Here's What They're Celebrating

Anti-choice activists rejoiced in women's suffering this weekend

This weekend marked the 50th anniversary of Roe v Wade, and anti-choice activists descended on Washington, DC and cities across the country to celebrate the end of abortion rights. Instead of making all the pro-choice arguments I’ve made before, let’s just take a look at what exactly they’re rejoicing over:

They’re celebrating the cancer patients in Ohio who sobbed when told they had to leave the state for their medically-necessary abortions. They’re smiling and cheering for the patients who threatened to commit suicide if they were denied care.

They were celebrating the Texas woman who ended up in the ICU with sepsis after she was denied miscarriage treatment, and the woman who was forced to carry a dead fetus for weeks. They were delighted over the pregnant woman in rapidly failing health who was told not to come back unless she had a stroke, and the woman who was told she couldn’t get treatment for an ectopic pregnancy until it ruptured.

The thousands who marched were applauding a law that left a Wisconsin woman bleeding for more than 10 days after an incomplete miscarriage, and led a desperate Idaho woman to document herself getting sicker and sicker on TikTok as doctors refused her treatment.

The people who were downright joyful over the end of abortion rights were celebrating the suffering Chelsea Stovall in Arkansas, who had to travel 400 miles to get care as she grieved the end of her doomed pregnancy. She said, “I should be able to say goodbye to her where I want to.” They cheered the anguish of Tara George in Georgia, whose life was put at risk by her pregnancy yet had to spend a week desperately calling hospitals in multiple states to find someone who would help her. They delighted in the Louisiana ban that wouldn’t allow abortion care to a mother of three whose fetus was missing part of its head and skull.

The protesters spilling onto the streets were celebrating the laws that forced a raped 10 year-old in Ohio to leave her home state for an abortion, and banned an Arizona 14 year-old from getting arthritis medication. They were reveling in the knowledge that the two Kentucky 9 year-olds in who needed abortions last year would no longer be able to get care.

I could go on—because every day that abortion bans are in place are another day that a girl or woman suffers. That’s what these people are celebrating; that’s what they’re happy over. And we can’t let people forget it.

Written with research help from Grace Haley.