To All the Little Girls

And to all of the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams. ~Hillary Clinton

June 24, 2022.

“Dobbs is out.”

I remember looking at my phone. Standing, dumbstruck, on a Lake Michigan beach.

It had been a pretty regular summer day, honestly. There certainly hadn’t been anything that would tip you off to the fact that, by sunset, you’d have lost basic, fundamental, constitutional rights.

But that’s exactly what happened. And – even though a “leaked” opinion had warned us of the impending decision – the shock of it imprinted that moment in my brain.

I can hear the wind. I can see the water – it was especially calm, which felt wrong. I can feel every step of the silent walk I took. And every fresh tear.

Very few of my memories are so vivid that I can reach out and touch them. The ones that you can play, rewind, and play back in slow motion. Where you can feel, and taste, and hear them.

June 24, 2022 is one of those memories.

November 9, 2016 is another.

On November 9, I sat in my parked car, crying into my coffee as I listened to the most qualified person to ever have run for the presidency concede. I practically wailed as I heard her tell all the little girls to keep dreaming.

It was in the quiet moments after I finished listening to Hillary’s speech that I made myself a promise: I would never again assume the worst couldn’t happen (it can, and it has). And I would never again sit on the sidelines.

I would never again assume it was for someone else to organize. For someone else to call. For someone else to learn.

For someone else.

For so long I had assumed that I wasn’t necessary – that someone somewhere with a spreadsheet and an advanced degree had all this figured out. That my help wouldn’t amount to much anyway, so why bother?

As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one who thought that whatever she could contribute wasn’t important enough to share.

And I wasn’t the only one who promised herself that she’d get off the sidelines.

In the weeks that came after, I met hundreds – literally hundreds – of women just like me. We’d been jarred awake, and we’ve not slept since.

That those two memories are so vivid is fitting, I suppose, because even though six years separate them, they are linked. There’s a direct line from Hillary’s loss to Dobbs. Had Trump not been president, he’d not have appointed the conservative justices that gave them the votes they needed to overturn Roe.

Elections have consequences, as they say.

And those little girls that Hillary was talking to in 2016? They are teenagers now. The loss of Roe falls especially hard on their shoulders.

And, just as in 2016, we’ve seen the rise of a brand new group of activists that were jarred awake. Not by an election. But by a decision made by a bunch of unelected justices who relished the opportunity to strip fundamental rights from women.

A few weeks after Dobbs came down, a woman sent me an email out of the blue.

I’ve just started a group of new activists, she explained. Could you talk at one of our events?

Of course, I replied. Tell me about the group. What motivated all of you to get together?

Her response was simple.

One word that spoke volumes.

Dobbs.

So this week, as we mark the two year anniversary of the Dobbs decision, I’ll be thinking of her – and the tens of thousands like her who have dedicated themselves to clawing back the rights we have lost.

But especially, I’ll be thinking of all the little girls.

Let’s get to work.

P.S. Yesterday, I was absolutely honored to be included in a Coffee With Democrats 2024 Women’s Roundtable panel, alongside TN Senate candidate Gloria Johnson, TN Congressional candidate Jane George, and Jessica Piper. Please give it a watch, and share!

Small Deeds to Do for the Week of June 25, 2024

Here’s the part where – if you are so inclined – we roll up our sleeves and engage in what I like to call Action Therapy. Each Tuesday I share three “small things” – usually a Small Thing to Read, a Small Event to Attend, and a Small Call to Make or Action to Take. You can tuck these actions into your week with ease – and know that you’re doing something today to make tomorrow better.

Small Thing to Read:

The Prison Policy Initiative has released an incredible report detailing the impact of abortion restrictions on women who are either on parole or probation (collectively known as “community supervision”). People who are subject to community supervision must follow a rigid set of rules, or risk violating the terms of their release.

Typically, one of the conditions of release is restriction of travel – requiring advance notice and approval before leaving the state (and sometimes before traveling to an even smaller geographic area within a state). Each state is different, but each has a number of administrative hurdles that include a required approval from probation officers before being able to travel.

You can see how these layers can restrict access.

It’s not an isolated issue: “the one-two punch of abortion and supervision restrictions impacts an estimated 4 out of 5 women (82%) on probation or parole nationwide.”

