1 Year Later, Abortion Advocates Remember Roe

Connecticut has been a sanctuary for decades for those seeking abortions — and will remain a haven for women’s reproductive healthcare, even as the court-toppled Roe v. Wade precedent recedes into recent history.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro joined five doctors and abortion advocates to deliver that message Wednesday morning during a press conference on the front steps of the state courthouse at 121 Elm St. The presser took place almost exactly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe, reversing a decades’ long constitutional right to abortion.

The healthcare professionals and advocates who joined DeLauro to reflect on a year since that Supreme Court ruling and to recommit to protecting abortion access in Connecticut were Dr. Iyanna Liles of Comprehensive Gynecology of CT, Pro-Choice CT State Director Liz Gustafson, ACLU CT Public Policy Director Claudine Constant, Dr. Emily Fine of Comprehensive Gynecology of CT, and Dr. Ayiti Maharaj-Best of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England.

Roe v. Wade was a 1973 landmark United States Supreme Court decision in which the court found a constitutional protection for abortion access. Nearly five decades later, Jackson Women’s Health Center, Mississippi’s sole abortion clinic, sued state health officer Thomas E. Dobbs over a law that prohibited doctors from performing abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state on June 24, 2022, overturning Roe v. Wade​’s almost 50 years of legal precedent.

“I know we all knew it was coming last summer, but their ruling still feels like a punch to the gut. For the first time in our nation’s history, a constitutional right has been taken away from us,” said DeLauro as she opened the press conference.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade was not about protecting life. It was all about stripping power, control, respect, and dignity away from women.”

DeLauro recalled stories from across the nation of women who were turned away from emergency rooms as they requested abortion healthcare as a result of the Dobbs decision, which has further empowered Republican legislatures and anti-abortion advocates to limit abortion access.

Following DeLauro’s opening speech, Liles took to the podium to discuss the ways in which the Dobbs decision exacerbated the United States’ maternal death rate and the racial disparities of the country’s healthcare system.

According to a 2021 study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1,205 women died of maternal causes, a 71.5 percent increase from 861 fatalities in 2020.

Liles also cited the Guttmacher Institute report of abortions by racial distribution, noting that women of color are disproportionately represented by the number of women seeking abortions. ​“Black women account for more than a quarter of abortion patients, but only 14 percent of the population… White women account for 39 percent of abortions, but 54 percent of the U.S.”

Taking this data into consideration, Liles emphasized the amplified impact of restrictive abortion legislation on women of color, many of whom intersect with the low-income demographic that accounts for 75 percent of abortions in the United States.

Liles concluded, ​“It is my sincere hope that we not only recognize the detrimental impact the Dobbs decision has had, but more importantly, the bleak future it foreshadows.”

Later in the presser, Dr. Emily Fine, another representative from Comprehensive Gynecology of CT, shed light on the populations overshadowed by anti-abortion legislation. ​“I was in fact one of those women who marched for Roe v. Wade, and never thought I would see the day that it was overturned.”

Fine delved into the correlation between the states that have banned access to abortion and high teenage pregnancy rates, limited access to contraception, and poor sexual education.

“Young women tell us that their choices of where to apply to college or work sadly must be influenced by the lack of reproductive freedom of the state, petrified that their family planning decisions will be wrestled out of their control,” Fine said.

She explained that the growing aversion to anti-abortion states is not only characteristic of young women, but also of doctors and nurses fearful of prosecution. ​“Hospitals and medical schools are losing faculty who will no longer practice in these states, both for practical and moral reasons,” Fine shared.

Although she lauded Connecticut’s commitment to providing secure access to abortion healthcare, Fine believes the state has the capacity to do more. She proposed telemedicine as an effective measure to ensure that those seeking an abortion have access to drugs such as mifepristone, which could discreetly terminate a pregnancy regardless of location.

Finally, Fine urged the crowd to reconsider its perspective on abortion, criticizing a culture that only justifies certain abortions on the basis of circumstantial evidence.

“Needing abortion care because of a failed pregnancy, or a fetal anomaly, or sexual assault should not be considered ​‘more morally acceptable’ than an abortion for someone whose contraceptive method failed or was unaffordable or inaccessible… We need to fight for abortion care for all, without judgment,” she concluded.

DeLauro returned to the podium to close the conference, offering a glimmer of hope for abortion proponents as she highlighted recent congressional initiatives to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), a bill that would prohibit governmental restrictions on abortion services.

Currently, the bill has not garnered sufficient support in Congress. DeLauro said she’s determined to change that. Recognizing Democrats’ efforts to ​“reach across the aisle,” she assured the crowd that she is doing everything in her power to pass the WHPA.

DeLauro said, ​“I am still angry, I am still heartbroken, but I am also still fired up and ready to fight on. Rest is for the weary, and we are not weary.”