The multimillion-dollar organization not only helps elect anti-choice lawmakers, but the group shapes and influences state laws-and the NRLC hopes that state legislatures nationwide will soon adopt its new model legislation that would subject people to criminal and civil penalties for “aiding or abetting” abortion. Last month Prism’s editor-in-chief Ashton Lattimore reported on new anti-abortion model legislation released by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), one of the oldest and most powerful anti-choice groups in the nation. Harder to anticipate was how quickly the ruling would affect First Amendment rights-a gravely serious issue that should concern every newsroom operating today. How long before right-wing lawmakers come for contraception? How long before they come for interracial marriage and gay marriage? How will this ruling be used as justification to further whittle away at trans rights?Ībortion experts knew that overturning Roe would be a slippery slope. In effect, the Supreme Court ruling that the right to abortion is not “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history or tradition” has strapped a ticking time bomb onto other fundamental human rights. The risk of criminalization is so great that abortion funds have paused operations in states with trigger bans and laws that target people who provide abortion support. In states like Arizona and Texas, which have some of the largest undocumented populations in the nation, providers have stopped offering abortion care or packed up to move to a neighboring state, leaving undocumented people who cannot risk Border Patrol checkpoints with virtually no options. Wade and struck down our Constitutional right to abortion, the country has turned into an even more hostile place for marginalized people. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that overturned Roe v. In the weeks since the Supreme Court issued its decision in the Dobbs v. Editor’s note: This Op-Ed is jointly published in partnership with Palabra

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