June 24, 2023 in Washington DC:
Get back into the streets on the one year anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. wade.
RSVP HERE
June 24, Washington DC, 11:00 am Columbus Circle
RiseUp4AbortionRights Statement on the One Year Anniversary of the Overturn of Roe
Saturday, June 24, marks one year since the illegitimate Trump-packed fascist Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, ripping away abortion rights nationwide. One year later, the clear eyed warning that Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights issued is borne out in living color across the country.
In our founding statement, published on January 11, 2022, we warned,
“Denying the right to abortion forces women to bear children against their will. This does grotesque physical, emotional, societal, and psychic violence to women by reducing them to baby-making machines! Compelling women to carry unwanted and/or dangerous pregnancies hijacks their bodies, their safety, their lives, their sexual autonomy, their aspirations and accomplishments, and their life-long relations in the service of patriarchal domination.
Forced motherhood is female enslavement. When women are not free, no one is free.”
One year later, every woman and girl in this country has become a SECOND CLASS CITIZEN. There is no overstating the harrowing magnitude of this deepening generational tragedy.
One year later, as many as 100,000 women and girls have been forced to give birth against their will.
One year later, 22 million women and girls of reproductive age live in states where abortion access is heavily restricted, and often totally inaccessible.
While one woman in this country is not free—NONE of us are free.
One year later, doctors have become handmaidens to a misogynist agenda while we must bear witness to women and girls brought to the brink of death from sepsis or bleeding out before they get care for miscarriages or high-risk or non-viable pregnancies.
One year later, we see clinics shut down; violent incidents and threats against providers and patients have risen dramatically; and maternal mortality and morbidity are increasing while access to all forms of women’s health care shrinks.
This was foreseeable and foreseen. In April 2022, we wrote,
“The reversal of abortion rights would do immeasurable harm to generations of women and girls and everyone who can become pregnant. It would strengthen and accelerate the escalating attacks on contraception, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, the lives and true history of Black people and other people of color, immigrants, and many more. Acquiescing to this loss, rather than fighting now to defeat it, would also contribute to the dangerous dynamic where people will be forced to adjust to and ‘work within’ greater and greater atrocities.”
One year later, this is evident to everyone looking at reality. The Christian Fascists’ victory in overturning abortion rights has accelerated their juggernaut moving towards their ultimate goal of a nationwide ban, while taking aim at transgender people and escalating attacks on LGBTQ people overall.
Since our founding, we have struggled against accommodation with this movement, and we warned right after Roe was overturned that:
“.. too many pro-choice leaders and Democratic Party politicians preach a “realism” of simply working within this new reality. They tell us to dig in for the ‘long haul’ of the electoral process or to focus on protecting abortion in a few states, helping women induce their own abortions, or helping women travel across state lines. Whatever their intent, this allows the Christian fascist juggernaut to continue to advance and capitulates to a growing nightmare.”
One year later, the losing tactic of relying on increasingly rigged elections has at best slowed the impact for some women, in some places, while leaving behind millions of women.
On the one year anniversary of this horrendous defeat, we affirm the urgent demand:
LEGAL ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY, NATIONWIDE AND EVERYWHERE!
Only the people in mass non-violent struggle, rising up in the streets, can make this real. Let’s take inspiration from the green wave for abortion rights in Latin America and women in Iran rising up against patriarchal degradation. In our millions, we can and must unite and ACT together to win back the fundamental right to legal safe abortion.
Forced Motherhood = Female Enslavement
LEGAL ABORTION On Demand & Without Apology Nationwide!
RISE UP 4 ABORTION RIGHTS!
One day after the shock of losing the national right to abortion, as abortion bans in multiple states were imposing immediate and growing terror on women, some “pro-choice” groups decided their most important target would not be the fascist Supreme Court or anti-abortion legislatures or any of the powerful forces responsible for this defeat. No, these groups, who had done nothing to mobilize resistance in the months leading up to this hammer blow, decided to go after Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, the only organization mobilizing non-violent, creative resistance nationwide. The attackers issued a statement filled with vicious name-calling and lies. “Transphobic?” Simply for using the word “women”? Ridiculous! The attack on abortion has always been about slamming women back into full-on, violent patriarchy, under the control of men. Refusing to even mention women, and attacking us for doing so, only hides the truth and aids the enemy, Christian fascism. Rise Up has consistently made the connections between Christian fascist attacks on women and their targeting of LGBTQ rights. Similarly, denouncing Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights as a “cult” because one of its co-initiators, Sunsara Taylor, is a revolutionary communist and advocate of the New Communism of Bob Avakian, is straight out of the McCarthy playbook of the 1950s, when anyone who was accused of being a communist or engaging in political activity with communists was driven from their jobs and public life. Who did that serve? The powers that be, just as this ridiculous attack has done. Don’t be fooled; the stakes in this battle are too high to be dissuaded by rumors and lies. You can read for yourself what Sunsara Taylor and Revcoms stand for, at revcom.us. And you can read our response to these scurrilous attacks at RiseUp4AbortionRights.org. Then, join us in uniting all who can be united from diverse political perspectives to fight for and win: LEGAL ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY EVERYWHERE!
