Today we mourn as Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States and Michael Pence as the Vice President of the United States. Together, these two men create a dangerous recipe for anyone seeking an abortion in our nation, and abroad. The Trump-Pence Administration’s inauguration comes only days ahead of the 44th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States; a Constitutional protection the new administration has vowed to overturn. This is a disgrace to the people of our nation.
The President was not elected on a mandate. In fact, over three million more votes were cast to move our nation in a different direction — a direction that sought to grow bold protections for abortion access, LGBTQ people, and our immigrant communities. The President and his administration have an obligation to maintain and expand healthcare access, including abortion care, for everyone, no matter their income or zip code. Instead, they plan to destroy the Affordable Care Act, deny Medicaid recipients the ability to get access healthcare at the provider of their choice, including Planned Parenthood, and make the unjust and discriminatory Hyde Amendment and Helms Amendment permanent law. For over 40 years, policies like the Hyde Amendment have created a two-tiered health system — one for those who can afford abortion care, and one for those who cannot. This systemic discrimination against marginalized communities has no place in our healthcare.
Access to abortion is at a historic low. Despite the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of abortion access last June, states are trying their hardest to regulate abortion out of existence. We need a leader who believes that people can make their own decisions about their pregnancies, not someone who uses the tremendous power of his office to frighten, intimidate, and ‘punish’ people who seek abortions. We will not sit by as the President and Vice President smother the nation with their dangerous and blatantly unconstitutional anti-pregnancy policies, and condemn more people to jail for their abortions and miscarriages.
We will rally against the devastation this administration has already promised to bring. We will organize against the injustices they promise. We will speak out in support of people who seek abortions. We will be the ones we have been waiting for; the ones who know that abortion cannot simply be legal, but that it must truly be accessible for all of us.
Through compassion and community organizing, we will continue to fund abortion, and build the resiliency of our networks. We will continue to fight so that we’re all able to safely decide if, when, and how to become a parent, and raise our families free from harm, stigma, and shame. We will continue to dream of a world where we all have the rights and resources to decide how to create and grow our families.
We will never stop fighting to exist as we are, forge families with love, and live in nourishing communities where all of our reproductive decisions are received with trust and affirmation.
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The National Network of Abortion Funds builds power with members to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access by centering people who have abortions and organizing at the intersections of racial, economic, and reproductive justice.