Marking the first anniversary of the death of the supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Cecile Richards warned that after nearly 50 years, Republicans are on the brink of ending the right to abortion.
“We must fight to fully regain it,” said the former president of Planned Parenthood, a leading provider of women’s healthcare.
Ginsburg, a hero to American liberals widely known as RBG, died on 18 September 2020. She was 87.
Republicans in Congress tore up their own precedent to rush confirmation of her replacement, Amy Coney Barrett, shortly before elections which cost them the White House and Senate.
Barrett, a devout Catholic, is widely seen as an opponent of the right to abortion, which the court guaranteed in its Roe v Wade decision in 1973.
Earlier this month, Barrett and four other conservatives on a panel on which liberals are outnumbered 6-3 allowed to stand a Texas law which most experts deemed flagrantly unconstitutional.
The most restrictive such law in the US prohibits abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually around the sixth week of pregnancy, before most women know they are pregnant.
Courts have blocked similar restrictions but the Texas law leaves enforcement to private citizens through lawsuits instead of prosecutors through criminal charges.
Richards now co-chairs American Bridge 21st Century, which supports liberal causes. In an open letter, she said Texas Republicans had “outlined a roadmap for other Republican governors to follow suit, with the acquiescence of the supreme court”.
The US justice department is suing Texas but a separate case from Mississippi is widely seen as a chance for conservative justices to overturn Roe v Wade for good.
In the past week, Barrett and her fellow conservative Clarence Thomas have claimed supreme court justices do not act according to partisan beliefs.
Barrett did so in Kentucky while standing next to Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican who secured her place on the court, at a centre named in his honour.
Thomas told an audience in Indiana: “The court was thought to be the least dangerous branch [of government] and we may have become the most dangerous.”
Richards called Ginsburg “a trailblazer and advocate for women everywhere”.
Ginsburg’s successor as the most senior liberal on the court is Stephen Breyer, at 83 the author of a new book, The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics. He has said he does not want to die on the bench but he has also deflected calls to retire so Democrats can install a replacement before the midterm elections.
According to an Associated Press poll, a solid majority of Americans believe most abortions should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, but most say the procedure should usually be illegal thereafter.
Richards told the AP people “have always assumed that even if they lived in a state that passed restrictions on reproductive care, that there was always a judicial system that would be there to protect them and declare these laws unconstitutional. That isn’t happening any more.
“We are in a post-Roe world now. Here in the state of Texas, Roe is no longer in effect ... and all it takes is a Republican governor and a Republican legislature. Your state could be exactly the same.”