GBH | A year without Roe: What did the last year bring for abortion rights?
By Hannah Reale
Story Originally Appeared on GBH
This story first ran in GBH News’ politics newsletter. Click here to subscribe and get our rundown of the Massachusetts’ latest political happenings every Thursday morning straight to your inbox.
Saturday marks one year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. I’m Hannah Reale, and I cover reproductive health care for GBH News. (I’m also the man behind the curtain, putting together much of the politics newsletter every week.)
Last year’s decision spurred some of the most immediate and urgent action we’ve seen out of the state’s government.
Almost immediately, then-Gov. Charlie Baker signed an executive order giving legal protections to abortion providers, as worries spread that state laws like Texas’s SB-8 would empower people in other states to sue abortion providers in Massachusetts.
And as the legislative session came to a close, the State House quickly pushed through laws strengthening those legal protections, as well as setting aside millions of dollars in funding for clinics and other organizations that support abortion access.
Public colleges will soon need to provide access to abortion drugs for their students. And Attorney General Andrea Campbell set up a free legal hotline that connects callers with attorneys to help them wade through legal risks.
On the ground, more clinics are looking to offer medication abortions, a step toward eliminating the “abortion desert” on the Cape and Islands. A coalition of abortion advocates will be surveying communities to find gaps in coverage this fall.
Advocates also see an ally in the new governor. Rebecca Hart Holder, the executive director of Reproductive Equity Now, said it was a “profound change” to have Maura Healey in office.
Hart Holder pointed to the federal case in Texas that put abortion access in limbo for two weeks earlier this year. A judge attempted to suspend the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a drug commonly used in medication abortions, before the Supreme Court intervened. Healey asked UMass Amherst to stockpile the drug in anticipation of the decision.
“That’s just simply something that I couldn’t have imagined Gov. Baker doing,” Hart Holder said. “And Gov. Healey’s willingness to be out in front, and to be a forceful proponent of the right to choose, has been an extraordinary change for our organizations.”
Reproductive Equity Now’s next focus: firming up location data privacy laws, as she detailed on Talking Politics last week.
Across the country, reproductive rights continue to be at risk: 13 states have banned abortions completely, Republican senators are threatening a national ban and the mifepristone case sits before the circuit appeals court.
It’s abundantly clear that laws will keep changing in the months and years ahead, whether it’s dictated by court cases or politicians. But how much of that trickles down to Massachusetts remains to be seen.