Information is Power – and Hope

It seems like every day, emboldened anti-abortion activists in the US try to force through more state laws to make access to abortion more difficult. For example, in just one recent week:

Idaho just passed a “heartbeat law” that bans abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before most people even know they’re pregnant.

Oklahoma just passed a near total abortion ban that would, among other things, charge doctors with homicide for performing an abortion after detecting fetal cardiac activity – and treat performing an abortion as “unprofessional conduct” that could get a doctor’s license revoked.

And Arizona just passed a grotesque overreach as a law that criminalizes ending a pregnancy over genetic abnormalities – and lets both the partner and the parents of the person having an abortion for that reason sue the doctor who performed it.

AAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH! It’s enough to make you want to scream!

Abortion is still legal in all 50 states, but it doesn’t matter if something is legal if it’s not accessible. Here are some things you can do to help people get the abortion care they need even in states that are making it more and more difficult to access:

1. Let people know about abortion funds! There’s at least one in almost every state, and they help people pay for abortions and the support people need to get them, like child care and transportation. Many also provide practical support like rides and lodging.  Many people aren’t even aware they exist, so letting them know what they are and how to find them can be a huge help.
2. Volunteer with or donate to an abortion fund near you or in a state where access is being restricted.
3. Contact a clinic and ask how you can help support their services.
4. Share the Euki reproductive health app for iOS and Android, a private, secure way to get information about abortion (and more!) right on their phones.
5. Tell people about AbortionPillInfo.org, which provides accurate, up-to-date information about self-managing an abortion with pills, with people who can’t or don’t want to go to a clinic.
6. If you’re in a town, county, or state where information about and access to abortion is hard to come by, you can learn how to talk to your friends and community about self-managed abortion with pills, and how to teach them to pass the information along. If you talk to five people, and each of them talks to five people, and so forth, we’ll have a lot more informed, empowered people out there! Find out more by emailing us at info@abortionpillinfo.org.