Tell your Senators: Bring Reproductive Justice to a Vote!
Call BOTH of your Senators.
Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
Thank you for co-sponsoring the Women’s Health Protection Act because you understand that a right isn’t real if only certain people can exercise it. Now I want you to urge your colleagues in the Senate to bring the WHPA to the floor for a vote. Senate Democrats need to demonstrate the courage to protect equal access to abortion care, which is essential for social and economic equality, reproductive autonomy for all people, and the right to determine our own lives.
I also want you to further defend reproductive freedom by getting Senators Sinema and Manchin to wake up to the terrifying realities of rising Republican anti-democratic violence nationwide and pass the Freedom to Vote Act ASAP so we have a fair chance to vote out those who are hostile to our bodily autonomy.
Background
Join the Center for Reproductive Rights action on December 1, 2021 to defend abortion rights.
Oral arguments: December 1, 2021 (A live audio feed of the arguments will be available on the Supreme Court’s website.)
In Roe v. Wade, in 1973, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) held that the Fourteenth Amendment of The Constitution protects the right to decide whether to continue a pregnancy prior to viability, and has repeatedly reaffirmed this right.
In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in 1992, in a 5-to-4 decision, SCOTUS again reaffirmed Roe, but for the first time, the justices imposed a new standard to determine the validity of laws restricting abortions: whether a state abortion regulation has the purpose or effect of imposing an "undue burden," which is defined as a "substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability."
Mississippi’s brief, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, filed July 22, 2018, explicitly and repeatedly asks the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey and to rule that there is no right to abortion protected by the U.S. Constitution, even before viability.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is arguing the case against Mississippi, stating that the ban prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy was enacted in direct violation to Roe’s core holding that every pregnant person has the right to decide whether to continue their pregnancy prior to viability.
In its amicus brief for Dobbs v. Jackson, the American Bar Association points out that “the right to choose whether to bear a child is an integral part of our understanding of constitutionally protected liberty” firmly grounded in decades of Court precedent. “Roe and Casey thus built on the Court’s prior precedents protecting the right to make personal decisions regarding marriage, family, and childrearing, pointing to cases dating back to the 1920s…The right described in Roe and reaffirmed in Casey was not called into being out of thin air, but was the result of years of consideration by the Court of what liberty encompasses when applied to the realm of children and family.”
UN human rights experts; legal scholars in international, human rights, and comparative law; and organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have submitted amicus briefs urging the Court to uphold the right to abortion and the human rights of people who can become pregnant. They contend that abortion rights are human rights—and if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade it will contradict U.S. obligations under international human rights law.
References
Take Action: Abortion Is Essential!, Tool Kit to take action with the Center for Reproductive Rights
Supreme Court takes Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade., 11/21/21, Slate, Mark Joseph Stern
Precedent and the Rule of Law: Spotlight on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health 11/17/21
International Human Rights and Abortion: Spotlight on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
What's at Stake on 12/01/21, when SCOTUS hears Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization
The Harms of Denying a Woman an Abortion: Findings from the Turnaway Study, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), University of California - San Francisco
Senate Co-Sponsors of Women’s Health Protection Act
#ActForAbortionAccess, Overview of Women’s Health Protection Act