A hidden abortion crew prepares to confront a post-Roe America
Driven underground during the pandemic, online abortion providers say they’ll keep supplying pills and services even if the Supreme Court approves state bans
Protesters hold up signs as they march down Congress Ave at a protest outside the Texas state capitol. | Sergio Flores/Getty Images
"The Supreme Court’s decision to review Mississippi’s stringent restrictions on abortion — putting Roe vs. Wade under its roughest stress test yet — is being seen as a call to action for the nation’s community of underground abortion activists. . .The community had spent the pandemic dealing with the “abortionpocalypse” — a wave of red state restrictions on procedures to terminate pregnancies — by recruiting new members and online providers, adding new privacy features that could shield them from law enforcement and organizing. And now, with the court’s decision to hear the Mississippi case in its upcoming term, they’re confronting a new threat.
The pandemic gave activists “a real view of what a South without access would look like,” said Robin Marty, an activist with the Yellowhammer Fund, another activist group. Marty recently came out with an update to her book “Handbook for Post-Roe America,” which describes to readers how they can prepare — from obtaining pills online to organizing politically — for a country with statewide bans on abortion.
“People have so much fatigue when it comes to, ‘This is the worst. No, now this is even worse. Oh wait, this is even worse than that’,”
And they make it clear they’re prepared to defy any laws banning abortion . . . Even without a sweeping court ruling, current trends are likely to continue as GOP-controlled states erect ever-more-stringent abortion restrictions — even to the extent of providing “private rights of action” for ordinary citizens to enforce such restrictions against friends and neighbors, as Texas has done. Activists believe the effort to enlist average citizens in the fight against abortion is a direct response to fears that more abortions will be conducted at home, outside the gaze of the law.
. . .From the other side of the debate, elevated interest in online access to abortion pills represents a longtime nightmare for anti-abortion activists. Ever since medication abortions were approved by the FDA in the 1990s, anti-abortion figures have warned the drugs could make terminating a pregnancy too convenient and too easy . . .
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