The Supreme Court is Marching Poor Women to Their Deaths

There is a line from the Civil War movie “Cold Mountain” that keeps coming to mind on this week’s Supreme Court news: “They call this war a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say “Sh-t, it's raining.”

I almost fell off my chair when I read a news flash on Twitter: a leaked draft opinion, now confirmed, showed that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade. It had been a long Monday. I had just finished folding clothes and was making sure our youngest daughter took a shower, as I chatted with my eldest daughter. My phone started pinging.

I felt dread –then anger. Roe v. Wade was supposed to be settled case law. As a mother of three beautiful girls, my heart sank. My youngest daughter, who is nine, asked me what happened. I held nothing back. I wanted her to fully understand what this meant, that a woman’s right was being taken away.

The ability to make a choice about my body has mattered for me personally. It was 20 years ago. I was so poor. I lived in the Soundview section of the Bronx, in a building by a swamp making $15,000 a year. I was in college and raising my daughter Samantha, who I had as a teenager. She was everything to me. I made the decision to terminate a second pregnancy.

Back then, having another child while I was barely able to keep the lights on would have created too many obstacles. I was trying to ensure that my little girl and I had a shot at fulfilling our lives. I knew that systemic racism would not provide us with the options to kick down every door to be successful. I had health issues. I was alone. I chose her. I chose us.

With no money and struggling to maintain my child and myself, the idea of having to plan to terminate a pregnancy was beyond stressful. Planned Parenthood –where I could access safe medical care– became my urgently-needed resource.

For the last 50 years, the ability to make what are very personal decisions about health and situations–whether that’s termination or proceeding with a pregnancy– have been protected. If the Supreme Court goes through with overturning Roe v. Wade, women in the position I was in 20 years ago won’t have that choice in much of the country. They will not have access to safe abortions.

Before the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the United States, thousands of women died each year from unsafe backroom or self-induced procedures. Abortion was openly criminalized. The overturning will disproportionately impact low-income women of color, who are less likely to have the means to travel to places where safe, legal abortions would be available. Someone living in a state with restrictive and punitive laws will be forced to seek other options to terminate a pregnancy. The Court is marching poor women towards danger and death.

Monday’s news brought home once again that my daughters and millions of girls and women of color from Puerto Rico to the Bronx and beyond struggle every day to survive and move forward against the forces trying to suppress their voices and personal health decisions. For women and people of color to achieve even basic protections, we’ve always been forced to argue within the constructs of legal rhetoric to prove to a white majority that we deserve dignity as human beings. The power of white supremacy and white male dominance to control our self-determination and lives permeates U.S. systems and institutions.

“As a Puerto Rican woman, I know the story of colonial decision-making over the bodies of Boricua women. I am done with this constant assault”

As a Puerto Rican woman, I know the story of colonial decision-making over the bodies of Boricua women. I am done with this constant assault and having to fight back. Whether reinforcing tyranny over our bodies is a judicial or legislative decision, I will have none of it.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor last December warned that the Court would not be able to survive the stench of following politics over legal precedent if it overturned Roe v. Wade. It won’t. It is not only compromising the health and lives of women but also participating in an agenda to erode civil and human rights, eliminate any semblance of checks and balances, and erase the separation of church and state. Nothing short of a fascist agenda.

The Supreme Court, as is, is broken. There's no need to wait for more bad to worse. In New York State, Roe v. Wade is codified into law. This is what Democrats must move to do federally. The Court’s bench must also be expanded.

More of us need to really get that elections have life-altering consequences. Trump was able to appoint three justices who are moving the nation backwards. A coalition of voters must keep leveling up our vote, and white men and women who now regret backing Trump must be on overtime in repairing an open wound.

The attack on the rights of women will not stop. We need a revolution from the majority of women across the country. We need a reckoning. A thunderstorm of votes. Or the people in power will continue to leave the rest of us in not just the rain but a living nightmare.