This decision should’ve been the end
This month marks the anniversary of Roe v. Wade — a decision that should have secured the most basic of freedoms: control over one’s own body. Yet here we are, decades later, watching that freedom be confiscated at every turn.
Since Dobbs, more than a dozen states have enacted near-total bans on abortion, some with no exceptions for rape or incest, some threatening doctors with jail time, and some forcing patients to travel hundreds of miles just for basic care, only to come back home and face being arrested. What used to be medical privacy is now political punishment.
They call it policy. I call it injustice. And I think silence is complicity.
Here in Massachusetts, we’ve worked to remain a safe-care state, but that safety is under pressure. Clinics here are stretched thin, serving people forced to flee bans in states like Texas and Oklahoma. Resources, staffing, and travel support all matter, and their needs are urgent.
In Congress, I’ve consistently stood against restrictions on abortion access, including voting against efforts to ban federal health coverage that includes abortion and opposing measures that would restrict interstate travel for care. My pro-choice voting record has earned a 100% from Reproductive Freedom for All, one of the benchmarks for reproductive rights defenders in the House.
We must fight at every level — in the halls of power, in courtrooms, in our communities — to defend reproductive rights, expand access to health care, and hold accountable anyone who dares to roll back the clock on human freedom.
No compromise. No excuses. No silence.
Jim
