On Tuesday, September 4, I put my body on the line to protect fundamental freedoms for women and families. I stood up and disrupted the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing because I know that right now, we cannot afford to stay silent. I was arrested for speaking up, but I do not regret a thing.
I was afraid, even though I have been arrested before, because getting arrested at 37 it not the same as getting arrested at 20. I’m married and Washington, D.C. is a long way from St. Louis, Missouri, where my husband was at home. I have a career and all the obligations and responsibilities that come with being the boss. My body is not the same as it was in college; it’s older, slower, sore.
But I got courage from a friend, who was taking her daughter to the first day of school. The night before the Kavanaugh hearings began she tweeted, “I swore if this moment came I would run naked through the streets, burn my hair, do whatever it took to protect legal abortion. But tomorrow is my daughter’s first day of kindergarten. I am giving myself permission to be the hero she needs. And so, tonight, I’m packing lunch.”
I thought about my friend, her daughter, and my own two nephews and my first niece on the way, and what kind of world I want to leave for them. Every time I think about them, I well up in tears.
As the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri, I have plenty of experience with politicians threatening to take my right to control my body away. Every year in my state, dozens of bills are filed to chip away at access to abortion – or even outright banning it. I regularly travel two hours to our capital, Jefferson City, from my city of residence, St. Louis, multiple times a week while our legislature is in session to make sure these restrictions don’t make it on the books.
This year, we avoided the passing of a 20-week abortion ban and then a 6-week ban. Every year, state Rep. Mike Moon files a “personhood” bill, which would ban abortion completely, taking in vitro fertilization and most form of birth control with it. All it would take would be one of these dangerous bills to pass, get challenged in the courts, and eventually make it to the Supreme Court for Brett Kavanaugh to uphold it and do lasting damage to Roe v. Wade.
This process has already begun, thanks to the unconstitutional 6-week ban in Iowa, which is now being challenged in the courts. It would be a strikingly simple and swift blow to our right to legal abortion.
So, I set out to disrupt the first day of the Kavanaugh hearings. I stood outside sweating for five hours, in a heat index of over 100 degrees, before my group of 20 was ushered inside the Hart Building by a Senate staffer. Why?
Because I know what is on the line if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. For myself and for my friend, I got arrested to make sure abortion remains legal. For my family, I needed to make sure my husband and my nephew are never denied healthcare because of preexisting conditions.
Kavanaugh was chosen because of his extensive anti-choice record. Trump said his Supreme Court nominee would overturn Roe v. Wade, and I believe him. With Kavanaugh on the bench, he will do just that. Roe is important to me, not only because I am the executive director of a reproductive rights organization, but because in 2016, I also had an abortion.
While my abortion story is a privileged one, I also decided to cross state lines from Missouri into Illinois to seek the care I needed, wanted, and deserved, because accessing abortion in a state like Missouri is much more difficult than it has to be, thanks to unnecessary restrictions like a 72-hour waiting period, and state-mandated, medically unindicated and unnecessary consent. Brett Kavanaugh stands to make it worse.
And this isn’t just about reproductive freedom. This is about affordable health care, union rights, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, immigrant rights, and so much more.
If we choose not to stand up, our children will grow up in a world where they have less rights than their parents and grandparents. But we have the opportunity right now to stop this before Kavanaugh can take us backwards. I am going to use every moment I can to prove to our senators that Americans desperately need them to protect our care and vote no on Kavanaugh.
My mom always told me I was born in the wrong decade, but it turns out this is the moment I was born for. We must do everything we can, and for me that means putting my body and freedom on the line, to not only stop Kavanaugh, but to fight for the world we want future generations to live in. For me, that is not Trump’s America. Not a single ounce if it. Join me in opposing this Supreme Court nominee, this is the time to make your voice heard.
Alison Dreith is executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri.
