We Won’t Go Back: An Open Letter from State and Local Legislators Urging the U.S. Supreme Court to Defend Abortion Access

We all deserve the right to make decisions about our families and our bodies, free from coercion or violence. As elected officials in states and localities, we are committed to protecting and advancing these rights.

In the past decade, hundreds of restrictions on abortion care have been passed at the state level, and more local governments are restricting abortion in their own towns and counties. The resulting patchwork of laws means that a person’s ability to access your their right to abortion depends on your zip code and the contents of your bank account, with low-income people, people of color, young people, immigrant communities, and rural communities paying the steepest price. As public servants, it’s our job to not only support policies that allow our constituents to survive but policies that allow them thrive.

The United States Supreme Court’s forthcoming decision in June Medical Services v. Russo, which concerns medically unnecessary regulations on abortion providers, is an opportunity for the Court to uphold precedent and ensure Louisiana does not devastate peoples’ ability to get safe, legal abortion care in their communities. Anything less—allowing the Fifth Circuit and Louisiana to disregard the Court’s precedent —would open the door for states to regulate abortion out of existence for millions of families. Abortion isn’t a right if you can’t access it.

The avalanche of recent state abortion restrictions, passed despite the highest levels of public support for abortion rights in decades, distorts our democracy. Our states and localities are resisting these attacks on our rights in favor of reflecting the will of the people: to have the freedom to live safe and healthy lives and to define their own paths.

As legislators representing millions of people in the places they live, work, go to school, raise families, and seek healthcare, we urge the Supreme Court to stand by decades of precedent, from Roe v. Wade to Casey v. Planned Parenthood to Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, and reject this deceptive Louisiana law, and send a clear message that we won’t go back.

Click here to see the full list of legislators.

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The COVID Crisis Reveals Deep Fissures in American Society

“Many Americans are now experiencing what poor communities live with daily. We have communities perennially facing lower wages, higher poverty, lack of access to health care, and lack of access to child care. Shift workers, low-wage workers, agrarian workers, and service workers are now being pushed over the edge. We must be intentional about identifying these challenges and concrete about naming and pursuing the solutions. These issues aren’t ancillary. They are central to who we are. The poor deserve expanded and deepened support. The poorest among us are often the people working the hardest. And they deserve to be protected. It is not socialism to have a social safety net.”

-- The Hon. Stacey Abrams, former GA House Minority Leader,  on COVID as featured in Elle Magazine April 15, 2020


For over 40 years, we’ve witnessed the erosion of our public structures and social safety net programs while extremists have weaponized the idea of who is worthy of care or support during moments of need. By using a divide-and-conquer framework that devalues some people because of the color of their skin or where they come from, we are all left with a system that is incapable of weathering the current storm. COVID shows us that this old approach to policymaking leaves all of us—Black, white, and brown alike—too vulnerable to ongoing harm.

SiX believes this analysis is central to the work ahead for state legislators and must be core to our collective response. Based on this framework, we want to offer specific guidance to state legislators seeking clarity on how to orient to the weeks and months ahead:

1. Advance race-forward policies and analyses.

From expanded COVID testing to access to health care to paid sick time to expanded medical leave to unemployment insurance to managing state budgets, legislators will uniquely be faced with balancing bold ideas with impactful implementation. Essential workers—nurses and health care workers, delivery workers, farmworkers, restaurant staff, and many others —are more likely to be women and people of color and are disproportionately impacted by this crisis. As you consider any policy topic, we encourage you to make an explicit commitment to ensure your actions have equitable impacts by centering those most impacted in your policy response. 

2. Protect and expand our democracy.

If we understand the current crisis as an extension of our underlying economic and societal challenges, we must expand and protect access to democratic safeguards—from voting-at-home to transparent governance to equitable decision-making in public life.

3. Use all of the tools you can to effect change.

Some of you may return back to legislative sessions while others of you are facing indefinite recesses, early adjournment, or uncertain special sessions. Although each of your circumstances may differ, we implore you to be bold in advocating for your communities by using a wide array of tools to meet your policy objectives. 

4. Focus on resilience, not nostalgia.

For many of us, we eagerly want to return to a time before this crisis—when thousands of our friends and families were not taken by COVID, when millions of our neighbors weren’t unemployed or facing eviction, and when gathering at the local watering hole was more common than wearing a face mask in public. But nostalgia can cloud our thinking, even when done with the best of intentions. We must remember how precarious our democracy, economy, and society were before this crisis and remind ourselves of what we’ve learned from seeing the failures of our systems in full view. With this clarity, focus your efforts on rebuilding a resilient, healthy, and prosperous country for generations to come.

We have faith in your ability to lead, even in the most difficult of circumstances, and SiX is ready to help you in the weeks and months to come.