N.Y. Lawmakers and Activists Speak Out for Abortion Rights and Reproductive Justice: “If We Cannot Control Our Own Bodies, There Is No Democracy”

Brian Kavanagh

Originally published in Ms. Magazine

“If we cannot control our own bodies, there is no democracy. That is the requisite of every democracy,” said Gloria Steinem at a press conference organized by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) with New York political leaders and reproductive rights advocates in front of Planned Parenthood Manhattan Health Center in New York City on Monday. 

“Reproductive rights are no longer being chipped away at—they are being bulldozed straight into the ground,” said Maloney.

The press conference followed the Supreme Court’s oral arguments last week in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—a case involving a Mississippi 15-week abortion ban that threatens to overturn constitutional abortion rights in the United States established almost 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade.