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The surveillance of pregnant people and abortion patients is directly tied to efforts to criminalize pregnancy outcomes and self-managed abortions.

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Already, the incoming administration has pledged to be a friendly one for reproductive rights. But to meet the urgency of this moment as we mark 48 years of Roe v. Wade on Jan. 22, we need more than friendliness. We need proactive policymaking to ensure pregnant people can get the real-life health care and supports they need, with a judicial landscape increasingly stacked with anti-abortion extremists, and state legislatures that have wasted no time introducing and passing punishing and restrictive bills in the first weeks of 2021.

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Their election as their state’s first pro-choice Senators in years also offers a powerful reminder of what’s possible everywhere in this country, if we refuse to compromise on the human rights of women and pregnant people.

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Abortion opponents have routinely weaponized the rape exception to make their cruel, extreme legislation seem more humane and compassionate. This exception raises critical questions that too often go unasked—like how survivors with unwanted pregnancies are supposed to prove they were raped to law enforcement and doctors; whether they feel comfortable and safe doing so; and whether the rape exception can actually protect them if doctors and law enforcement don’t believe them.

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The attack on the Capitol and lack of legal consequences rioters have faced so far are a culmination of years of excusing and sympathizing with the cruelty of white Trump supporters. 

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“President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have made it clear that handling the COVID-19 pandemic will be the top priority of their administration, but any plan to rein in the pandemic and its most jarring consequences requires action to support victims and survivors.”

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“Even prior to the pandemic, significant economic barriers have always fallen most heavily on women and women of color, who face the highest rates of poverty and lack of insurance coverage. From the cost and tax on menstrual hygiene products, to the gender wage gap, to lack of adequate family leave or universal child care, women and working mothers have always been economically penalized in the US. This is especially true when it comes to accessing reproductive health care, due to state and federal laws that prohibit coverage of abortion and reproductive care but not cisgender men's health services. More recently, the costs of reaching care have only increased, as numerous states at different points used the pandemic to shut down clinics.

A public health crisis, recession, and government negligence have only compounded and worsened the double standards and economic constraints that have always punished and squeezed out working mothers but often not working fathers. The pandemic and the sexist, racist toll of the government's failure to provide relief or universal income underscore that women, and especially women of color, have long been owed and denied support and economic relief from the government.”

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“Trump’s desperate attempts to gaslight the American people, delegitimize the electoral process, and refuse to concede are just more of his same old abusive tactics, ultimately reminiscent of an abuser refusing to let their victim go. Research shows it takes an average of seven attempts for a victim to leave their abuser. 

It’s also worth noting that Trump’s supporters believe his word about “illegal votes” without a shred of evidence, despite their refusal to believe the testimonies of any of the more than 26 women who have accused Trump of violence through the years, and often provided ample evidence and witnesses. It’s easy to dismiss his supporters’ devout loyalty to him as the cultish mentality of a few extremists, but the truth is more unsettling. Supposedly “liberal” media outlets have continued to air Trump’s speeches, tweets, and unhinged lies about the election, while rarely covering or interviewing his victims over the last four years. This moment reminds us where credibility and legitimacy often reside, and reminds us that who is and isn’t heard in abusive contexts often depends on gender and power.Today, we are watching Trump’s refusal to seek or respect the consent of the women he victimized writ large, as he refuses to seek or respect the American people’s consent to be governed.”

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“Many of the crises we’re being warned about with this new 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority — discrimination against LGBTQ folks, people struggling to afford health care if the Affordable Care Act is gutted, and, certainly, people not being able to have abortions — already exist. From abortion funds, to legal defense funds, to mutual aid networks, the solutions already exist, too, due to the work of people who have long felt their communities are left behind by elected officials, and denied the full actualization of long-standing legal rights. ...

Mutual aid and community care have always existed as a response to the devastating inevitability of state violence. After all, state violence is more than incidents of racist police brutality — it also encompasses the government’s failure to ensure access to basic resources like health care and especially reproductive care, most often for the poor and communities of color. State violence certainly encompasses government policies that deny people bodily autonomy and coerce their pregnancy and reproduction. The inextricable connection between violence and the state, especially for people of color, has led many to be dubious about looking to the state and elections for easy solutions, and instead, create solutions in their own communities outside of the government.“

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“Expanding the court has become a necessity to protect women, pregnant-capable people, LGBTQ people, immigrants, and people of color from perpetually existing an inch away from criminalization and loss of rights, and empowering them with greater autonomy over their bodies and lives. Those on the right refer to this policy proposal with disdain as “court packing,” but the truth is, Republicans themselves have been packing the courts for years. They’ve stolen dozens of Supreme Court and circuit court seats with obstruction, political games, and voter suppression, to fill with hand-picked extremists who share the sole goals of shattering marginalized people’s human rights and full citizenship for generations. ...

