The Alameda County Council (ACC) of the League of Women Voters hosted a panel titled "Roe v. Wade 2022 & Beyond" on November 3rd, 2022. The ACC includes the following Leagues: Alameda, Berkeley Albany Emeryville, Eden Area, Fremont Newark Union City, Oakland, and Piedmont. The panel featured Stacy Cross, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, and Nakia Woods, Project Director for California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom.
Moderator Jo Loss, president of the League of Women Voters of The Eden Area, opened the panel with some background from the League of Women Voters of the United States (LWVUS) including the following. LWVUS President Dr. Deborah Turner and CEO Virginia Kase Solomon stated in a joint statement that, "When women and those who can become pregnant can no longer make reproductive decisions for their own bodies, they are no longer equal individuals in our democracy. ... Women hold the power to create a more perfect democracy. We will not stand by as constitutional rights are stripped away, one by one. Women’s rights are human rights, and we will continue to fight until the right to abortion is restored. Our lives depend on it."
Read the full statement here.
The panelists then answered the following three questions: 1) what is the impact of the Dobbs decision for your organization and locally here in California? 2) what other consequences do you see possible in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision? 3) what do you want to tell people that it's important to do, to watch for, and to act on in the future now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned?
The panelists discussed their efforts in education around reproductive rights; additional privacy rights that are also at risk, e.g., birth control, marriage equality, interracial marriage; wide ranging repercussions of the Dobbs decision including economic, health and well-being, and negative impacts on the workforce; the importance of voting and getting educated on issues and candidates; and the importance of telling abortion stories because they are a normal part of basic healthcare.
Ms. Cross shared that she never met her two grandmothers. Her maternal grandmother died at age 47 delivering her 10th child. She did not have access to birth control. Her paternal grandmother died of blood loss from an illegal abortion after her family decided they could not afford another child during the Great Depression. These are real consequences of restrictions on reproductive health care.
To learn more from Stacy and Nakia please watch the YouTube recording of this program below.