In a Post-Roe America, Knowledge Isn’t Just Power—It’s Survival

Three years ago, I remember exactly where I was when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. My stomach sank. As an OB/GYN PA with more than a decade in reproductive care, I knew this wasn’t just devastating—it was going to reshape the healthcare landscape completely.

The conversations I’d been having with patients for years—about abortion, birth control, miscarriage, pregnancy loss, pain—were about to get harder, more complicated, and more dangerous.

I had the honor of joining over 100 incredible storytellers in Washington, D.C. for the Our Voices, Our Stories, Our Future: Free & Just Storyteller Summit, to mark three years since the deadly Dobbs decision.

In emergencies, minutes matter. I’ve been in those rooms. And I can tell you: When someone is crashing in front of you, the last thing you should be doing is calling legal.

I am still in awe of the number of people who were courageous enough to travel from across the country to tell their stories and fight for reproductive freedom. We laughed together, we cried together, and we shared our visions for a better future.

We also came to D.C. to meet with lawmakers to remind them that Dobbs didn’t just overturn Roe: It changed lives.

Although the fall of Roe didn’t end abortion in this country, it made it exponentially harder to access. It made it scarier. It deepened the segregation of healthcare access in America. If you’re wealthy enough to travel for care, you might still be okay. But if you’re not—if you’re young, uninsured, working class, Black, or Brown—you’re at greater risk. And we know abortion bans lead to higher maternal mortality, especially for Black women.

Let’s be clear: The anti-abortion zealots behind Dobbs were never going to stop there. In the three years since, I’ve watched extremists celebrate it as a win for “states’ rights,” while women are forced to flee their home states for basic care. “Leaving it to the states” doesn’t mean freedom. It means chaos. It means harm. It means people die.

That’s not an exaggeration—that’s reality.

And President Donald Trump? He doesn’t need to sign a national abortion ban to wreak havoc. He and his allies are already gutting protections through rollbacks, legal loopholes, and silence where there should be leadership.

Recently, Trump’s Supreme Court ruled that states can block people relying on Medicaid from choosing Planned Parenthood as their trusted healthcare provider, a devastating blow to abortion rights and reproductive healthcare—specifically, the freedom of millions of people who use Medicaid to choose Planned Parenthood as their healthcare provider.

The court put millions of Americans’ essential right to reproductive care at risk, and it will devastate communities all across the country just so Republicans in Congress can completely gut Medicaid for millions more Americans. Earlier this month, the Trump administration rescinded federal guidance that protected abortion access in emergencies. That guidance made clear what EMTALA—our federal emergency care law—already guarantees: If a pregnant patient shows up to the ER in crisis and needs an abortion to survive, they must get care.

Now that guidance is gone. And providers are left wondering if they’ll be sued—or even arrested—for doing their jobs.

In emergencies, minutes matter. I’ve been in those rooms. And I can tell you: When someone is crashing in front of you, the last thing you should be doing is calling legal.

And now they’ve set their sights on medication abortion—specifically mifepristone. This medication has been safely used by more than 8 million people over the last 20+ years. It’s not only essential for abortion care—it’s critical for miscarriage management too. But extremists don’t care about science, or safety. They care about control.

If they succeed in restricting mifepristone, it won’t just impact abortion access. It will gut miscarriage care. It could force providers to delay or deny treatment. And it could shut down clinics that rely on it to function—clinics already hanging on by a thread.

This is how they win. Not just with bans, but with quiet sabotage. With red tape. With fear. With confusion. With back-handed backdoor restrictions on our rights to bodily autonomy.

This is a critical moment in history for both patients and physicians alike to stay informed—because the moves happening now could reshape access to reproductive healthcare nationwide.

That’s why I started Take Back Trust—because people need more than outrage. They need answers, and they need tools. Patients need to walk into an ER or a clinic and know what to say, what to ask, and what their rights are.

Take Back Trust is a national resource hub helping people navigate this broken system. Whether you’re facing a miscarriage, scheduling a birth control visit, or trying to figure out if your state still protects you—we’ve got your back.

I am inspired by the words of former Vice President Kamala Harris, who surprised us via video at the Summit. “I know these are difficult times, and it requires a whole lot of courage, and it requires a level of optimism, to remember that we’re fighting for something, not against something,” the former Vice President reminded us. “And in that way we are doing good and important work that is about upholding fundamental rights, such as the freedom of an individual to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do.”

As a clinician, a content creator, and a full-time reproductive rights advocate working at the intersection of medicine and movement, I’ll keep showing up. I’ll keep saying the quiet parts out loud. Because we’re not going back—and we’re not backing down.

We can’t afford to.

Lives are on the line. Not someday, today.