One year after the Supreme Court struck down federal abortion protection with its June 24, 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the issue is as salient to voters as ever. It still hasn’t faded from view, long past the time the (white, male) pundits insisted it would no longer motivate people.
That’s because the harm that decision has done just keeps multiplying, with every red state that decides to force pregnancy and parenthood on people in increasingly cruel ways. It's because the decision is making all forms of reproductive healthcare harder to access as doctors quit in frustration and fear and clinics close. And it’s because it’s brought the issue out into the sunlight, where people are motivated to tell their stories, everywhere. The fact that there’s something like 64 million women of childbearing age in the U.S. whose lives could be directly affected probably has something to do with it, too.
Abortion and pregnancy complications have gone from a private, doctor-patient only concern to a top story on social media, on the nightly news, and in the magazines in the hair salon. There’s a Reddit forum, monitored by health professionals and advocates, to help people navigate abortion care. The Online Abortion Resource Squad is there to debunk myths and to steer people to the care they need, which the founder of the group, Ariella Messing, admits is pretty fucked up. “This wasn’t how they should be getting care—by a random stranger on Reddit,” Messing said.
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