One year ago I was touching down into London Heathrow having spent two week speaking to pro-abortion and pro-LGBTIQ activists in Kenya, groggy but feeling pretty jubilant that the Conservatives had lost two by-elections, including one to Labour. Then by the afternoon, after waking up from a nap, it had all come tumbling down.
The Dobbs decision was in. Roe had been overruled and the US had become the fourth country to roll back abortion rights in the past 50 years.
The anti-abortion legislatures did not hang around. By the Monday, nine states had implemented draconian bans and more were joining them. A teenage girl in need of abortion had been flown over state lines to access reproductive healthcare. And all over the United States, women and girls were waking up to the realisation that they no longer had equal access to human rights as men and boys.
One year on, where are we now?
Abortion is now banned in:
Alabama, with no exceptions for rape and incest
Arkansas, with no exceptions for rape and incest
Idaho
Kentucky
Louisiana, with no exceptions for rape and incest
Mississippi, with no exceptions for rape and incest
Missouri, with no exceptions for rape and incest
North Dakota, with exceptions for rape and incest in first six weeks
Oklahoma, with no exceptions for rape and incest
South Dakota, with no exceptions for rape and incest
Tennessee, with no exceptions for rape and incest
Texas, with no exceptions for rape and incest
West Virgina
Wisconsin
Abortion is banned after diverse gestational limits in:
Georgia (6 weeks)
Nebraska (12 weeks)
Arizona (15 weeks)
Florida (15 weeks)
Utah (18 weeks)
North Carolina (20 weeks until new ban comes in on 1 July, when the upper limit will change to 12 weeks)
That’s a lot of states. A lot of women and girls of childbearing age. And a lot of emboldened anti-abortion activists.
We have seen cases of children forced to continue with unwanted pregnancies because they are deemed too “immature” to consent to abortion. We have seen desperate women forced to carry pregnancies to term, knowing they cannot care for or financially support a larger family. And of course we have seen women pushed to the edge of life by dangerous pregnancies, with doctors failing to intervene until the very last minute due to the chilling effect abortion bans have on healthcare professionals who are terrified that providing life-saving reproductive care will put them in prison.
While women suffer, the anti-abortion movement has become ever more jubilant – pushing now against access to contraception, sex ed, and expanding their operations around the world. Anti-abortion groups continue to harass the clinics that remain – clinics that are working around the clock to provide care for women crossing state borders as well as women in their own community. The movement’s influencers continue to make wild pronouncements, such as the utterly stupid notion that women cannot get pregnant as a result of rape, seeking to justify the most draconian bans. And with an evermore extremist GOP seeking to regain the White House, the arguments for Dobbs on state rules and independence are being drowned out in calls for a nationwide ban.
But there is hope too.
The overruling of Roe has proven in many ways how unpopular abortion bans are with the US public, and wherever bans have been put to the public vote, the pro-abortion side has won. The complacency which has dogged conversations around abortion has gone, with women and girls speaking up for their rights and demanding better. Women who have endured horrific medical neglect are suing their states over the bans. Losing Roe was the greatest loss, but it does not have to end with loss. We can fight back and we can win.
But let’s not sugar coat things. Yes there is hope but things are bad. As I have said from the very beginning, Dobbs will eventually mean women dying. It certainly means women and children suffering. The anti-abortion movement knows this - they are preparing rhetoric for when the first death happens (and the rhetoric is to blame the doctors not the laws, FYI). The fightback against Dobbs may have begun, but it’s a long, long fight. And my fear is that should Trump or another hardline Republican win in 2024, the fight may falter.
It took more than 100 years for the US to get safe, legal abortion and 50 years to demolish it. Women don’t have the luxury of time.
Obligatory book plug
This week I spoke to the Majority Report about my book, and did an interview with the Impact newsletter.
If you have read the book, please do leave a review on Amazon or GoodReads. Or, at least, if it’s a nice one!
I had a lovely review in the Sunday Times by Mia Levitin.
If you missed my Bristol events you can now listen online to my panel with Paul Mason, Nick Lowles and Madhu Krishnan here.
And my launch Q&A with Sarah LeFanu here, both events programmed by Bristol Ideas.
You can buy Bodies Under Siege from Verso and all good bookshops!
What I’m loving
I’ve been burying myself in Ukraine reporting this past week and gosh, what news to wake up to this morning. I am in listening and learning phase, rather than commenting, but I can recommend Paul Mason’s SubStack which offers a snap analysis on what happened overnight in Moscow and Rostov.
And I want to push this fantastic piece of long-form reportage:
This is Dave, I’ve come to save you, by Olga Omelyanchuk
What I’m writing
This week The Ferret published my first ‘feminist solutions’ piece for them, on how activists in Kenya are providing information and support on all things sexual health, including how to access safe and legal abortion.
What I’m reading
In the ongoing Ukraine research, I am reading Babi Yar by Kuznetsov and gosh. What can one say. The horror is unrelenting.
Another Karen Pirie thriller by Val McDermid, this time The Skeleton Road.
Went bookshop shopping tho and got these beauties to read:
What I’m watching
I started Succession. It’s very good. You were all correct.
And I went to the tennis which was fab! Best match was Jelena Ostapenko come back from one set and 4-0 down against Magdalena Frech to win in three sets. Superstar!
I’ll try and write next week but may be quiet for a while as on 2 July I embark on the most exciting, terrifying, hopefully worthwhile reporting trip of my career so far. More to follow…
Until then, ciao ciao!
Infuriating that so-called libertarians in red states have no issue with a massive government takeover of women's wombs, the worst possible government interference. They cry "Freedom!" while taking it away.