Don't relax just because you're in a blue state

The anti-abortion forces are already salivating at the prospect of outlawing the procedure nationwide. While it's unlikely that they will succeed, it's not an impossibility. Along with working to elect as many Democrats as possible to state and federal government, there are other things blue state residents can do preserve abortion rights and help women who need them.

With the outlawing of abortion in half the country, the people who are picketing clinics in those states will, at least in a few cases, shift their efforts to states where it's still legal. One way to counter this is to join a group that provides clinic defense. This can consist of escorting women from their cars or the bus stop to the clinic doors, protecting them from protestors who might go beyond just screaming at them to assaulting them to prevent them from entering. Some clinic defenders could be tasked with screaming right back at the anti-abortion terrorists.

Another option is "daisy-chaining" women who are being transported in a modern "underground railroad" from states where abortion is illegal to states where they can obtain one. The people transporting them within these states are taking a great risk; you can help mitigate that by volunteering to pick up these women at the border of your own state. You won't be taking a risk (other than being attacked by anti-abortion fanatics), and the other person now has plausible deniability, because for all they know, they simply dropped the woman off at the state border to go camping.

We expected this for a long time, some of us on the day Donald Trump was elected, others when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. For others, it didn't sink in until the Dobbs draft was released, and for many, it may not have sunk in even now. But some people have been preparing for this day, and those of us with a desire for justice and concern for the oppressed should consider joining them. Our descendants will remember us for how we met this challenge, as we remember those who came before us who fought against slavery and oppression.

“For Mother’s Day, my mom would like the activism of her youth not to be for nothing.“