Congresswoman Jackie Speier

January 22, 2012

Dear Friends,

Today marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade—the landmark Supreme Court decision that affirmed the constitutionally protected right of a woman to have an abortion. Nearly 40 years later, the fight is far from over. On this anniversary, I pledge to continue to push back against dangerous measures which seek to turn back the clock on abortion access.

History reveals that the criminalization of abortion between the 1880s and the Roe decision in 1973 did nothing to reduce the number of women who sought abortions. Rather, many of the estimated 1.2 million women per year who had abortions resorted to dangerous back alley procedures and suffered serious medical problems or died as a result. One doctor who challenged a Minnesota law that banned abortion in 1970 describes the time this way— “Before 1973, single women who got pregnant were fired from their jobs. Married women who got pregnant were forced to carry pregnancies to term regardless of their circumstances - even if they had so many children that they couldn't afford to feed another one; even if they had metastasized cancer; even if their fetuses couldn't live outside the womb because these fetuses had developed without a heart or brain.” Reverend Howard Moody, who spearheaded New York City’s Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion in 1967 recalls : “To get an abortion before it was legal, a woman had to meet someone in a parking lot late at night and be taken to some unknown place. She had no idea whose hands she was in—or if she would even survive.”

While we have made progress since the days before Roe, efforts to undo Roe continue. As many of you know, less than one year ago I stood on the House floor and shared my own story of a medically induced abortion- a procedure that was both medically necessary and emotionally heartbreaking. I hadn’t planned on speaking up but after hearing the lies about an abortion procedure being detailed by a House colleague on the floor, I stood up and spoke from the heart. Since that moment, the House leadership has insisted on bringing seven anti-abortion measures to the floor—legislation that would do everything from restricting a woman from spending her own money on abortion coverage to allowing hospitals to deny medically necessary abortions, even when a woman’s life is in jeopardy.

And the anti-abortion actions in state legislatures this past year were even worse than the draconian efforts in Congress. In fact, more than 90 anti-abortion bills were passed into law in 2011—nearly three times the previous record. Today, because of these laws, millions of women across this nation are required to undergo mandatory ultrasounds prior to having an abortion even if they would prefer not to. In some states, health care workers that provide abortions are prohibited from receiving state funds, even if they are allocated for family planning or life saving cancer screening services. Before women can go to an abortion clinic in some states, they must visit a crisis pregnancy center that will try to talk them out of the procedure. If this year is any indication, we will likely see the momentum to restrict women’s access to legal abortions rise to unprecedented levels in 2012.

Let us embrace the 39th Anniversary of Roe as a time to recommit ourselves to the ideal that made this court case so revolutionary—that every woman has a constitutional right to choose.

All the best,

jackie