Please Don't Mark The Anniversary Of Roe By Buying A $75 Gwyneth Paltrow Vagina Candle

Donate to some clinics and abortion funds.

Today is the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. It's hard to know what to say.

It's hard because I feel like I'm supposed to say "Hey! Welcome to the last year that we will have safe and legal abortions for everyone in the United States!" or something like that, but the truth is that we are already well past that. The truth is that everyone in the United States does not currently have the ability to get a safe and legal abortion, and that's been the case for some time now. Not only do we have states like Texas essentially outlawing abortion by allowing private citizens to sue anyone who helps anyone get an abortion, we have six states — Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia — that have only one abortion clinic left.

It's pretty much a given that the Supreme Court will be overturning Roe , and when that happens, more than half of the states will very likely be outlawing abortion immediately.

Guttmacher Institute 

The Florida House just cleared a bill that will outlaw abortion in the state after 15 weeks, and if that goes through (which it will), there will be a massive impact on the ability of women across the south to access abortion, as Florida has long been a place where they can go to get one. Oklahoma Republicans are out here trying to ban abortion after 30 days .

It's not a great situation we've got going on here. And with voting rights going down the drain, it may not be a situation we can vote ourselves out of, at least nationally. Our best bet right now is the Senate passing the Women's Health Protection Act, which will codify Roe into law, though it's not clear how that gets done with the filibuster still in place. It's lovely to think about, it's fine to rah-rah-sisboom-bah the idea that there is some chance Democrats will get enough of a majority in the Senate to cancel out Manchin and Sinema and eliminate the filibuster, even if every Black person in a red state has to wait 12 hours in line and lose their job to vote ... but it's not the most likely scenario.

This doesn't mean that we don't keep fighting on the ground. It just means that how we fight may change. We may have to learn how to fight differently in some ways and focus on what is really helpful. Volunteering is helpful. Donating money is helpful. Gwyneth Paltrow's $75 "Hands of My Vagina" candle is not particularly helpful, even if $25 from each sale is going to the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project — because $50 is still going towards Gwyneth Paltrow. Better one should donate the whole $75 to the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project or to independent clinics and abortion funds , and then, maybe, get a far less embarrassing candle at TJ Maxx for $10 like a normal person.

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