[Content Note: War on agency.]
"The trend [of abortion clinics struggling to stay open because of legislative hostility to abortion access] is disturbing. It's taking root in states we traditionally think of as 'friendly' to abortion rights, without many people noticing."—Nikki Madsen, executive director of the Abortion Care Network, in a must-read piece by Molly Redden for the Guardian on the erosion of abortion access, even in "blue" states.
Without many people noticing.
I know exactly what Madsen means here. She surely doesn't mean people like her, who dedicate their lives to noticing. And she doesn't mean anti-choice fuckos, who dedicate their lives to closing clinics.
She means all the people who take Roe for granted and imagine that it functions as an on-off switch for abortion. The people who don't understand (or care) that abortion can still technically be legal, but totally inaccessible for millions and millions of pregnant people who need abortions. The "pro-choice" people who only care about abortion during elections, when they use it as a bargaining chip and a cudgel to get feminist voters in line.
Roe is not a magical abortion access password. It has to be defended, not just against full repeal, but against the state legislative restrictions enacted to render it a hollow statute.
Legal abortion is only worth as much as the number of people who have reasonable and affordable and unencumbered access to it.
The people working on closing clinics understand this. Every pro-choice person needs to understand it, too.
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