Susan Wild: 'Unprecedented national movement' must push Senate to protect abortion rights

For some, the leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade came as a shock. For those who work in abortion care, the forthcoming decision will be the latest in a series of unsurprising moves that reduce abortion rights.

“I feel like we’ve taken it for granted for a long time. It’s been getting chipped away piece by piece. This has been going on for years, but now people are really noticing,” Cynthia Rodriguez said Tuesday amid honks from passing drivers and cheers from abortion rights supporters who had gathered in downtown Allentown. Rodriguez works at the Allentown Women’s Center, which provides abortions, among other services.

U.S. Rep. Susan Wild addressed the crowd, along with state-level politicians, a Planned Parenthood Keystone representative and a woman who shared her abortion experience.

Wild, too, placed the draft opinion in a long line of anti-abortion efforts: “The Supreme Court decision is the result of decades of efforts by extremist officials— elected officials, as well as judges— to make personal health care decisions in place of women. And it is the most egregious assault we have seen yet in the modern times of our country on the notion of equal rights for women and on the concept that women have the right to control their own bodies,” she said.

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She called for “an unprecedented national movement” pressuring the Senate to codify abortion rights into federal law by passing the Women’s Health Protection Act, which the House has already passed.

“Our goal must be to create a wave of pressure powerful enough to reach the Senate. Powerful enough to tell the legislators who want to vote against women’s rights that this will not be tolerated,” Wild said.

The Supreme Court confirmed on Tuesday that the draft leaked to Politico was “authentic” but that “it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”

The draft opinion is not in effect yet. When this ruling, or a variation of it, goes into effect, abortion will still be legal up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy in Pennsylvania.

That could change next year if a Republican governor is elected. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has said he’ll “veto any anti-choice legislation that lands on my desk.”

“That leak is just an opinion. It is not the law of the land, because we’re still providing abortions here and every day until someone strips that away. And I can tell you it’s going to be a hard fight,” Sam Bobila, chief external affairs officer at Planned Parenthood Keystone, said at Tuesday’s rally.

But while this particular ruling doesn’t carry the weight of the law yet, providing abortions is already made difficult by various hurdles, Rodriguez said.

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“They try to make it harder and harder for clinics. They’ve been making new laws left and right for years now,” she said. “That’s why a lot of clinics have closed, because they don’t want to bother with it. And there’s so much liability, more than people even realize, all the hassle we get.”

From extra scrutiny on paperwork to protesters gathering outside, “we go through more than any other kind of practice is put through,” Rodriguez said.

At the clinic’s previous location, “we used to be surrounded. We’d get death threats. We’d be followed home,” she said. “A whole slew of things. We’d get anthrax threats. We had to evacuate once.”

Still, for those who had hoped that precedent might play a bigger role in the court’s decision, the draft document came as a surprise.

“I was completely shocked,” said Alicia Vandersluis, who came to the protest with a “my body, my choice” sign.

“Right now, Roe v. Wade is the precedent, and they’re trying to sneakily overturn it,” she said.

When the final ruling comes, “I’m going to march. I’m going to try to get as many women, as many people as I can, to show our voice, because we’re the majority. And I think the majority also believes in body autonomy.”

This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: Susan Wild speaks in Allentown after SCOTUS Roe v Wade draft leak