What are 5 things I can do right now to protect abortion rights?

May 7, 2022 8:28 AM

Donating money? To who? Writing a letter to who? Demanding action? From who? This is US focused.

Please share with me specifics on what I can do right now to fight the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling in the US. I said "5 things", but if you have 3 or 7, that's fine too!

posted by Toddles to Law & Government (11 answers total)

Best answer: You can donate money to the National Network of Abortion Funds or to a specific fund. (Perhaps someone with more knowledge will come alone, but I can see pros and cons to both--donating to a specific fund probably helps faster than donating to the central fund, but donating to the central fund helps ensure your money goes where it's most needed.)
posted by hoyland at 9:35 AM on May 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

I am personally worried about the notion of conservative states prosecuting or allowing lawsuits for abortions done outside the state. Abortion access becomes impossible in those states, even if those states neighbor other states that have legalized abortion. Hence, I consider a nationwide recognized right to abortion as the key long term goal to protect abortion rights.

There are relatively few ways to do this:

• Replace Supreme Court Justices with more liberal justices, re-enact equivalent of Roe.
• Pass a Constitutional amendment explicitly protecting individual liberty as a right.
• Pass a nation-wide law protecting abortion (though I don't think this would pass Supreme Court review)

There's a common theme with all ways - liberal/Democratic legislators need to be elected around the United States, both at the state level and the Federal level. I consider all parties other than the Republican and Democratic party to be non-viable, so I would further restrict to Democratic legislators. Hence, in the long-term, the ideal path to protect abortion rights is to donate to the Democratic party, vounteer for the Democratic party, and get Democrats elected.

There are many viable short-term paths protecting abortion access - and I'm not particularly qualified to claim which are superior. However, in the long term, the path to me is very clear - get Democrats elected.
posted by saeculorum at 10:05 AM on May 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

Flip Republican-held state legislatures. Sister District offers the best volunteer opportunities to get involved.

Read Robin Marty's Handbook for a Post-Roe America. (You can also buy it on Amazon but it's heavily backordered, so direct from the publisher is the way to go.)
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 10:56 AM on May 7, 2022

Best answer: There are places you can donate money that focus on helping people seeking abortions, like the NNAF linked above, and there are also places working on the political side, like NARAL Pro-Choice America, NOW, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, SisterSong, and Emily's List.
posted by box at 11:27 AM on May 7, 2022

What is your goal? To try and influence the court NOT to overturn Roe? Or to support people in need of abortion care? If it’s the former, then things that will get Roberts’ attention such as attending a protest and lobbying your federal elected officials to help create an atmosphere where Roberts worries about the court losing even more legitimacy so that he doesn’t vote for the scorched earth opinion.
posted by rhymedirective at 12:36 PM on May 7, 2022

For your state:

Find out what laws are on the books in your state. Most states have something - if you're in a state that offers less than full protection, call your governor's office, and your state level house and senate reps to let them know that you want this vital issue addressed immediately. If any of them are republicans, I'd consider framing this as being about freedom, that making abortion illegal doesn't decrease the number of abortions but only endangers people who can get pregnant, that this is a private medical decision.

For the federal level: same deal. The House recently passed a bill to protect abortion rights, the Women’s Health Protection Act, and the Senate has not yet voted. For the House, see how your rep voted and call to let them know what you think about that. For the Senate, call your rep and let them know that you expect them to vote to pass this law.

Get your friends to do the same thing. For real, I've found that the biggest barrier for most people to make these calls is not knowing what to say, so I started posting actions on fb and writing little scripts to make it easier, so if you can give people something to say, you can probably get other people to also make these calls.

If you've got money, donating to Planned Parenthood is always a positive, and you can make decisions about what electoral races to support, in your own state or elsewhere.

Finally, if you have anti-choice people in your personal life, cut them out and let them know why you can't be around them anymore.
posted by bile and syntax at 1:06 PM on May 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

things that will get Roberts’ attention [...] so that he doesn’t vote for the scorched earth opinion.

Note that the reported vote count is such that the majority rules against Roe regardless of whether Roberts votes with them or not. It could actually, in the short term, be advantageous for Roberts to vote in the majority, if only to have somewhat more sway in neutering Alito's opinion. If Roberts is in the minority, the conservative block can do whatever they want.
posted by saeculorum at 1:36 PM on May 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Note that the reported vote count is such that the majority rules against Roe regardless of whether Roberts votes with them or not. It could actually, in the short term, be advantageous for Roberts to vote in the majority, if only to have somewhat more sway in neutering Alito's opinion. If Roberts is in the minority, the conservative block can do whatever they want.

Well, there are only two options here, to stay or overrule the lower court ruling that immediately preceded it. I think Roberts votes to overrule but that does not mean a complete overturning of Roe v. Wade as in the leaked draft, even if he in the majority (as I think is likely) which means he assigned Alito to write a draft majority opinion. But that does not mean that all justices asserting their decision to overrule would necessarily vote for Alito’s opinion. It is in that ambiguity that leverage lies.
posted by rhymedirective at 6:01 PM on May 7, 2022

Here are some additional items I've collected so far, to add to what other people have written:

• Participate in the protests on → May 14 ← being organized by the Women's March and other groups. Also consider giving them a generous donation to help pay for the events and/or getting involved some other way.
• Read and share the How to Show up For Abortion Access Google doc put together by Alison Turkos and announced in a tweet on May 3. Long document organized by topics such as "If you’re looking to give money", "If you’re looking to do something politically", and more.
• Read and share Get to Work. Get Informed. Get Brave: How to fight for abortion rights now and into the future by Jill Filipovic. Long list of potential actions.
• Sign the Indivisible Team's pledge to take action to get on their contact list.

posted by StrawberryPie at 7:43 PM on May 8, 2022

This MeFi thread from 2 days ago is relevant to the question of whether to give money: Indie Bundle for Abortion Funds.
posted by StrawberryPie at 11:34 AM on July 5, 2022

Oh FFS. I meant “where”, not “whether”, and I missed the edit window, damnit.
posted by StrawberryPie at 12:13 PM on July 5, 2022