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I am a middle-aged mother. I work, volunteer, pay my taxes. I presume the rights and responsibilities associated with adulting in the United States, including protection from government interference in my private life. The recent Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case challenges this presumption. According to the majority of justices, the Constitution may only fully protect men. This terrifies and enrages me.

Previous SCOTUS decisions (Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey) found that abortion is protected as a matter of liberty. The current SCOTUS rejects this precedent, arguing that the Government’s interest to force pregnancy and birth outweighs the individual liberty of pregnant people. They claim that pregnancy is not an “undo burden” and babies can easily be given up for adoption. Furthermore, they argue, neither women nor abortion are explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. This logic alarmingly calls all of our constitutional rights into question.

My own reproductive stories are run of the mill, but central to my life. Mostly, I’ve tried not to be pregnant, grateful for access to legal birth control. In 1999, I intentionally gave birth to my first child. My postpartum recovery far exceeded the few weeks the “What To Expect” books promised. We had no paid family and medical leave, which remains true for most of us today. No matter what SCOTUS says, it was not “easy”. I later suffered a miscarriage that could have led to death-by-sepsis without a D&C, a procedure now threatened by abortion bans. After that, I vomited twice a day for 17 weeks straight, for a wanted pregnancy that nevertheless took its toll on my health and career.

As a white woman with health insurance, my hard was still easy compared to many. Even with legal abortion rights, last year the USA ranked 87th in the world for women’s health, largely due to our devastatingly low rates of access to healthcare and high rates of Black maternal death. As Black feminists have long made clear, rights are only one part of reproductive justice. Nevertheless, rights remain a critical building block to equality and well-being.

Motherhood fuels my fury. I refuse a future where our children are forcibly impregnated, required to give birth or otherwise treated as lesser citizens than their male peers. Voters across the country share my rage. The Dobbs decision is radically out of step with public opinion. Kansas just voted to protect abortion rights because liberty for all remains a bipartisan value. In Maine, Governor Janet Mills vowed to protect the rights of pregnant people, creating safer conditions for residents and visitors. This is great news for our State, but continued advocacy to secure human and civil rights for all of us remains essential! There are many pathways to action:

Centuries after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, I believe that the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness remain self-evident. I believe that women’s rights are human rights, that trans rights are human rights. The curtailing of civil rights for pregnant people this year will lead to great suffering and unnecessary death, but our activism can counter and ultimately expand rights for all. Civic engagement remains an obligation of adulting, and can also bring great joy. I look forward to the future we create recentering the power of the people.

Kimberly Simmons teaches women and gender studies at University of Southern Maine. She is a member of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications. Members’ columns appear here monthly.

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