By Rachel Puryear

Well, “post-Roe” is a phrase it deeply pains me to write.

This is a gruesome and outrageous step back in civil rights, bodily autonomy, and personal freedom. A key part of a disturbing trend of outsized influence of an extreme, billionaire-funded, rightwing minority clawing back decades of progress.

For a small number at the top, it’s ultimately about lining their pockets, and grasping onto a power that would otherwise be slipping away.

This decision will do a great deal of harm to women and people with uteruses; especially those who are also poor, black or brown, and have various kinds of disabilities and health considerations.

At the same time, it will also negatively impact all of us, in a way – many men, especially those more disadvantaged, have benefitted from their partners having safe and legal abortions, too.

This situation looks pretty grim, and it is – the clear and overwhelming majority of Americans who believe in reproductive choice and science-based health care have a fight ahead of them, if we are to not only restore (and even improve upon) Roe protections, but avoid even more civil rights losses.

In the meantime, though, there are things you can do right now to help those seeking abortions now and in the future – particularly if their location and circumstances make that especially difficult:

Donate to Organizations Already Equipped to Fight

You may feel inspired to start your own organization to help fight for abortion rights, help abortion seekers in need, and raise funds to help support choice. And that sentiment is awesome.

However, please seriously consider instead bringing that energy – and those resources – into already-existing organizations which serve those purposes, and are doing it well.

Collective experience, know-how, and funding can go a lot further when it’s centralized in groups that are long since up and running, and are well known and established.

Such organizations include, but are not limited to:

• Planned Parenthood (health care, including reproductive care).
• NARAL (advocacy for repealing abortion laws).
• Emily’s List (helping elect pro-choice women candidates).
• The Satanic Temple (legal advocacy for abortion rights, and for general separation of church and state).
• The Center for Reproductive Rights (the only global legal advocacy for reproductive rights).
• The National Abortion Federation (helping with security measures for abortion providers).

Donate to an Abortion Fund

What if you could join and donate to an established national network led by a black, queer, intersex doula who has had an abortion, miscarriage, and two kids? Good news, you can – check out the National Network of Abortion Funds.

They are connected with dozens of other organizations, hundreds of state and local leaders nationwide, and have thousands of volunteers in place. If you want to help people who need abortions but who live in states that interfere with that choice, this fund can help with that.

Indigenous Women Rising is also an abortion fund focused on helping indigenous and undocumented people throughout the United States and Canada who need abortions, and have barriers to obtaining them.

Donate to Candidates Committed to Choice – Especially Those in Tight Races

See here for NARAL’s list of pro-choice Congressional and State Governor candidates in tight races. If you’re able, please consider donating to and/or volunteering to phonebank for some of them.

Things to Know

Here’s a couple more things to keep in mind; either for you, or for someone you know:

• Plan B Emergency Contraceptive is sold on Amazon. This can be used to greatly reduce the chance of pregnancy if primary birth control fails, or wasn’t used. These are not abortion pills, they are back-up birth control. They’re also not meant to be regular birth control. It has a shelf life of a few years, so it’s a good idea to keep it around if you’re able to get pregnant.
• If you or someone you love does need abortion pills, a couple of online services which deliver these by mail include Plan C, and Aid Access. These medications can also be kept around if you/your loved one are not pregnant, just in case.

Vote Blue Up and Down the Ballot!

The outcomes of this November’s election, across the country, will have a profound impact going forward – on the right to choose, and on many other civil rights and personal freedoms.

Register to vote here if you have not already done so. Tell your friends and loved ones (your pro-choice, blue-voting ones at least) to make sure they are also registered, and how important this upcoming election is for personal freedom. This is the difference between restoring abortion rights any time soon, and not. Plus so, so much more (contraception, same-sex marriage, trans rights, and more).

Vote blue and pro-choice all the way up and down the ballot. It’s going to take all of it to win, and save our rights.

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Thank you, dear readers, for reading, following, and sharing. Here’s to abortion rights, and reproductive justice, of course; and to defeating and crushing these bastards trying to take it away.

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