In red states and blue states alike, women—and disproportionately women of color—already face criminal charges and have even been jailed for miscarriages, stillbirths, “pregnancy-endangering” behaviors, and self-managed abortions. In recent years, several states have introduced and even passed legislation that would make having and providing abortions punishable by death or prison time. Just imagine how much more dangerous this country would become without Roe v. Wade—a society where every pregnancy would be surveilled and policed, and every pregnancy loss treated as criminally suspect. ...

Since its inception, the Supreme Court has handed down breadcrumbs of basic rights slowly, over the course of generations—all while hacking rights away quickly and ruthlessly. Those who experience the full benefits of its positive, progressive rulings are often the most privileged, traditionally respectable members of marginalized groups—for example, wealthy and middle-class white women, and wealthy and middle-class white gay couples. The bottom line is that the courts have always been political. Judges and justices are chosen and voted on by presidents and senators based on whether they share political ideologies and agendas. Court expansion wouldn’t politicize the courts—it would begin the long, slow process of balancing and democratizing them.

Of course, court expansion offers another critical, long-term benefit: fostering unity between those on the liberal and leftist sides of the political spectrum, and radicalizing even the more centrist members of the Democratic Party, who can agree that the fundamental human rights of women and marginalized people have been hanging by a thread for years. Encouraging moderates’ support for court expansion could be a first step toward pushing them to be more progressive on a range of approaches to redistributing power and wealth in society. ...

With a 6-3 conservative, anti-abortion majority now cemented on the Supreme Court, our democracy—and the lives and futures of women and pregnant-capable people—are at a crossroads. This is the culmination of decades of Republican plotting and power-grabbing. We can now either accept the future of violence and dehumanization Republicans have laid out for us, or we can expand the court, and we can give ourselves and the most marginalized among us a fighting chance.“

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“Senator Feinstein’s expressed support for Barrett last week seemed to shock many people, but it shouldn’t have. Powerful white women supporting powerful white women at the expense of people with less privilege should surprise no one — we’ve seen it throughout history, from the white supremacist roots of suffrage, to white women at the helm of eugenics efforts. In expecting Feinstein to act and advocate in a feminist way because of her gender, we rely on the false notion that women having power is inherently feminism, and womanhood is a political ideology rather than a wide-ranging identity. Feinstein and Barrett both show us how devastating women having power can be for other women, and changing the identities of the oppressors doesn’t change who the victims are or negate the oppression. ...

By holding stances that would deny women and pregnant-capable people abortion care, contraception, IVF, and other essential sexual and reproductive care, Barrett denies people without her privilege the power to choose parenthood on their own terms, and upholds white supremacist, patriarchal barriers that also prevent them from achieving traditional success. And even if Barrett hadn’t signed on to a letter blatantly calling for the end of legal abortion, her demonstrated hostility to abortion rights would be enough to uphold myriad state and federal restrictions that already make reproductive care wildly difficult to access for poor people and people of color, even with legal abortion in place.“

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“Ever since the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death last month, the confirmation process of Judge Barrett has served as a harsh reminder that feminism isn't everything a woman does because she is a woman. It's a political ideology of equality and justice for those who are oppressed by the very same white supremacist patriarchy that Judge Barrett — and by supporting Barrett, Senator Feinstein — seek to uphold.“

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“Recognition that hollow symbolism is no substitute for meaningful, substantive progressive policies, that diverse representation doesn’t guarantee health care or student debt forgiveness, is vitally important. Yet there’s also danger in a knee-jerk assumption that meaningful discourse about gender and identity in politics is a slippery slope to toxic neoliberalism.“

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Asian American survivors have often had to navigate a difficult space: They face cultural erasure, hypersexualization, and the sometimes conservative sexual politics of immigrant households. These dynamics can expose Asian American victims to intensified victim-blaming, and force many to hide their pain and struggle within a culture of silence and invisibility. Since its release one year ago, Miller’s book has helped change this narrative.