4 Years Ago, Republicans Took Roe; Now, Our Rights Depend on Taking Back Congress
As long as Republicans are in power, none of our rights are safe. They are decided election by election, one seat in Congress at a time.
Years before Republicans overturned Roe v. Wade, I sat in a hospital bed, preparing for my own abortion after a devastating pregnancy loss.
The grief was consuming. My husband and I were mourning the abrupt loss of a future we had longed for. At the time, I never considered myself to be fortunate. That feeling didn’t seep in until nearly eight years later—when Republicans began passing extreme abortion bans across the nation, unleashing widespread, preventable suffering upon millions of women.
In that hospital room, I was surrounded by compassionate doctors who offered me a choice between a surgical or medication abortion—the best forms of treatment available to prevent severe bleeding and infection. Yet now, those same methods of care are considered felonies across dozens of states, and are being actively targeted by Republicans. While I was welcomed into the wing of my local hospital for the procedure, women today are forced to travel hundreds of miles for care or told to wait in hospital parking lots until their lives are in jeopardy before they can legally be treated. While I took time to recover at home—both physically and emotionally—after leaving the hospital, women today are handcuffed, investigated, and even threatened with murder charges after suffering their own miscarriages.
Republicans have made it clear: They don’t care about the cruelty of their bans, the women’s lives that are being lost to them, or that the vast majority of Americans want abortion access to be legal and protected. Their extremist agenda has not only stripped women of their freedoms; it has caused widespread pain—including sharp spikes in life-threatening infections, infant and maternal deaths, and worse miscarriage outcomes than in states without abortion restrictions.
As attacks remain in full steam, abortion has already had an outsized influence on the 2026 midterms.
But the most horrifying part of all is that Republicans are not stopping here.
Emboldened by extremist MAGA allies, the US Supreme Court is currently considering whether to outlaw telehealth, mail, and pharmacy delivery for abortion medication, instead requiring patients to obtain it in person. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is conducting a sham Food and Drug Administration “review” of mifepristone—a safe, effective, and FDA-approved medication used in the majority of abortions in the US—in order to lay the groundwork for national restrictions. These attacks could result in the biggest rollback to abortion access since the Dobbs decision.
As the president of EMILYs List, I’ve seen firsthand that Republicans’ relentless pursuit of their anti-abortion agenda remains a motivator for voters nationwide. American women are fed up with their bodies, their health, and their lives being treated like political pawns—and until Republicans stop attacking our rights, the desire to protect abortion will continue driving voters to the polls.
That proved true in 2025, when Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger won historic governorships against anti-abortion Republicans who had clear intentions of enacting extreme restrictions in their home states. Abortion was also one of the most powerful drivers of Democratic wins downballot across Virginia, where every EMILYs List-endorsed woman running to flip a Republican-held seat did just that in November, protecting our majority in the House of Delegates and protecting Virginians from a surefire ban.
As attacks remain in full steam, abortion has already had an outsized influence on the 2026 midterms. Over the last two months, I’ve met with voters on the ground across the nation, including in key US House flip districts, where Denise Powell (Neb.-02), Lindsay James (Iowa-02), and Marni Von Wilpert (Calif.-48) battled out competitive primary victories solidified by their staunch pro-choice bonafides. We’re seeing this at the state level too, like in Pennsylvania, where Brittany Bloam (Pa.-HD45) cruised to a primary win over Pat Catena, a Democrat who unsuccessfully tried rebranding as pro-choice, despite a record proving the exact opposite.
Voters trust women like these to fight for abortion access in their communities because they have never wavered in their support of women’s right to choose, and they have the track record to prove it. These women are our strongest pathway to taking back power in Congress and pumping the breaks on Republicans’ unhinged agenda.
Four years without Roe, it’s clearer than ever: As long as Republicans are in power, none of our rights are safe. They are decided election by election, one seat in Congress at a time. And this November, they depend wholly on firing anti-abortion Republicans, and electing Democratic pro-choice women to lead the fight to take back our freedoms.
