Here’s your January NPC Newsletter! This month, join a webinar sponsored by DSA’s National Labor Commission, read the Democracy Commission’s report to members, apply to the NPC, and much more. Read on to get involved. 

And to make sure you get our newsletters in your inbox, sign up here! Each one features action alerts, upcoming events, political education, and more.

• From Our Co-Chairs — Don’t Panic! Organize with DSA 
• Democracy Commission: Report to Members and Presentation
• 2025 YDSA Organizing Conference
• Apply to the National Political Committee — Deadline Wednesday 2/5
• Lessons from the US Labor Party for Working-Class Politics Today on 2/20
• Housing Justice Commission Abolish Rent Reading Group
• International Committee Chapter Liaisons Update & Recruitment
• Organizing for Power 2025: Training for Organizers by the Late Jane McAlevey
• Work for DSA! Apply by 2/17
• We Are the Union Discussion Group Launch on 3/3

From Our Co-Chairs — Don’t Panic! Organize with DSA 

As we write this newsletter, we’re watching Trump roll out a horror show of new executive orders at breakneck speed, almost too quickly to keep up with. It’s like a greatest hits album of right wing scare propaganda, codified with a fascist sweep of the pen: mass deportation, anti-trans discrimination, blows to equal opportunity employment, and more.

But what we are not going to do is go along with this agenda — like many Democrats and ruling class liberals already are. We’re not going to flail around dooming online, with no clear collective course of action. And what we are certainly not going to listen to anyone who says that the working class is a lost cause and cannot be won over to socialism. 

This past weekend, we were on the ground in Washington, DC, to protest Trump’s inauguration, along with thousands of DSA comrades joining distributed actions across the country. We were there to show we’re committed to fight back against this administration’s onslaught to divide and disempower the working class. No Genocide! No Deportations! No Abortion Bans! No Trans Bans! No Evictions! No Union-busting!

For many of us this was a flashback to the first time Trump was inaugurated in 2017 — but this time DSA is a much stronger, much larger, and more powerful organization with years of experience about how we organize against an increasingly unhinged capitalist class.

Our task is to build the political alternative that’s strong enough to defeat the forces behind Trump. That comes from doing the intentional work of organizing together to demonstrate what real working class power feels like: the power of organizing with coworkers to win more democratic control over your workplace; the power of winning transformative reforms that raise people’s expectations about what’s possible, and how we can raise hell to win more; the power of winning more secure housing against a bad landlord; the freedom that comes with not living in fear of crippling debt from appendicitis or a root canal; the safety that comes from a community that finds joy, meaning, and strength in diversity, education, and liberation.

We will not panic. 

We will organize. 

We will fight. 

And we will win.

That means that each and every one of us needs to be on board in whatever way we can. If that means attending your first DSA chapter meeting in a few years (or ever), get on it! If it means taking on more of a leadership role locally or nationally, even though you’ve been hesitant, sign up! If it means upping your dues to help ensure that DSA has more material resources and support for the collective work we’re doing, go for it! If it means giving a few hours of your time to talk to DSA members across the country about how to plug in, please do! 

We are in this together for the long haul — and that means collectively figuring out how to support each other to step up or step back our capacity in ways that sustain our shared work. Serving in the national leadership of DSA is an intense and often exhausting responsibility, and we are sad to share that since our last newsletter, Rose D has resigned from the National Political Committee. We thank her for all of her work, especially as chair of our National Electoral Committee (NEC), and will greatly miss her perspectives on the NPC. 

In DSA and the organized left in general, we talk a lot about “making the ask” to other people, but what ask are you going to make of yourself? How will you join in solidarity with this working class movement and fight for an end to the evils of capitalism and all of its morbid symptoms? There are so many ways to put yourself into motion as part of a collective effort, so ask yourself how you’re going to do it. 

We need each other – and the mass movement we’re building together – now more than ever. We will see you in the streets, on the picket line, at a meeting, on the doors, at a mutual aid event, or in an organizer training soon!

Always in Solidarity,

Megan Romer and Ashik Siddique
DSA National Co-Chairs

Democracy Commission: Report to Members & Presentation

Democracy Commission was created by DSA’s 2023 convention to investigate structures of parties around the world, what needs to change about DSA’s structures to make the organization more democratic and effective, and bring structural reform proposals to the next convention. The commission spent last year researching DSA and other parties and wrote this report for DSA members.