582,000 women on probation live in states with abortion bans and probation conditions that restrict interstate travel.

For your frame of reference, that’s akin to the population of the entire state of Wyoming (which has a population of 581,381).

Read the report here: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2024/06/18/dobbs/. You can see additional (excellent) coverage of the report here: https://19thnews.org/2024/06/parole-probation-travel-restrictions-abortion-access/

(Another) Small Thing to Read: Project 2025

Chapter 14 of Project 2025 addresses “Health and Human Services,” and as you can imagine, the anti-choice agenda is one of the focuses of the chapter. It’s a pretty lengthy read, beginning at page 449 (481 in the PDF version) and going through 501. But it’s lengthy because it’s a comprehensive review of how the anti-choice movement would restrict access to abortion for everyone and remake federal government to adhere to its policies.

It’s such an important read, I really do think it’s worth you taking 10 minutes and paging through – most pages have bolded headings and bulleted lists.

The takeaway: they are prepared. They are not hiding what they intend to do, friend. Be warned.

Here’s a link to the PDF.

Small Action to Take: Democrats Work to Overturn Comstock Zombie Law

Democrats have now introduced legislation that would overturn a 150-year old law that criminalizes mailing anything – including abortion medication – that would be used for abortion. Commonly known as “Comstock,” it’s been pointed to by anti-choice policymakers as the reason they don’t need to enact a federal ban to get a federal ban.

“We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books,” Mitchell told The New York Times regarding ways to implement a nationwide abortion ban. “There’s a smorgasbord of options,” he continued.

And again, we’ve got their own words in Project 2025 to guide us here. On page 562, in the chapter for the Department of Justice, they point to Comstock, and proclaim:

Federal law prohibits mailing “[e]very article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion.” Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, there is now no federal prohibition on the enforcement of this statute. The Department of Justice in the next conservative Administration should therefore announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and distributors of such pills.

So there we have it: their intention is to enforce this zombie law. So we must repeal it before they get the opportunity. Helpfully, a bill to repeal Comstock has already been introduced in both the House and the Senate. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4732234-democrats-abortion-comstock-act-repeal-bill/

So it’s a good time to get out your phone and make a quick call to your Senator and your Representative.

I hear that voice in your head asking: Does doing this matter?

YES. Yes, it does.

Congresscritters do not get calls as often as you’d think. I heard once that for every person that calls, staffers assume another 20 people have the same comment but just don’t bother to pick up the phone. I don’t know if that’s accurate – but a 20x multiplier ain’t half bad. And honestly, it takes 2 minutes or less. Find the phone number for your Representative and Senators at Congress.gov here.

It’s a simple script:

Hi, my name is [your name] and I’m calling from [zip code]. I’m calling to encourage the Senator/Congress(wo)man to support legislation repealing the Comstock Act. A 150 year old zombie law should not dictate healthcare policy today. [If you live in a red state, you can add: “It would be a troubling overuse of federal power on an issue that has been explicitly given to the states. The Comstock Act should be repealed.”]

Bravo! Job done!

Small Event to Attend: Thursday – Blue Missouri + Debate Watch

No doubt you already know that this Thursday the presidential debate will air live on CNN, CNN International, CNN en Español, and CNN Max, and will be streaming live on CNN.com. It starts at 8pm central.

If you’re anything like me, you’d like something to do in the hours before the debate. So I hope you’ll consider joining me for this month’s Blue Missouri community call. Along with Blue MO executive director and host Jessica Piper, we’ll be joined by Andrew Seidel, a constitutional and civil rights attorney, author, and nationally renown expert on Christian Nationalism and religious liberty. We’ll also be joined by Missouri’s own Elad Gross, a tireless advocate who has successfully defended Missouri’s Sunshine Law at our state Supreme Court, stopped our state government from persecuting whistleblowers, protected workers’ rights on the job, and secured the release of innocent Missourians from illegal jailings. Now he’s running for Missouri Attorney General. Join us Thursday at 6pm central!

Thanks for reading, friend – I’m glad to see you here! If you love what I do and you want to support it, consider becoming a paid subscriber on substack. It means a lot!