INTERCEPT
By Vowing to Codify Roe, Kamala Harris Ensures Continued Government Meddling in Abortion Care
by Jordan Smith

Ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week, dozens of advocates are calling for an expansive vision of abortion rights that they hope Harris and other politicians will embrace to create equitable reproductive health policy. They are pointing to a memo titled “Abortion Justice, Now” of which Villavicencio is a primary co-author, that lays out a vision of reproductive freedom that expands far beyond the reaches of Roe.

NPR
As Democrats Meet in Chicago, Illinois’ Role in Abortion Access is in the Spotlight
by Sarah McCammon

Nearly 100 progressive groups and hundreds of individual activists are instead promoting a policy platform dubbed Abortion Justice Now, which calls for removing all government restrictions on abortion.

Jenni Villavicencio, an OB-GYN and co-author of Abortion Justice Now, said while she understands Democrats’ concerns about losing moderate voters’ support, she wants to see party leaders take a risk to advocate for people at the margins. More than 90 percent of abortions occur in the first trimester, according to the CDC, but Villavicencio said she’s treated patients who had medical complications late in pregnancy and others who were blocked from having an abortion earlier by an abusive partner.

Politico
Harris wants to restore Roe. For many activists, that’s not enough.
by Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly

Nearly 100 progressive groups and hundreds of individual activists are instead promoting a policy platform dubbed Abortion Justice Now, which calls for removing all government restrictions on abortion.

The Nation
Now is the Time for Kamala Harris to Flip the Script and Win Big on Abortion
by Amy Littlefield

Tens of thousands of abortion seekers were denied care every year due to abortion restrictions while Roe was in place, as a coalition of reproductive health and justice groups who signed the Abortion Justice Now memo point out. Roe allowed states to ban abortion after “viability,” which is around 24 weeks. “Gestational and viability limits will disproportionately impact the most marginalized among us, either denying them critical care or pulling families toward financial instability,” the authors wrote. “These limits will result in an inequitable ability to exercise rights, allow for criminalization in pregnancy, and ultimately reinforce the dangerous assertion that the government has any role in regulating a pregnant person’s body.” Many ballot initiatives this year from Florida to Arizona would enshrine the Roe limit into state constitutions, but at least one poll shows core voters might be more supportive of these measures without such limits. 

Politico
’Immediate shift’: Democrats speaking about abortion in once unimaginable ways
by Megan Messerly and Alice Miranda Ollstein

Abortion-rights activists who have long called for a broader message see the shift toward highlighting a wider variety of abortion stories as promising. Jenni Villavicencio, an OB-GYN and co-founder of Raven Lab for Reproductive Liberation, which advocates for abortion access throughout pregnancy, said that until recently, the only abortion stories featured in Democratic ads and speeches were “neatly-tied-up-in-a-bow medical emergencies, from a white, affluent, connected individual who has tons of support and looks good on camera.”