Two Years on from the Fall of Roe
A snapshot of abortion access in America on the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision.
ALSO IN THIS POST…
More on that Apple class action
The C-Suite gender paradox
I remember exactly what I was doing on the evening of May 3, 2022, when Politico published its dystopian scoop on the leaked Supreme Court draft decision to strike down Roe v Wade, the ruling that since 1973 had protected the constitutional right to abortion across the United States: I was watching an episode of Succession.
For a split second after I saw the push alert—and captivated by the raving ridiculousness of the Roys—I couldn’t quite decide whether this was some sort of fictional extension of the HBO story line about egomaniac billionaires with god complexes trying to control the universe. Had Kendall now actually totally lost his mind? Had Connor succeeded in his presidential bid, emerged as a closet ultra-conservative, and stacked the Supreme Court with pro-life loons, ultimately leading to this?
It would have made for excellent TV. It made for grim reality.
Just over six weeks later, on the morning of June 24, 2022, I was queuing in a coffee shop in Harlem when I found out—also by push alert—that it was a done deal.
“What’s the matter?” a man standing in front of me, who I vaguely knew from one of the graduate school class I was taking asked when he saw my grief-stricken face. “It’s a shitty day for America,” I responded. I didn’t look up from the Dobbs opinion I was now scrolling through in horror.
"Oh yes, about that,” he shot back as soon as he’d established what I was referring to. “I’ve been thinking,” he continued, as I silently willed him not to go where I feared he was going. “Surely women who need an abortion can just got to Mexico.”
I’ve written about this encounter before, but I keep reflecting on it. It’s stupid of course, but so so sad too. The utter ignorance of someone ostensibly so educated. What this exchange tells us about divides and echo chambers and how we as humans are able to brutally compartmentalize and disengage from anything that’s not immediately threatening our own existence. It’s really depressing.
And now, to the day, we’re exactly two years on. Over the past 24 months, states have been able to establish their own policies protecting or banning abortion without a federal standard that has the power restrict them. As a result, the landscape for abortion access has changed dramatically and the war on reproductive rights is raging. Here’s snapshot, based on resources from KFF, a non-profit, and the Associated Press.
So far, 14 states have banned abortion entirely. These are Republican controlled and mostly in the South. On top of that, six states now have early gestational limits on abortion, of between 6 and 15 weeks after a pregnant person’s last menstrual period (LMP).
In order to be able to access abortion services, people who live in states where abortion is banned or severely restricted essentially have two choices: they can either travel out of state—which can be expensive or logistically complicated—or they can get abortion drugs from companies or clinicians who are shipping pills from states with so-called shield-laws.
One recent study by the Guttmacher Institute established that out of just over a million abortions provided in clinics, hospitals and doctors’ offices, more than 161,000 — or 16% — were for people who had travelled from out of state. More than two-thirds of abortions done in Kansas and New Mexico, for example, were for people coming from another state, especially from Texas.
For those unable to travel, telehealth providers have in many cases been a literal lifeline. According to a report by #WeCount, the Society for Family Planning’s abortion reporting effort, in December 2023 one in five abortions were provided via telehealth.
Beyond the doctors who are working to continue providing abortion access to anyone who needs it, there are also many legislators and other advocates who are fighting tirelessly.
According to KFF, abortion providers and advocates across 23 states have challenged the legality of state abortion bans and limits, and their exceptions. They say that these laws violate the state constitution or state law.
Since the Dobbs decision, the Supreme Courts in five different states (Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Oklahoma, and South Carolina) have ruled that the state constitution does not protect the right to abortion. But challenges to abortion bans and limits, or their exceptions, are also ongoing in 15 states.
Finally, and as we eye a presidential election later this year, a quick look at the polls.
Over and over again, polls have shown that the majority of the public did not want to see Roe fall. And the majority of people in this country have historically felt that abortion is a personal medical decision. That’s still true today.
In May, the Pew Research Center published a report showing that about six-in-ten adults surveyed (the sample size was 8,709) said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In fact, this proportion had grown by about 4 percentage points since 2021. But the partisan divide on the issue has widened: At about 85%, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overwhelmingly said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, with near unanimous support among liberal Democrats. By comparison, only about 41% of Republicans and Republican leaners said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Nonetheless, two-thirds of moderate and liberal Republicans still said it should be.
