Extremist judges will not stop endangering the lives of pregnant people or people who may become pregnant—overturning Roe v. Wade, attacking medication abortion, threatening the future of IVF, and this week at SCOTUS, emergency abortion care.
Our lawyers are waging strategic fights that make clear what is at stake for people who can become pregnant and seek to bolster our fundamental rights to control our lives, futures, and destinies.
Make a donation to the National Women’s Law Center to power the fight for accessible health care and a better future for all. Every donation is 100% tax-deductible.
Hey there! If you care about abortion access—and we hope you do—you probably don’t want to use stigmatizing language about abortion. Our “Destigmatizing Abortion” series breaks down some of the mistakes a lot of us can make in our advocacy journey.
Today, let’s talk about the phrase: “abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.”
Wanting abortion to be rare actually insinuates that abortion is unsafe, which we know it’s definitely not. This idea comes directly from the anti-choice movement. Those folks standing outside abortion clinics with fraudulent, graphic, violent images on picket signs are the same scripters of the talking point you’re unintentionally repeating! Furthermore, wanting abortion to be rare not only creates stigma, but increases support for restrictions, which is the opposite of what we need.
Abortions are safe and effective—whether you are self managing your abortion at home with pills or getting an abortion in a doctor’s office. Additionally, we need abortion to be safe, legal, and accessible. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean that people actually have access to abortion; it needs to be affordable and within physical reach of patients.
The just society we want to see includes anyone being able to have an abortion—for any reason, at any time. It’s a safe, effective medical procedure, just as getting your blood drawn, having an IUD inserted, or getting a vaccine. Why would we ever want that to be rare?
