The War on Autonomy

We are standing in a moment of unprecedented crisis for basic human dignity and freedom in the United States. For generations, the right to control our own bodies, our own health, and our own futures was seen as a foundational promise. Today, that promise has been violently shattered.

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We know the exact moment the floor fell out from beneath us. On June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision, officially overturning Roe v. Wade. The judicial architecture laid by the Trump administration—the deliberate positioning of conservative judges explicitly vetted to strip away our rights—accomplished its dark purpose.

 

When that ruling came down, we were told by politicians that the issue was simply being "returned to the states." We were told that women would not be targeted or criminalized.

 

That was a lie. And the legislative record proves it.

 

What we are witnessing right now across this country is a terrifying, coordinated campaign of state-sanctioned cruelty, codified into law. 

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• It began even before Roe fell, on September 1, 2021, when Texas enacted Senate Bill 8—a draconian law that banned abortion at six weeks and it turned private citizens into vigilante bounty hunters, allowing them to sue anyone who helps a woman access healthcare for a minimum of ten thousand dollars.

 

• Then came August 25, 2022. Just two months after the Supreme Court's decision, near-total "trigger bans" went into effect across states like Texas, Idaho, and Tennessee, instantly converting essential healthcare into a felony offense.

 

• Idaho House Bill 242: Signed into law in April 2023. This bill invented a brand-new felony category called "abortion trafficking." It criminalizes the act of helping a minor travel across state lines to receive reproductive healthcare, carrying a prison sentence of up to five years.

 

• On February 16, 2024, the assault expanded beyond abortion. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are legally "children.”  This threw IVF treatments into chaos and advanced a radical legal theory called "fetal personhood."  —instantly halting IVF treatments because this now falls  under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act designed to control reproduction from the moment of conception.

 

• And on May 1, 2024, Florida’s six-week abortion ban took effect, effectively wiping out healthcare access across the entire American Southeast.

 

• Louisiana Senate Bill 276: Signed into law in May 2024. Louisiana became the first state in the nation to explicitly reclassify Mifepristone and Misoprostol—medications vital not just for abortion, but for managing miscarriages and stopping postpartum hemorrhages—as Schedule IV Controlled Substances. This puts life-saving healthcare medications on the same criminal schedule as Xanax and Valium, where unauthorized possession carries up to ten years in prison.

 

• Right now republicans in North Carolina just proposed House Bill 1232: Introduced by extremists to push "fetal personhood" to its absolute, logical endpoint. By granting full legal rights to a fertilized egg from the exact split-second of fertilization, this legislation targets standard, everyday birth control. It reclassifies intrauterine devices—IUDs—and emergency contraception as instruments of a crime. It also allows someone to kill a women whom they believe is using an IUD or birth control. The claim is that it would be classified as self defense to use deadly force to stop an abortion or prevention of pregnancy. 

 

The bill seeks to add Section 39 to Article I of the North Carolina Constitution, stating:

"It is a matter of indisputable scientific fact that a distinct and separate human life begins at the moment of fertilization. As such, that new human life is recognized by the State as an individual person..."

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By granting full legal personhood to a fertilized egg before implantation in the uterus, the bill creates an immediate legal conflict with forms of birth control that can work after fertilization but before implantation.

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The bill states that anyone who willfully destroys or attempts to destroy this newly defined "person" shall be held accountable for first-degree murder or attempted murder, respectively.

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While the bill does not explicitly use the word "contraception," its legal definition of life starting at fertilization directly threatens common birth control methods:

• Emergency Contraception (like Plan B) & IUDs: These methods primarily work by preventing ovulation or fertilization. However, in some instances, they can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall.

• Under the strict text of HB 1232, preventing a fertilized egg from implanting would legally constitute the "willful destruction" of a person, thereby reclassifying standard healthcare as first-degree murder.

 

The most alarming and heavily criticized aspect of the bill is its explicit authorization of deadly force by private citizens. The text reads:

"Any person has the right to defend his or her own life or the life of another person, even by the use of deadly force if necessary, from willful destruction by another person."

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Because the bill defines a fertilized egg as a "person," this clause extends the right of "defense of another" to a fertilized egg. Consequently, if a private citizen believes a woman is taking action to destroy a fertilized egg (whether through an abortion procedure or by using emergency contraception or has an IUD in place), the text literally legalizes the use of deadly force against her or her healthcare provider under the guise of "self-defense."

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This is no longer a hypothetical debate. This is a total war on women’s healthcare. Because of these specific statutes, the United States has become a country of medical code-reds.

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We are seeing doctors, terrified of prison time under felony laws like Texas Human Life Protection Act, forced to wait until a miscarrying patient is on the brink of deadly sepsis before they can legally intervene. We are seeing women turned away from emergency rooms, bleeding out in parking lots, because politicians and lawyers are dictating medicine.

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OBGYNs are fleeing ban states in droves. Maternity wards are closing down. In a country that already suffers from some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world, these laws are actively making pregnancy deadlier. Strict abortion laws have significantly worsened the situation by creating a "physician flight". Because doctors face severe criminal liabilities—including up to five years in prison in states like Idaho—practicing obstetricians are moving away, and medical residents are declining to train in these regions. When a hospital can no longer recruit or retain qualified providers, it can no longer safely operate a delivery unit.

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This is why we cannot just sit at home and feel angry. This is why we cannot let silence be mistaken for acceptance. Extremists want us to look at the sheer scale of this cruelty and feel entirely helpless. But apathy is exactly what they are counting on.

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If we do not make a stand, if we do not make an undeniable statement, this overreach will only expand. We have to show up, look them in the eye, and refuse to let our bodies be treated as property of the state. We need to send a message that echoes from our small towns all the way to Washington.

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That is why I am asking you to join me in making that statement. On June 24—the anniversary of the day our rights were stripped away by Trump and his Supreme Court—we are holding a Handmaid’s Tale design protest right here in our community.

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From 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM, we will be standing together at the corner of Tucker Road and Tehachapi Boulevard.

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To the women here: wear your red ensembles. Let them see the visual manifestation of the dystopia they are trying to force upon us. To the men who support us: please stand with us, shoulder to shoulder, carrying signs that demand protection for women’s rights and fundamental healthcare.

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We must wake up. We must speak out. Join us on June 24 from 4 - 6:00.  Let’s make our voices impossible to ignore.

 

Thank you.