Marking Three Years Of Dobbs

Three years ago, the Supreme Court announced their decision in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the landmark decision Roe v. Wade.

The outcome was not a surprise given a leak of the ruling a few weeks prior, but the decision was still stunning for its impact on reproductive rights across the country. Access to an abortion, which was constitutionally enshrined nearly five decades ago, is now determined by an address.

And while the Dobbs decision continues to reverberate around Texas, before the ruling Texas had been operating under a near-total abortion ban since Governor Abbott signed Senate Bill 8 and it went into effect in September 2021.

In the wake of the third anniversary of Dobbs, the reproductive rights organization Free & Just convened a widespread storyteller summit with patient advocates and health care providers in Washington D.C. The summit had plenty of storytellers from Texas, including several plaintiffs from Zurawski v. Texas, the lawsuit filed to clarify medical exceptions to the state’s draconian abortion law.

In addition to hearing from women impacted by abortion bans like those in Texas, “Our Voices, Our Stories, Our Future: Free & Just Storyteller Summit” also highlighted the work from men who have been working in the reproductive freedom space.

One of those men is Tyler Lewis, who is originally from Fort Worth. Lewis has been active in many reproductive rights organizations including Men4Choice. He was excited to participate in the storyteller summit because he could connect with other advocates and learn different organizing tactics. Tyler is also planning to take what he learns from D.C. back to Texas and his college campus in North Carolina.

Lewis feels it’s a misconception that men do not care about abortion access. “There are so many men who care about this issue,” he told Texas Signal in an interview. Lewis also believes it’s critical that men, and particularly young men, become informed on the issue.

Learning about Amber Thurman played a major role in Lewis’s current activism. Thurman had to wait over twenty hours for what used to be a routine medical procedure. Ultimately Thurman, who is also a mother to a six-year-old, died at a Georgia hospital.

Lewis learned about Thurman from the news and then did further research. “Hearing that story helped me get into the fight,” he said. Abortion bans disproportionately impact black women, who also suffer from higher rates of maternal mortality (especially in Texas).

While Free & Just’s Summit ends today, the work for activists like Lewis will continue. He hopes to be a father one day, but for now he wants to be an advocate for the Black women in his life.