule that fits their needs. Missouri’s Reproductive Freedom Rights Amendment is an important step toward that future. We have to go through it and we have to build on it. I am determined to continue this fight until abortion is safe, affordable and available to all patients across the country.
If you agree that patients, not politicians, should make their own health care decisions, or if you simply agree that a minority should not prevent the majority from winning at the voting booth, please read this article. Make your voice heard this election cycle.
If you’re in Missouri, you have until May 5th to sign the Missouri Reproductive Rights Amendment petition and work to collect signatures from others before voting in the general election. It means voting on the initiative. Across the country, this means showing up at voting booths when politicians seek to bend the rules to implement anti-choice policies. And this November, that means voting for presidential and congressional candidates who will codify protections for our people. Roe vs. Wade And we reject laws that promise to further restrict our reproductive rights.
At stake are our fundamental freedoms: the right to abortion, and now the right to have our voices heard at the voting booth.
