Washington, D.C. — Following Friday’s Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey and thereby ending federal constitutional protections for abortion access, People’s Parity Project’s Policy & Program Director Tristin Brown released the following statement:
“Today’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization will have devastating consequences that will be felt most in Black and brown communities, consequences that will inevitably criminalize and even kill people who no longer have access to safe abortion care. This is a cruel decision by a Supreme Court that chooses day in and day out to deny the humanity of people throughout our country.
This decision—and Justice Thomas’s concurrence—affirms what we knew long before the opinion leaked last month. Overturning access to abortion is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the plans this Court has for us. This is a Court committed to crushing the rights of the most vulnerable people, rights that failed to provide adequate protections in the first place. As was repeatedly signaled during Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing, and as Justice Thomas makes clear in his concurrence, unenumerated rights like the right to contraception, same-sex and interracial marriage, sexual privacy and more are all on the chopping block. This illegitimate 6–3 Court has moved lockstep with far-right activists to achieve dystopian policy outcomes, continuing to show its hand and rip off the veil of legitimacy that has compelled so many to revere it for centuries. We’ve seen it in the cruel rulings decimating voting rights, gun control, worker protections, and now access to abortion that this Court is using the guise of neutrality to legislate from the bench.
This institution is in a state of emergency and we must treat it as such. We simply cannot afford to sit idly by and allow our outrage to wane until the next devastating decision is delivered. We must expand the Court to immediately add four seats to the bench. Beyond that, each of us must commit ourselves to organizing around transforming our judiciary into an institution that isn’t built to thwart democracy.”
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People’s Parity Project is a movement of attorneys and law students organizing for a democratized legal system which values people over profits, builds the power of working people, and opposes subordination of any form. Together, we are dismantling a profession that upholds corporate power and building a legal system that is a force for justice and equity. Our work focuses on building power for working people in the civil legal system through organizing, policy innovation, political education, and solidarity. Learn more: peoplesparity.org/about.