We Will Not Go Back ⚡️ Our Response to Roe and How to Fight Back in the Workplace
On Friday, June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States created a world where the bodily agency and personal autonomy of the American people does not exist. In a 5–4 ruling, the conservative Justices of the Supreme Court — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch — voted to overturn the landmark ruling of Roe v. Wade, and return the United States to an era when reproductive freedom was unprecedented.
Squad, consider this newsletter your personal megaphone.
- We’ve filled it with resources for you and your company to stand up and speak out to preserve your abortion rights and civil rights. Scroll down for a comprehensive list of resources.
- Share this with your staff, coworkers, friends, family, and neighbors. Rise up to protect abortion rights and preserve our civil rights.
- Please share this comprehensive guide with your ERGs and diversity leaders in your network — and share on social media!.
Scroll down to the Big Byte for our entire statement on Roe v. Wade and how to fight back against injustice.
For Abortion Seekers ::
✨ Find Pills Online :: Plan C Pills
📍 Locate a Clinic :: Don’t Rely on Google or Social Media, instead utilize Abortion Finder, National Abortion Federation, or I Need An A
📲 Digital Defense :: Keep Yourself Safe with Cyber-Security Information from the Digital Defense Fund
⚖️ Legal Helpline :: Get Answers to Legal Questions
🤝 Find an Abortion Doula :: Utilize the DOPO Co-Op
❤️ Get Counseling :: Judgement-Free, All Options Counseling, Emotional Support During Medical Abortion, and Emotional Support After Abortion
💸 Support for Funding Your Abortion :: Visit the National Network of Abortion Funds
🚗 Transportation, Childcare, and Other Support :: Apiary Collective
🔥 Abortion Resources in a Post-Roe America from Wired
For Staying Safe ::
🩸 Delete any menstrual tracking app from your devices
📲 Adopt a digital privacy strategy for communication
💻 Utilize encrypted messaging technology like Signal
🤝 Volunteer with an already-established network or abortion fund -do not act alone or encourage abortion-seekers to visit you from our of state via social media. This is more harmful than helpful.
🇺🇸 Know Your Access :: Future of Abortion Access Map
🏥 World Health Organization Guidelines on Abortion to Help Countries Deliver Lifesaving Care
⚖️ What to Expect Regarding the Criminalization of Abortion
For Donors of Money and Resources ::
⚡️ Fund Your Local Abortion Fund :: Utilize this comprehensive list to locate and support an abortion fund in your state.
⚡️ The Brigid Alliance :: The Brigid Alliance arranges and funds confidential, personalized travel support to those seeking abortion care in increasingly hostile environments.
⚡️ Planned Parenthood :: Planned Parenthood works around the world to increase access to sexual and reproductive health information and services. They provide equitable, trans-inclusive health care and education through local partners, and advocate for policies that impact sexual and reproductive rights globally.
⚡️ NARAL :: The 2.5 million members of NARAL Pro-Choice America fight for reproductive freedom for everyone, regardless of gender. NARAL organizes and mobilizes Americans to protect reproductive freedom by fighting for access to abortion care, birth control, paid parental leave, and protections from pregnancy discrimination.
⚡️Abortion Care Network :: Abortion Care Network is an alliance of independent abortion providers that care for the majority of people seeking abortion in the U.S. — often serving individuals and families with the fewest resources and in the most rural parts of our nation.
⚡️ Center for Reproductive Rights :: The Center for Reproductive Rights is a global human rights organization made up of lawyers and advocates who ensure reproductive rights are protected by law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person.
For Companies & ERGs Who Want to Support Their Employees ::
✊🏾 You and Your Organization Can Join the Abortion Rights Movement -Here’s How from Planned Parenthood Action
✊🏿 These Companies Cover Travel Expenses for Employee Abortions from New York Times
✊🏻 These Are the US Companies Offering Abortion-Related Benefits from Forbes
✊🏾 Why Abortion Access is a Workplace Issue from TIME
✊ Paid Sick Days Enhance Abortion Access and Economic Security from The National Partnership for Women and Families
✊🏽 More Companies Take a Stand on Abortion from New York Times
✊🏿 The Economic Effects of Abortion Access from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research
✊🏼 Abortion as a Workplace Issue from The Alliance for Choice
✍🏽 Sign The “Don’t Ban Equality” Statement :: The “Don’t Ban Equality” statement is in response to an alarming trend of bans passing in states across the country that restrict access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare, including abortion. Business leaders are stepping up to say these bans go against their company values and negatively affect efforts to promote equality in the workplace, putting businesses, communities, and the economy at risk.