There’s no doubt that abortion is squarely on the ballot ahead of the November election. Protecting reproductive access has been integral to Joe Biden’s bid to be re-elected for a second term. If he wins, the war on reproductive rights is unlikely to come to a grinding, instant halt, especially considering the make up of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court. But it could certainly mark the beginning of a slow and steady reversal of what’s been happening since June 2022.
Even Kelsey Pritchard, a spokesperson for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America acknowledged as much. In an interview with the Associated Press she admitted that if Democrats win the presidency and regain control of both chambers of Congress, the right to abortion could be enshrined in the law. Of today she said:“We recognize this could be the last Dobbs anniversary we celebrate.”
Elsewhere on the topic of abortion access and specifically the fall of Roe, check out an interview published last week on The Persistent with the authors of a new book examining what actually led to that June 2022 decision.
Loopholes of the Law
Earlier this month I wrote about the new class action lawsuit that Apple might be facing, accusing it of systemic gender discrimination. I decided there was more to say on the topic, so I went deeper in a piece for The Persistent that was published last week.
The Apple case, I argue proves prominently that laws designed to combat pay injustice can only ever take us halfway there; to get across the finish line, company culture and actual hiring practices need to change.
Of course many of the laws that are enacted with the mission of leveling the playing field are a worthy step in the right direction. The California ban on employers asking a candidate’s pay history is no exception. Neither are similar laws that have in recent years come into effect across more than 20 U.S. states and across the European Union.
“But cases like the Apple suit are a stark reminder that laws are no panacea,” I write. “Even if a company follows the letter of the law, there’s no guarantee it will follow the spirit of the law.”
The C-Suite Paradox
And finally last week, the BBC published a long-read I’d been working on for several months, going deep into what I’ve come to think of as the gender paradox in the C-suite. Here’s an excerpt:
Throughout the past few years, there's been a dramatic rise in the number of companies committing to increasing their gender balance at the highest echelons of management, both within financial services and beyond. McKinsey and Company's most recent annual Women in the Workplace report showed nearly three in four human resources leaders now said that DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion – initiatives are critical to their companies' future success, with many placing a particular emphasis at gender balance at the very top.
Yet recent research shows that these commitments and stated initiatives are not necessarily translating into reality. Data from Standard & Poor Market Intelligence, published in March, shows the growth in women's representation among all senior leadership positions in the US dropped to the lowest rate in more than a decade in 2023. And across all C-Suite positions, women lost seats for the first time since S&P started collecting data in 2005.
The analysis by S&P also showed executives at publicly traded firms spent less time talking about diversity and inclusion while on earnings calls with shareholders. In 2023, mentions of the topic fell to multi-year lows.
Now, academics and organisational experts warn that companies deprioritising gender diversity risk losing out – reputationally and financially.
You can read the full piece here.
WOMEN MONEY POWER: The Book
In case you missed it, Amazon earlier this month named WOMEN MONEY POWER one of the Best Books of the Year So Far 2024. In the Business and Leadership category I’m in esteemed company. Cal Newport, Scott Galloway, Joseph Stiglitz and Gary Vaynerchuk also made the list.
Elsewhere, Catalyst, the workplaces consulting group, recently published a brilliant review of the book. Here’s an excerpt:
“Cox frames the odyssey through vignettes and vibrant portraits of women changemakers, from household names like equal pay advocate Lilly Ledbetter to influential figures who never quite got their due, such as lawyer and activist Pauli Murray. Readers also meet lesser-known women who broke from the status quo, including Mae Burkett Krier, who joined the millions of “Rosie the Riveter” women entering the labor force to support the US economy during World War II.
“Their stories shine a light on the courage, grit, and persistence required to stand up to the status quo. But for every incredible achievement, Cox notes, a major setback was not far behind.”
You can read the full review here.
And finally, as ever, a shameless request. If you’ve read the book or listened to the audiobook, I would massively appreciate it if you could take just thirty seconds to post a review or rate it on Amazon using this link. If Goodreads is your jam, that’s just as great, and you can leave a review or rating here. Thank you so much for your support!
Always,
Josie