Citizen Action Responds to Leaked SCOTUS Draft Decision to Turn Back the Clock on Reproductive Rights

by | May 3, 2022 | Press Releases

Albany, NY – In response to the leaked SCOTUS ruling overturning Roe V. Wade, Rosemary Rivera, Co-Executive Director at Citizen Action of New York, released the following statement: 

“We are outraged and disgusted with the draft SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Taking away pregnant people’s right to have legal abortions will not stop them from happening; it will simply make them deadly and harder to access for Black, Brown, indigenous, and low-income people.

Everyone deserves the right to autonomy over their own body. This SCOTUS draft decision turns back the clock on reproductive rights, taking us back to a time when only the privileged few had control over their own lives. Republicans are already signaling that they plan to pass a national ban on abortion if they win back control of Congress in November, and Republicans at the state level are proposing laws that would make abortion illegal even in instances of incest, rape, or if the pregnant person’s life is in jeopardy.

What makes this extremist decision even more egregious is that an overwhelming majority–70%–of Americans support access to safe, legal abortion as has been protected by Roe v. Wade for the past 50 years. Stripping reproductive rights from millions of people signals a dangerous slide backward. It is just one more step in the extreme far-right agenda to re-subjugate everyone in this country who is not a white, Christian, cisgender, heterosexual man. This is no longer just a threat; the danger is here and we are in a literal fight for our lives. We must rise up with one voice and stop this assault on our freedom.

Access to abortion is a human right, it is healthcare justice, and it is racial justice. Congress must act immediately to codify the protections Roe v. Wade established.”

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