Community Shares, Member Charities Stand Up For Reproductive Care Post-Roe
JUNE 28, 2022 – The following statement may be credited to our CEO T. Duane Gordon.
As was expected, the US Supreme Court on Friday made the unprecedented and previously unimaginable decision to take away a right that it had previously ruled and affirmed multiple times was constitutionally protected, overturning nearly 50 years of established precedent and legion of judicial standards with Roe V. Wade. Hours after the ruling, a federal judge cancelled an injunction that had prevented Ohio's six-week abortion ban from going into effect in 2019, which has no exceptions for rape or incest. Kentucky's trigger ban on all abortions (again without exceptions for rape or incest) immediately went into effect, and Indiana is expected to ban abortion in a special session next month.
Within an hour of the initial ruling, Community Shares and several of our member organizations issued statements in solidarity with those who were losing their rights. We committed to continuing to fight with you. Community Shares noted on our social media that our Board had affirmed its support of vital reproductive medical care and bodily autonomy as recently as our April board meeting, when we unanimously opposed HB 598 and SB 123, both of which would have banned abortion in Ohio if Roe fell.
Our largest and longest-serving partner, Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region, issued a statement from its CEO and President Kersha Deibel: "This will have a lasting impact on generations and how dare our highest power of government make such an irresponsible decision. Planned Parenthood and our movement partners will not give up. We will continue to fight for abortion because abortion is health care and health care is a human right. This changes nothing for us at this moment. We will continue to open our doors, continue to see our patients, continue to connect patients to resources, and continue to take care of those who need us. Abortion, today, is still legal in Ohio."
Alana Jochum, Executive Director of member organization Equality Ohio, said: "This ruling takes our country back decades and serves as a reminder that our fundamental human rights are under attack from all sides. We know the fight for LGBTQ+ equality and abortion are inextricably linked by the fundamental rights to privacy and bodily autonomy. Our community will be negatively impacted by this decision for years to come."
Member organization the League of Women Voters Cincinnati Area Education Fund shared a statement from its national office that read in part: "Today’s ruling strips women and those who may become pregnant of their bodily autonomy and will have devastating — and immediate — consequences across the country. While the Court’s opinion was expected, its harm is extreme and real. When women and those who can become pregnant can no longer make reproductive decisions for their own bodies, they are no longer equal individuals in our democracy. This harm will exacerbate societal inequalities and fall disproportionately on people of color and low-income communities already facing egregious obstacles to health care."
Just as dangerous as this ruling, Justice Clarence Thomas said the quiet part out loud and clearly articulated in his concurring opinion his intention to take rights away for the use of contraception outside of marriage, the ability to engage in consensual adult sexual relations outside of marriage, the right for same-sex couples to marry, and "all" other rights that emanate from the same Fourteenth Amendment due process precedents that had underpinned Roe. (Interestingly, the man in an interracial marriage failed to include on his enumerated list the Fourteenth Amendment due process precedent upon which Roe and all of the other listed cases were largely based, Loving V. Virginia, which outlawed bans on interracial marriages like his own.) We cannot risk his fanatical, extreme, unAmerican agenda to continue to succeed. And don't think the other conservative justices won't go along with it. Even though they asserted a limitation in the majority ruling that they only applied this standard to abortion, they lied to the US Senate and public about whether they would overturn Roe and they are certainly lying in their illegitimate opinion in this case, too.
As the League of Women Voters continued: "The dissenting Justices get it exactly right: today’s majority opinion is an assault on the constitutional guarantee to equal protection of the laws and the right to due process. With this decision, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and other historically marginalized communities have no guarantees that their civil rights will be protected."
Rather concerning locally, though, was the realization as I was watching for responses from our community's other philanthropic leaders that they were not coming. One or two such as the Cincinnati Unit of the NAACP condemned the ruling, companies such as Kroger and entities such as the City of Cincinnati announced coverage for abortion-related travel costs for employees, but our region's major foundations and our fellow local charitable federations as of yet appear to be missing in action. I challenge them to prove that perception wrong in coming days.
We ask for you to consider supporting the only local federation that didn't hesitate to stand in solidarity with you and promises to keep fighting for your rights. Your partnership and support are vital for us and our partners to continue working toward a just and equitable community, and we so very much appreciate it. Thank you!
In solidarity,
T. Duane Gordon, CEO
Community Shares of Greater Cincinnati
