On my campus and in advocacy spaces, I often find myself in the minority opinion, fighting for the states that so many have left behind. The response to Dobbs cannot be a tactical retreat.

8/10/2023
by AMELIA LETSON

As the first anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision approached, I sat in a training session with my student reproductive rights advocacy group, excited to hear from a longtime abortion rights champion on how we could continue strengthening our advocacy efforts as students in a state with a total abortion ban. I was taken aback when this leader advised me and my fellow student advocates to focus less on Missouri. This perspective that in our post-Dobbs landscape, we need to center our efforts solely on investing in abortion access in states where abortion is still legal is an increasingly common one among pro-abortion advocates and providers. It has left states like Missouri behind as the abortion rights movement has been forced into crisis management.

Since Missouri became the first state to completely ban abortion after Dobbs, activists and providers have been left to address a fragmented reproductive rights landscape. Clinics in Illinois, where abortion is still accessible without restriction, frequently saw Missouri patients even before the fall of Roe, as harsh restrictions and TRAP laws made abortion largely inaccessible to Missourians.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/08/10/abortion-ban-states/