YDSA National Coordinating Committee Statement on the Overturning of Roe v. Wade

June 24, 2022

This morning, the Supreme Court, an undemocratic body made up of the ruling elite, attacked tens of millions of Americans by overturning Roe V Wade. Six unelected people were able to overturn our right to make choices about our bodies and families. This deadly decision is an escalation in the centuries-long assault on the multi-racial working class in this country. It is nothing short of class war. However, the fight to ensure abortions on demand and without apology is far from over. The National Coordinating Committee is calling on every chapter across the country to take to the streets and get organized. This is not the time to lean on the Democratic Party’s institutions, tactics, and strategies. While this decision came from a far-right extremist Supreme Court, it is important to acknowledge that for almost 50 years, the Democratic Party has consistently failed to ratify reproductive justice into federal law. The working class must confront the power of the capitalist class head-on through strategic community, student, and intersectional labor organizing. Too often, issues like abortion that affect women, trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals are sidelined and deprioritized; YDSA recognizes that gender-based liberation is essential to our vision for a socialist future and the current labor movement. 

 

Students and workers across the country must look to and learn from the past struggles of our comrades abroad, particularly the militant women’s strikes that have fought for the right to abortion in Poland, Ireland, and Argentina within the last decade. Moments like this are opportunities to both revive the tactics of historical victories and continue ​​to imagine new possibilities for resistance to build even more power behind the demand for free and safe abortions. We must remember that the restriction of abortion access will exacerbate many existing injustices, particularly those disproportionately affecting Black and Brown communities: criminalization, policing, and mass incarceration; the denial of bodily autonomy; and the ruthless exploitation of labor, particularly feminized reproductive labor. We should also welcome and center trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming comrades in this struggle, which is inextricably linked to gender-affirming healthcare and queer liberation. 

 

The scale of this decision’s impact will also differ drastically along geographical lines, so we should extend solidarity to and focus on organizing alongside movements of resistance in Southern and Midwest states (particularly when it comes to harm reduction measures, such as clinic protection and travel aid).

 

We can never rely on the ruling class and the institutions of capital to defend our rights. We must build power through organizing to confront and defeat the capitalist class. Even as we do so, we cannot sit idly by while our rights are revoked and more are put into the crosshairs of the ruling elite. To this end, the National Coordinating Committee reiterates our call to action after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision was leaked last month, and we urge students and young people across this country to take action now to fight this deadly decision.

Ways to get involved 

    • Join our National Organizing Committee to support and spearhead our effort to organize YDSA members and chapters in southern and midwestern states around reproductive justice and abortion. 
    • Join our Red Hot Summer call THIS Tuesday, July 28th at 8pm est/5 pst. We will be discussing reproductive justice and the labor movement. Register here.
    • Union members: organize within your union to pass resolutions in support of abortion access, create abortion funds for members, and secure a commitment from the union to support workplace actions demanding access to free and safe abortions.
    • Be present — in the streets, at the courthouses, and on your campus. Raise your voice to let our national government know that we will not tolerate such an egregious backsliding of rights.  
    • Organize in coalition with existing reproductive justice organizations on your campus. 
      • Demand access to medical abortion on your campus. 
    • Donate to local abortion funds, independent clinics in vulnerable states, and other support networks. 
    • Share self-managed abortion information. 
    • Graduating members: join the movement of rank-and-file healthcare workers. 
    • Pressure congressional and state legislators to pass laws that codify abortion access.  
  • Join the fight in organizing for a better world. Join DSA TODAY!

 

We are also compiling a list of organizations that have been doing this work for years that chapters should connect with to gain historical knowledge and understanding of organizing around reproductive justice. They include but are not limited to:

 

National Women’s Liberation 

National Network of Abortion Funds

Florida Access Network 

The Reproductive Justice Collective in New York 

National Advocates for Pregnant Women

Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health

Yellowhammer Fund

Sister Song

Spark Reproductive Justice

Texas Equal Access Fund

West Alabama Women’s Center

NARAL Pro-Choice America

URGE

Feminist Abortion Network