THREE YEARS LATER: The MAGA War on Women, the Constitution, and the Right to Choose

CHAPTER I: THE ANNIVERSARY THAT SHOULDN’T EXIST

June 24 came and went this week with little ceremony from the Supreme Court that made it necessary. Three years ago to the day, the Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It was a Friday. America woke up with fewer rights than it had the night before. And as of this week, the wreckage continues.

Because on June 26, 2025—two days after that somber anniversary—the same Supreme Court delivered another blow, ruling 6–3 that Planned Parenthood could not sue South Carolina for stripping away its Medicaid funding.

The ruling wasn’t technically about abortion, but let’s stop pretending. Let’s stop calling these decisions “technical.” This wasn’t about paperwork. This was about power—who has it, and who doesn’t. And this court just told every red-state governor with a grudge and a pulpit that they can cut funding to reproductive care providers with impunity, even if it means half their state loses access to STD testing, cancer screenings, and birth control.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, argued that Medicaid patients don’t have a private right to sue under the law—even when states violate it. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in dissent, saw what this really was: a gutting of rights so specific, so deliberate, and so dangerous that she called it a threat to the very idea of freedom.

“At a minimum,” she wrote, “it will deprive Medicaid recipients in South Carolina of their only meaningful way of enforcing a right that Congress has expressly granted to them.”

Read that again. The Court didn’t just take away an option. It took away a remedy.

CHAPTER II: THE WAR THAT FOLLOWED DOBBS

Let’s be very clear: This did not begin with South Carolina, and it will not end there.

Since the Dobbs decision was handed down on June 24, 2022, overturning Roe v. Wade and ending 50 years of constitutional protection for abortion access, 14 states have enacted near-total bans on abortion. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, 13 states now outlaw abortion entirely, with no exceptions for rape or incest in many cases.

This isn’t abstract theory. It’s doctrine, enforced at scale. Let me say that again, because apparently the word “inhumane” got lost in the mail: No exception for rape. No exception for incest. Sometimes not even an exception to save the mother’s life.

The fallout has been seismic and measurable. The Journal of the American Medical Association has reported rising maternal mortality rates in states that enacted bans. A 2024 Time magazine investigation confirmed that second-trimester abortions have increased—not because women are waiting, but because travel delays and red tape are pushing care out of reach. Women are being forced to drive hundreds of miles, sometimes to different time zones, just to get the medical attention their bodies demand and their rights once guaranteed.

And in states like South Carolina, the cruelty doesn’t even pretend to be subtle. Governor Henry McMaster signed an executive order in 2018 to defund Planned Parenthood, claiming it was about taxpayer money and abortion. But the effect? Patients lost access to breast exams, contraceptives, and STD testing. One-fifth of South Carolina is on Medicaid. Planned Parenthood operates just two clinics in the state. This isn’t policy. It’s punishment.

CHAPTER III: THE LANGUAGE OF POWER

The conservative justices, led by Gorsuch, did what they do best: use neutral-sounding legalese to deliver politically radioactive outcomes. “The statute,” Gorsuch wrote, “uses clear and unambiguous rights-creating language, so neither supports a private suit.”

Translation? If the government breaks the rules, you’re out of luck—unless Congress specifically handed you a court key in Section 402(a) paragraph 17B.

We live in a country where corporations can sue over profit margins, but women can’t sue when the government cuts off their cancer screenings. Medicaid patients—some of the most vulnerable people in this country—have been told by the highest court in the land that their right to choose a qualified doctor isn’t enforceable. Not in court. Not anywhere. That wasn’t always the case.

For decades, lower federal courts upheld that Medicaid recipients had a right to sue under Section 1983 when states restricted access to qualified providers.

That’s not a technicality. That’s an assault.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing separately, celebrated the decision as a rollback of what he sees as judicial overreach dating back to Reconstruction. Justice Jackson reminded him that Reconstruction was, in fact, about civil rights—and that this court is now actively eroding them.

CHAPTER IV: THE CONSEQUENCES ARE NOT THEORETICAL

You may think this is an abstract legal debate. But if you’ve been pregnant in a post-Dobbs state, you know better.

• Doctors have left their practices rather than risk prosecution for treating miscarriages.

• Medical students have changed specialties or left their home states.

• Women have been denied care until they are on the brink of sepsis because ER doctors fear violating state law.

The New England Journal of Medicine reported a sharp increase in "near-miss" maternal deaths in states with abortion bans. And these aren’t isolated anecdotes—they are clinical outcomes, published and peer-reviewed.

In Idaho, the OB-GYN residency program at the state’s largest hospital shut down because doctors could no longer safely train there. In Texas, women have filed lawsuits after being denied abortions despite fatal fetal anomalies.

This isn’t dystopian fiction. It’s domestic policy.

You know the story. A woman in pain. A hospital afraid. A desperate drive across state lines.

That story isn’t rare. It’s law.

The Handmaid’s Tale wasn’t a prophecy.
It was a blueprint. And someone’s been following it.

CHAPTER V: THE POLITICS OF SILENCE AND THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION

The Biden administration condemned the Dobbs ruling and has used executive orders to protect access to medication abortion and patient privacy. But they are now constrained by a Court that believes words like “liberty” are optional depending on the ZIP code.

Kamala Harris, speaking on the third anniversary of Dobbs, said, “Three years ago, the Supreme Court took a constitutional right from the people of America. It was a devastating day—but it was not the end of the story.”

She’s right. But if we want the next chapter to read differently, we cannot wait for the courts to find their conscience. Congress must act. States must fight. And voters must stop assuming someone else will fix it.

In 2022 and 2023, voters in Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky all approved ballot measures protecting reproductive rights—proof that when the people speak, freedom wins. But silence? Silence is how you get South Carolina.

CHAPTER VI: THE PATH FORWARD

There are moments in history when the path forward isn’t just clear—it’s screaming at us in bold type. This is one of those moments.

Because the truth is, rights are not self-sustaining. They don’t renew like magazine subscriptions. They live or die based on what we do with them. And if you’re tired, if you’re worn out, if you feel like this country is slipping through your fingers—it’s because it is. Unless we grab it back.

So here’s what we do. Not someday. Not when the polling is better. Not when the Court changes. Now.

1. Codify Roe. Not in spirit. In statute.

et’s end the dance. Let’s stop praying that precedent will save us when six justices treat precedent like a chalkboard in a rainstorm.

The Women’s Health Protection Act would do what Roe once did: protect the right to access abortion nationwide—without leaving it to the whims of governors, gerrymandered legislatures, or self-appointed prophets in the statehouse. Not just in California or New York or Vermont. Everywhere.

It’s passed the House before. It can pass again. And with enough pressure, the Senate will have to listen.

No more filibuster excuses. No more "politically difficult" hedging. If this can’t be the hill, what the hell are you waiting for—smoke signals?

If you claim to support women’s rights and you’re not fighting for this, then you’re not actually fighting. You're just tweeting.

2. Restore the right to sue.

This week’s decision didn’t just target Planned Parenthood—it targeted every Medicaid recipient in the country. Because a right without a remedy is no right at all. That right existed in practice—until this Court took it away. Congress can fix this with one sentence: “Individuals insured under Medicaid shall have a private right of action to enforce their choice of provider.” That's it. That’s the ballgame.

The courts say it’s Congress’s call? Then make the call. Pick up the damn phone.

3. Fund providers. Not performative politics.

Let’s not wait for red states to find compassion. Let’s out-organize them. If South Carolina won’t fund Planned Parenthood, then North Carolina can help. If Texas won’t allow clinics, then mobile units from New Mexico can roll in. This is how the civil rights movement worked—state to state, faith to faith, dollar to dollar. Not everyone will cross state lines to help—but someone has to build the roads for those who will.

This is not charity. It’s justice logistics.

4. Get loud.

One of the great political lies of the last 10 years is that the right is passionate and the left is polite. That has never been true. The right is loud. The left has been busy explaining itself to death.

Stop waiting to sound perfect. Stop playing chess while they’re lighting the board on fire. Speak plainly. March relentlessly. Vote furiously. Protest, donate, testify, scream, organize, call your senators at 3 a.m. if you have to. Because I promise you, the people banning abortions in Tennessee are not worried about sounding too angry.

The moral majority doesn’t belong to them. We just let them borrow the microphone.

5. Reframe the issue. This is not just about abortion.

It’s about liberty. About dignity. About control. If the government can force a woman to carry a pregnancy against her will, then what can’t they do? If they can tell your daughter what she has to do with her body, then what makes you think your marriage, your privacy, or your vote is safe?

This isn’t a women’s issue. It’s a freedom issue. A class issue. A federalism issue. Because the people most hurt by abortion bans aren’t celebrities or senators or people with private jets—they’re working mothers, Black and brown women, rural families, immigrant communities. The same people who can’t afford the time off, the travel, or the trauma.

This is what MAGA means when it says “returning power to the states.” Not better roads or balanced budgets. But the ability to disappear your rights at the border.

And here’s the hardest part:

It’s not enough to be right. We have to be relentless.

History doesn’t remember who was correct. It remembers who showed up.

So show up.

CODA: THIS IS THE TEST

Let me end where I started: June 24, 2022.

A date that should live in infamy alongside December 7, 1941.

The only difference is that this time, the attack didn’t come from abroad, or from a mob—it came dressed in robes, wielding doctrine, hiding behind Latin.

Three years later, the war on women is not just real—it’s escalating. But here’s the truth they don’t want you to know:

The Constitution isn’t a suicide pact. And democracy isn’t a spectator sport.

There’s still time to turn this around. Still time to speak up. Still time to vote, legislate, organize, and protect. But if we want a future where our daughters are free to control their own bodies, we cannot leave that future to the mercy of six justices and a governor with a pen.

This is the test. Not just of laws, but of values. And history is watching.