Susanna Gibson remembers where she was and what she was doing on June 24, 2022, the way some remember 9/11 or the Challenger explosion. The nurse practitioner was sitting at her kitchen table in Henrico, Va., going over some patient charts, when her phone buzzed. It was one of her best friends, sharing a link to a news article.
“I saw this text come in, and the feeling of anger and sadness, and just fury but also powerlessness that I felt … I will never forget that,” she said.
The Supreme Court had just published its opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The 6-3 ruling overturned Roe v. Wade’s holding that women have a constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion. Dobbs tossed out 50 years of precedent, allowed 21 states so far to enact laws banning or significantly curtailing women’s ability to end their pregnancies and pissed off a lot of women.
