Abortion Justice One Year Post Dobbs
The fall of Roe means the arena for abortion rights has moved to the states, thrusting local prosecutors to the front lines of this fight.
C hances are I don’t have to tell you about the devastation the reversal of Roe v. Wade has wrought for women and anyone who can get pregnant in this country.
We’re living it every day of our lives.
In the wake of Roe, prosecutors are faced with a stark new choice — they can spend precious resources investigating doctors and throwing women in jail or, for example, prosecuting homicide and armed robbery, or go after the powerful company illegally skimming pay from its workers.
Prosecutors can choose to disengage, and wait passively on the courts to decide the legality of abortion or they can actively use their resources to overturn unconstitutional laws and fight for the human right to reproductive freedom.
Within the last 3 years, almost 1/3 of states have proposed bills to take power away from prosecutors who stand up for reproductive rights and criminal justice reform.
Meanwhile, at least 42 prosecutors within 15 states that are hostile to abortion rights have made public statements in favor of abortion rights. These DAs represent more than 35 million people, and they have been duly elected by voters who endorse their priorities for public safety.
So we decided to hold an event around the increasingly important role of local prosecutors, governments, and communities working together to protect abortion rights across the country, and how states are increasingly attempting to abuse their power and pre-empt this movement and the will of voters.
Laura Conover is currently fighting in court against a draconian 19th-century abortion ban in Arizona.
Andrew Warren has been attacked (and suspended from his duly-elected job in Florida) for standing up for abortion rights.
Kim Foxx is pushing to expand abortion access in Chicago.
Aadika Singh is working on the front lines of abortion access litigation as an attorney for PRP.
LiJia Gong is working on the restoration of trust between communities and prosecutors
And lastly, Professor Aziza Ahmed spoke on how the choices prosecutors make impact providers and the quality of care for patients.
This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. You can — and should! — listen to this vital conversation on abortion justice and prosecutorial direction right here.
// JILL HABIG, founder of Public Rights Project
If you could see one newspaper headline that talks about the prosecutor’s role in our post-Dobbs world, what would it be?
// ANDREW WARREN
State Attorney, Hillsborough County, FL
“If the question is, how does our role change? The answer is it doesn’t. A prosecutor’s job is always about seeking justice, and we’re supposed to go about maximizing public safety, and having a strategic vision for how we make sure that our community’s safe and how we uphold people’s constitutional rights.
The goals of the system don’t change just because the laws change. There is a question for prosecutors to answer about whether it makes sense to devote resources to prosecuting this type of crime and whether that actually promotes community safety.”
// KIM FOXX
District Attorney, Cooks County, Illinois
“If there was a headline, it should be that prosecutors should not be involved in the personal choices of healthcare.
We are ministers of justice. Dobbs has injected us into the public health space in a place where we don’t belong. And so I think the takeaway here should be that criminalizing access to abortion care and involving prosecutors outside of the realm of what it is that we are supposed to be doing to ensure public safety is wrong.
I think we need to do everything within our power as prosecutors to ensure public safety, which means not watching people die because of the choices that have been made regarding the criminalization of abortion.
This is dangerous.”
// LIJIA GONG
Policy & Legal Director, Local Progress
“Local government and local elected officials in particular are oftentimes truly the last line of defense in protecting the most vulnerable in this post- Dobbs era.
Local governments have a lot of policy options and authority to protect and advance access to reproductive services. Specifically, for example, we’ve seen cities across Texas and beyond past the Grace Act, which was introduced by one of our members in Austin.”
LEARN ABOUT THE GRACE ACT
// JILL HABIG
What are the threats that emerge for communities when prosecutors are hostile to abortion rights?
// AZIZA AHMED
Professor of Law, Boston University
“We were already in a crisis of healthcare around abortion, and we have been in a crisis around maternal mortality and morbidity issues, especially for African American women and women of color.
The threat of prosecution and ongoing calls for criminalization is really a much broader medical crisis generated by the fleeing of physicians. And a future crisis brewing around educating future physicians on how to do abortion care.
Having this strong-armed prosecutor in the abortion space who feels that they will prosecute and not protect women’s health and the health of pregnant people is resulting in a wide scale and broad medical crisis, — in red states in particular.”
// AADIKA SINGH
Reproductive Justice Attorney, Public Rights Project
“I get calls every other day it seems, from my provider friends, OBGYNs, maternal fetal medicine specialists, saying, ‘we’re done, we’re out. We did not get into this work to not provide lifesaving healthcare to our patients. And I can’t do this anymore at the risk of imprisonment, you know? I have kids.’
Hospitals are turning away people that show up bleeding — actively bleeding — and saying, you know, you’re not quite at death’s door yet. We can’t intervene here, go somewhere else.
Women are dying and doctors are leaving because it’s not a safe environment to live and be pregnant.”
// JILL HABIG
Laura, what are you seeing in Arizona? I know there’s certainly no statewide consensus on the issue of the prosecutor’s role on these issues.
// LAURA CONOVER
Attorney, Pima County, AZ
“We have a fascinating trajectory here. We had a 1973 injunction in place that protected reproductive healthcare statewide in Arizona. That injunction was a case called Nelson that came alive once Dobbs overturned Roe versus Wade.
And so I found myself in this extraordinary position of suddenly being named in this 1973 case where in ’73, the prosecutor’s office was fighting to continue the right to criminalize abortion.
We researched, we studied the issue thoroughly, of course, and we took the step of changing our position officially. We joined the side of Planned Parenthood in suggesting that we couldn’t simply undo 50 years of work without proper litigation.
What I will say in this space is that the real-world effects are so palpable.
Planned Parenthood reported that physicians in Phoenix, north of me, did not feel protected. They had the Court of Appeals putting a stay in place — expressly telling them that their actions were lawful — and yet they did not feel safe in resuming abortion care.
We cannot have pregnant people in crisis, in a medical emergency, trying to drive two hours from Phoenix, trying to drive five hours from Northern Arizona.
We cannot have physicians unsure if their patients are sick enough to intervene. So the approach we’ve taken here in southern Arizona has been very collaborative to try to restore faith in the system, to restore faith that limited resources will be used properly.”
// JILL HABIG
Let’s shift gears now to the threats that pro-choice prosecutors are facing, often from their own state officials.
// ANDREW WARREN
“Prosecutors need to be independent. The threat to our independence not only challenges our ability to uphold people’s equal rights and their liberties and the abortion context, but it takes away from our ability to actually do the job the way that we’re supposed to do.
“When the community loses faith in the criminal justice system, they stop reporting crimes. They stop cooperating with crimes, they stop coming to testify, and we can’t hold offenders accountable. So this is a very dangerous trend that we’re going down where prosecutorial independence is being threatened in the name of political fealty.”
// JILL HABIG
Kim. I’m curious what you’re seeing in Chicago and Cook County, on the ground and in the community.
// KIM FOXX
“On the border of Indiana, on the border of Missouri, on the border of Kentucky, on the border of Iowa, we are an island in the Midwest for abortion access. And I wanna say that we are safe for now. Our state legislature has been steadfast in protecting abortion access.
We are mindful, from a prosecutorial standpoint, that there’s now a hodgepodge of laws across the country, so we are trying to be well-versed in what the legislation across the country is to solidify our responses to that. How we respond to calls for extradition, subpoenas, and records of people seeking care.
We have to contend with what Indiana does or what Idaho does or what Texas does because we are a safe haven. And so we become a target.
I cannot overstate that this is a life or death matter for people trying to get that critical care.”
