Two years ago, the United States took a giant leap backward. After decades of expanding personal liberties, the Supreme Court ripped them away from women—erasing nearly 50 years of established privacy rights and putting politicians in charge of women's very personal decisions. The reverberations of the Dobbs case have been enormous—women whose pregnancies endanger their lives forced to flee anti-abortion states, couples required to effectively terminate IVF thus ending their chance to have children, and entire hospital systems shutting down all OB-GYN services in fear of their doctors and nurses being jailed for providing reproductive medical care. Now, women who seek safe, legal abortions are being hurled back to the retrograde reproductive laws of the 1950s, where back alley abortions threaten their lives. The Dobbs decision is a slippery slope that could end in a nightmare state for women. This November, we have a chance at the ballot box to restore reproductive rights and make things right.
In the '60s and '70s, my mother stood up for women's rights at a time when women could be fired from their jobs for being pregnant, were denied the right to advance in the workplace, discriminated against in college admission, and even prevented from getting a credit card without their husband's approval. My mother was fighting for abortion rights when I was in grammar school, and she let me tag along to protests and marches when I was too young to be left at home alone. Those experiences shaped my life. I learned early on that showing up, speaking out, and voting for change could make all the difference. It did, and it still does.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, any illusion abortion rights supporters had of the permanency of our hard-fought progress was shattered. Every aspect of reproductive health care is now being undone.
It is unbearable to me that the rights my mother, and so many women like her, fought to obtain and protect are now being ripped away from a new generation of women. I am terrified that this new and dangerous landscape will open the door to taking other rights away from women and girls.
The results of a Donald Trump-appointed Supreme Court are gut-wrenching but weren't unforeseeable. After Illinois wiped trigger laws off our books, I joined a bold majority of our Illinois General Assembly in 2019 to protect and expand abortion rights in anticipation of what a MAGA Supreme Court might do. We codified Roe into our state law, and we expanded Medicaid to cover abortion because it's not a right if you can't afford it. Then we made Illinois a safe haven for anyone fleeing bans in their home state.
I am incredibly proud that Illinois is a true oasis for reproductive rights, but there is a sea of red states that are tripping over themselves to outlaw all forms of reproductive rights.
This is why I founded Think Big America—to fight back. In the last two years, we have seen that when people have a choice, they vote overwhelmingly to protect reproductive freedom. I want to see that again in 2024. Think Big America stands with the people of Florida, Nevada, Arizona, and Montana who are working to guarantee abortion access for over 16 million women in those states.
I'm in this fight because restoring a woman's right to bodily autonomy is a human right. This November, we can reestablish this fundamental freedom at the state and federal levels.
When I was with my mother in those organizing meetings, campaign rallies, and protests, her passion, leadership, and dedication left an indelible impression on me. She passed away when I was still young, but the fire she brought to this fight shaped my life. My mother's fight became mine. We must never stop until we fully protect abortion and the other rights that are increasingly under attack by the far right. This November, vote like your freedom is at stake—because it is.
JB Pritzker is the 43rd governor of Illinois and the founder of Think Big America, a nonprofit created to protect abortion access and combat far-right MAGA extremism across the country. Think Big is building on Governor Pritzker's success in Illinois, where he's enshrined abortion rights into state law before Roe was overturned and passed protections for any woman seeking abortion care in Illinois. Think Big America is currently supporting abortion ballot initiatives in Arizona, Florida, Montana, and Nevada.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
