Today is the four-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision — the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, and with it, our constitutional right to abortion care.
Do you remember where you were when you heard the news? Were you shocked or sadly unsurprised? Did it spur you to action?
At Red Wine & Blue, we drew our community close in those initial days, holding events and helping women take action like marching, calling their legislators, and sharing their personal abortion stories. After all, one in four American women has had an abortion. There’s no reason for such stigma over a medical procedure — especially one that can save lives.
And later on, we helped Ohio put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to enshrine abortion rights in their state. Unfortunately, a constitutional amendment doesn’t necessarily protect care — from conservative legislators or from extremist violence.
In today’s episode of our podcast How to Not Lose Your Sh!t, we talked to Nan Whaley and Gwynne Perry from Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio. This spring, an anti-choice protester attacked their clinic and set it on fire, but Nan and Gwynne didn’t hesitate. They opened the clinic the very next day, ensuring that patients didn’t experience even a one-day interruption in their care.
In Gwynne’s words, “We thought, hell no. We’re not doing this. We’re gonna see patients. So we did.”
Her defiance was especially important because after Dobbs, their clinic became the only abortion care for a thousand miles for many women in the South. Four years on from the Dobbs decision, lifesaving care is being provided not by politicians or Supreme Court Justices. It’s coming from women like Gwynne and Nan — and for that, we’re grateful.
