Life and Death
Reproductive Rights Matter
When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, I was furious and scared and disbelieving. Furious for all the women who fought so hard for something that should never have been up for debate in the first place. Scared for my daughters, who are growing up in a world where their autonomy and rights are being dismantled so sneakily, so backhandedly. Disbelieving because we know how vital abortion is for women—for their health, their safety, their futures—and yet we’re watching that freedom disappear.
Abortion isn’t (just) a political issue—it’s a public health issue. Around 1 in 4 women in the U.S. will have an abortion in their lifetime, often because of medical complications, financial instability, or situations of abuse. The risks of banning abortion are staggering. In states with strict bans, maternal mortality rates are already climbing, with Black women facing a 3 to 4 times higher risk of death during pregnancy and childbirth than white women. Research shows that when abortion is inaccessible, women are more likely to experience financial insecurity, remain in abusive relationships, and face severe health risks, including death from unsafe abortion procedures.
It’s also a social justice issue. When Roe was overturned, I expected protests everywhere. But on the college campus where I work and study, there was silence. It felt like we’ve grown so used to being trampled on, so used to losing ground, that we don’t even react anymore. Now, with a new conservative administration, I fear what comes next: a future where women have little to no control over their own bodies, where we are forced into motherhood without choice or support.
That kind of world isn’t just harmful to women—it’s harmful to children too. In this country, where social supports for mothers and children are practically nonexistent, it feels like our value peaks when we’re in the womb and declines the moment we’re born. That’s not “pro-life”—it’s “pro-birth.”
The Life and Death design came from all these feelings. The merging of the female reproductive system with a Texas longhorn skull, I think, can be a powerful symbol of this struggle—the lives of women who stand to die without access to abortion, the freedom to choose that is being stolen from us, and the fight that is centered so much in southern states like Texas but spreads more every day.
We have to stand against that future, and resist the socialized urge to stay quiet and not make trouble. We ought to be marching in the streets, chanting, striking, forcing everyone to reckon with the fact that more than 64% of women and 61% of men in the U.S. support the right to choose. We have to start making trouble and making a statement and making this issue unavoidable to the people of this country and the rest of the world. We have to do that for everyone who deserves a life of dignity, choice, and freedom.