For women's health and rights, 2020 is the most important election of our lives

This map isn’t just chilling—it’s terrifying for millions of women.

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Here’s a conservative estimate of what a post-Roe world looks like. https://t.co/sJb2z60mlR @clairecm @qdbui pic.twitter.com/todMpvlCt5

— Margot Sanger-Katz (@sangerkatz) July 18, 2019

All that pink to purple? It’s where access to legal abortion would disappear should the Supreme Court strike down Roe. v. Wade. Those are the states where restrictive abortion legislation has passed and states that would likely ban it.

“Wide swaths of the country face potential dramatic increases in travel distances to states where abortion would likely remain legal,” said Caitlin Knowles Myers, an economist at Middlebury College who authored the paper The New York Times drew this data from. “Affluent women generally find a way to get there, but 75 percent of abortion patients are poor or near-poor.”

Some providers are already planning for this eventuality. Tammi Kromenaker, who runs the Red River Women’s Clinic, North Dakota’s only abortion care facility, says that she’d keep her clinic open to provide health care for women and pre-abortion care, and would open a clinic in Minnesota on the border. “Folks across the country are already working on these plans in these haven and hostile states,” Ms. Kromenaker said. But look at that big purple swath in the South—many, probably most, women would not be able to travel the necessary distance to get the care they need.

It may be a cliché, but on so many levels, 2020 will see the most important election of our lives. This is just one reason.

from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/2ZgoTe8