When We Fight, We Win

That’s why what we fight for matters.

Pamela Merritt is executive director of Medical Students for Choice (MSFC), a global non-profit working in over 30 countries to support future abortion care providers and advocate for reproductive justice globally. Merritt is a co-author of the “Abortion Justice Now” brief and serves as senior advisor to Raven Lab for Reproductive Liberation.

Vice President Kamala Harris is right: When we fight, we win. That’s why what we fight for matters. Our friends in the Uncommitted Movement—fighting for peace, and a ceasefire in the Middle East—understand this well. When we make demands, we are participating in democracy, speaking truth to power, and working in service to the oppressed. It’s a lesson reproductive rights allies need to learn, and we need to learn this urgently. 

Even though support for abortion rights has soared to historic heights, the Democratic National Committee’s 2024 agenda states a singular reproductive freedom goal: to “make Roe the law of the land”, rolling us back to 1973 and reestablishing a legal framework that criminalized pregnant people, banned abortions, and at best, forced people seeking abortion care to run a gauntlet of restrictions to access basic abortion care. 

This hollow and strategically flawed policy agenda doubles down on efforts in eight states to amend their state’s constitution to allow government interference at one point in pregnancy or another. It’s all left me wondering: What are we demanding? What are we fighting for? When we apply the “something is better than nothing” mentality, we rubberstamp the same incrementalism of trickle down economics. I’m old enough to know exactly how that scheme worked out.

Quiet as it’s kept, I hate drama and would much prefer spending my free time with my dogs. But, disruption is a necessary part of the hard work that seeks to balance the enormity of the abortion access public health crisis with our moral obligation to build strategies that cover those most impacted by abortion bans like the patients featured on stage at the Democratic National Convention.

The irony is, while those fearless voices shared the trauma of their abortion experiences, the very party who put them on stage is seeking to rebuild a policy framework that will put countless more people in their shoes. We should be outraged. And our outrage should turn into demands. Our bodily autonomy is at stake. At this point, it's our duty to disrupt.

The political landscape has changed dramatically. Abortion is the galvanizing issue. The majority of voters reject government interference at all points in pregnancy. With just three months until a national election where supporting abortion has emerged as a winning position, we, as abortion allies, have a choice: squander this historic opportunity in the name of performative harmony or unite behind a strategy to advance expansive policy. Abortion Justice Now is not just a demand, it’s a starting position all advocates must take in the work to liberate abortion. 

When we fight, we win. Right? Expansive abortion policy is possible if we organize to achieve it. That’s a win worth fighting for.

The movement for reproductive rights now occupies a Dobbsian hellscape, and we are tasked with making a decision on how to proceed in the aftermath of our greatest defeat. Decisions made in this moment will impact future generations, leaving them to inherit opportunities or limitations. I urge my colleagues and supporters in the movement for reproductive rights to embrace our moral obligation and leave Roe where she fell. 

It’s past time to put some organizing strategy behind the bold rhetoric, to replace requests with clear expectations and demands, and for us to fight for the reproductive health policy people need.