The Legal Defense Fund joined a coalition of civil rights groups in sending a letter to the U.S. Senate in support of S. 4132, the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022. The letter urges all senators to vote in favor of the bill immediately. As indicated by the draft opinion leaked last week, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely vote to overturn reproductive rights when it rules on the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The decision would dismantle the constitutional right to seek abortion care and leave the regulation of reproductive rights to the states. The Women’s Health Protection Act would protect the right to abortion care, and remedy and prevent the onslaught of state-level abortion bans. These restrictions disproportionately impact the ability of low-income women and women of color to access health care, robs pregnant people of bodily autonomy, and threatens the economic security of families and individuals, many of whom are already struggling to get by. At the most basic level, restrictive abortion laws are aimed at controlling who can exercise their rights and who can claim agency over their bodies. As such, laws restricting abortion are an affront to human dignity that perpetuate systems of oppression and prevent the full enjoyment of civil and human rights. The letter urges legislators to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act.
Read the full letter here.
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
