Op-Ed: Proven unpopular anti-abortion laws push women toward unsafe and expensive options
As of today, abortion is still legal. It remains your constitutional right. Monday night’s leaked draft of an initial opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court on the future of abortion rights, however, makes it clear that our deepest fears are coming true: The court is prepared to end the constitutional right to abortion.
What comes next is as dangerous as it is unprecedented. It will open the floodgates for states across the country to ban abortion outright. The Republican-dominated Indiana Legislature has made already that promise with their call for a special session to ban abortion this summer.
The consequences of the impending Supreme Court decision this summer will be swift and devastating for communities nationwide. Overturning Roe v. Wade means 26 states could swiftly move to ban abortion, including in Indiana. This would leave more than 1.5 million women and people of reproductive age in Indiana without access to abortion.
To understand what the outcome could look like for people across Indiana, one only needs to look next door at our fellow Kentuckians. They lost access to abortion care for eight days last month due to a laundry list of restrictions passed by the Kentucky General Assembly, making it impossible for clinics to comply. Patients at Planned Parenthood’s Louisville location seeking abortion care were forced to flee their home state, and many of them came to Indiana for care that has been afforded by the U.S. Constitution for more than 50 years.
Read more: Bombshell SCOTUS leak on Roe v. Wade on Indiana voters' minds as they hit the polls
The threat to abortion access across the country is not hypothetical. As you read this piece, our right to abortion is being crushed by the very people who were elected to protect our rights and freedoms to live healthy lives.
We know the harm that will come from this decision because we’ve seen it play out in Kentucky and Texas. People who do not have access to the financial resources and support to travel out of state are forced to carry pregnancies. Others flee their state to seek abortion care outside of the health care system. University of Colorado Boulder research shows that banning abortion nationwide would lead to a 21% increase in the number of pregnancy-related deaths overall and a 33% increase among Black women. Maternal mortality is already killing Black women in Indiana at three times the rate of white women, according to national statistics.
These numbers are unacceptable and will only get worse with more abortion bans. Barriers to accessing abortion and other health care services — like finding child care, taking time off work and navigating the costs of transportation and lodging hundreds or thousands of miles away — have always existed. People who are a product of this country's legacy of racism and discrimination, people of color, people with low incomes or those who live in rural communities will not have the same access simply because they can not afford it. The number of people dealing with these obstacles will skyrocket.
Read more: Indiana politicians react to leaked SCOTUS draft opinion that could overturn Roe v. Wade
The research shows abortion bans and restrictions are deeply unpopular. A Gallup poll finds that about 80% of the American public think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances. In Indiana, 88% of voters support the right to chose. The polling makes it clear that people in Indiana want abortion to be a safe and legal experience for patients. Anti-abortion politicians are not only on the wrong side of reproductive justice, but they are also on the wrong side of public opinion.
Generations before us have fought tirelessly to gain and protect the rights we have today. Planned Parenthood will not back down, we are committed. We will not watch quietly. We will not allow our right to reproductive care vanish without a fight. We need you with us as we fight for our futures. Now is the time to get loud! Let us hear from you! Let your state legislator hear from you! Tell them “We Won’t Go Back”!
LaKimba DeSadier is the Indiana State Director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates.