Washington, DC – Today LGBTQ Victory Fund President & CEO Mayor Annise Parker released the following statement about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade:
“Our worst fears have come to pass. With partial or complete abortion bans and trigger laws encoded at the state level across the country, millions of Americans have lost their right to make life-saving medical decisions about their own bodies. This assault on our fundamental freedoms by a Supreme Court willing to choose politics over precedent will cost lives and will disproportionally affect access to critical reproductive health care for people of color and low-income communities. It may also have cascading effects on legal cases pertaining to the LGBTQ community, especially for trans and nonbinary people as they face an unprecedented increase in legal and legislative attacks.
“Our nation must confront the devastating reality that we can no longer rely on the Court to protect our most basic rights. Lawmakers must now determine what freedoms we have and which we don’t for the foreseeable future. We call on policymakers in all branches and at all levels of government to use every tool available to fight to keep abortion legal and accessible.
“This cannot and will not stand. We must go into this election cycle with fury, determined to replace those who helped create this catastrophe with pro-choice champions. The stakes are too high to sit on the sidelines or remain silent.”
After the draft Supreme Court decision was leaked last month, Victory Fund joined the National Center for Lesbian Rights and 90 other LGBTQ organizations in an open letter to policymakers voicing its strong support for the right to abortion and the importance of abortion for the LGBTQ community. Victory Fund believes the fight for reproductive justice is the fight for LGBTQ equality and its endorsement criteria has always required candidates support abortion rights and the right to privacy.
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LGBTQ Victory Fund
LGBTQ Victory Fund works to achieve and sustain equality by increasing the number of openly LGBTQ elected officials at all levels of government while ensuring they reflect the diversity of those they serve. Since 1991, Victory Fund has helped thousands of openly LGBTQ candidates win local, state and federal elections.