➡️ What direct actions can your company take?
- Call out abortion misinformation on your tech platform
- Be Like Lyft and make a public statement that stands in solidarity with your customers and consumers
- Be Like Goldman Sachs and make a company-wide statement that stands in solidarity with your employees and their families
- Be Like Bumble and organize a company-wide fund to cover the healthcare costs of employees and dependents seeking abortions in states where it is banned
- Be Like Airbnb and cover the travel costs for employees and dependents seeking abortions out of state
- Be Like Activision Blizzard and ensure that your reproductive healthcare policies are inclusive of all LGBTQIA+ employees and their families and use inclusive language that is non-gendered
- Be Like Uber and pay the legal fees of employees and dependents prosecuted for having abortions or assisting in transporting folks to and from abortion procedures in states where abortion is illegal
- Be Like Google and financially assist your employee in relocating to a state where abortion is accessible
For Your Mental Health & Self Care ::
Because you can’t show up for others until you show up for yourself.
🔥 Reclaiming Our Self-Care as a Feminist Act
🔥 Why Self-Care is a Feminist Act
🔥 The Radical History of Self-Care
💙 National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network
💙 BEAM :: Black Virtual Therapist Network
For Protesters and Strikers ::
💥 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
🔥 Fight for Abortion Rights in Your State from Amnesty International
📢 Protest Tips from Planned Parenthood
📢 Protest Tips from the NYU Center on Race, Inequality, and Law
📢 Know Your Protest Rights from the ACLU
📢 4 Tips to Neutralize Tear Gas from Aftermath
📢 How to Treat a Rubber Bullet Wound from Healthline
📢 A Protester’s Guide to Basic First Aid from Medium
📢 Be Mindful of Your Phone Settings from Surveillance Self Defense
📢 Utilizing End-to-End Encrypted Communication Apps from Wired
In a country that has worked for decades to march closer towards affirming civil rights for all Americans, this ruling of six political appointees has set back the clock for millions. Through the overturning of Roe, the Supreme Court has shown us that no settled judicial precedent is safe from persecution, and that no American is protected from their hard-fought civil rights and civil liberties being stripped and trampled.
Make no mistake, our most vulnerable communities now face greater risk of harm, degradation, and violence than ever before. We live in a country without universal childcare or paid family and medical leave; where hundreds die in childbirth each year, healthcare costs are exorbitant and healthcare is not a basic human right. In turn, communities facing marginalization at intercessions of race, gender, sexual orientation, documentation status, cultural background, ability, and socioeconomic status experience these reproductive injustices disproportionately. Without Roe, forced birth will exacerbate inequity and injustice, creating an America where our bodies do not belong to us and our communities are unsafe.
In a post-Roe world, we are not free. Our digital privacy will be weaponized without our consent :: location information will identify us; state laws will intimidate us; civil penalties will bankrupt us; cyber mobs will target us. Our safety is at greater risk than ever before. It is a dangerous time to exist in America.
And it’s not just about abortion.
In response to the overturning of Roe, Justice Thomas stated that other landmark civil rights cases like Griswold v. Connecticut (right to obtain contraception), Lawerence v. Texas (right to same-sex/same-gender intimacy), and Obergefell v. Hodges (right to marriage equality) should also be reconsidered by the highest Court. These historic rulings function to federally protect our communities from discrimination and preserve our right to privacy. Without these landmark protections, we do not have the right to exist in public or in the safety of our homes.
When transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson threw the first brick at the Stonewall Inn in 1969, her act of courage incited a movement that has lasted generations. Rebellion and riot in the face of injustice are the lifeblood of our community. When justice is taken from us, we fight back, just like Marsha. Today is no different.
The Supreme Court thinks that they have the power to take our rights away — but they have forgotten what it looks like when millions of powerful Americans fight back with direct action. Our communities and experiences are intersectional and intertwined; this fight does not exist without all of us showing up. We will keep shouting; we will not silence our voices in the face of injustice — we will amplify them and keep marching forward until the free world that the Supreme Court has tried to take away from us once more belongs to we, the people.
In Solidarity,
The Lesbians Who Tech & Allies Team