Over the past few months, commission members visited chapter meetings all over the country to talk to members ahead of drafting proposals for Convention 2025. If you could not attend one of the chapter presentations, you have one more chance on January 25! RSVP here.

2025 YDSA Organizing Conference

The 2025 Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) Organizing Conference will be held from Friday, February 28th to Sunday, March 2nd in Chicago, Illinois. If you are a YDSA member, please attend! If not, please pass along the registration link to your YDSA comrades and encourage them to send some new members to the conference to get the crucial organizing skills they need to become lifelong socialist organizers!

The deadline for early bird registration is January 26th!

Apply to the National Political Committee — Deadline Wednesday 2/5

Through Article VIII, Section II of the DSA National Constitution, the National Political Committee (NPC) is charged with appointing members of the organization to fill vacancies on the NPC. To that end, we are opening applications up to all members of DSA in good standing to fill the current NPC vacancy.

Since NPC duties are significant, we recommend that anyone who considers applying first review this overview of NPC Member Duties and Responsibilities. We want to stress that this is not a role for members who have not held prior leadership positions in DSA, their union, or other grassroots organizations. 

If you think you would be a good fit for the NPC, send your application to us through this form by 11:59 PST on Wednesday 2/5.

Lessons from the US Labor Party for Working-Class Politics Today on 2/20

Following the Democratic Party’s 2024 loss — made possible by the Democrats’ longer-term abandonment of their working-class base in favor of “moderate” wealthy suburbanites and Wall Street financiers — it’s worth returning to the experience of the US Labor Party in the 1990s. In the 1990s, union members built a new political party of and for working-class people. What can we learn from their experiences?

Join a webinar sponsored by DSA’s National Labor Commission, featuring Carl Rosen, General President of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Mark Dudzic, longtime union activist and former national organizer of the Labor Party, and current chair of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare, Katherine Isaac, formerly of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union and its effort to create a Labor Party, as well as Howard Botwinick, Associate Professor of Economics at SUNY Cortland, also active in the Labor Party effort.

The limits of that effort are well known; most obviously, there’s no Labor Party today. But it is equally clear that failing to develop a working-class alternative to the Democratic Party will only result in workers continuing to drift into the arms of an ascendent right-wing MAGA politics.

That’s what this event tries to begin to think through by asking: What lessons can be learned from an earlier effort to organize an independent labor party? What did it take to launch the US Labor Party in 1996? How can that effort inform current work to build a serious, working-class alternative to the two corporate parties?

RSVP here to join the webinar on 2/20 at 8pm ET

Housing Justice Commission Abolish Rent Reading Group

Abolish Rent is a book from two of the Los Angeles Tenants Union’s founders sharing the knowledge and inspiration they’ve gathered by helping to build the largest tenant union in the country. Join the Housing Justice Commission’s Abolish Rent reading group to learn from the book and each other how we can organize towards a world where rent doesn’t exist! You can use the discount link here to get up to 50% off. Meetings will start in February. See you then!

International Committee Chapter Liaisons Update & Recruitment

The DSA International Committee (IC) has made significant progress in building up its chapter liaison structure, per the mandate of the 2023 Convention resolution. As of year-end 2024, twenty chapters have official liaisons. These liaisons are asked to share information about IC campaigns and other activities with their chapters and help facilitate greater coordination among chapters. The IC plans to continue developing the chapter liaison structure in 2025 and invites interested DSA members to apply using this interest form. Every liaison requires approval from their chapter steering committee.

Chapter liaisons are expected to support the internationalism work of their chapter through: building a working relationship with a local chapter’s already-existing internationalism committee; developing a chapter’s internationalism committee; connecting a chapter with a national initiative; sharing ideas and resources based on local organizing experiences; and helping us shape the liaison program as it expands. This program is meant to bridge the divide between national DSA and local chapter structures and is intended to be flexible to new conditions. Liaisons are invited to help shape and determine this infrastructure for the betterment of DSA’s internationalism organizing. Interested candidates can read more about the program and its expectations here.

Applications are rolling, and we may hold an orientation in March if we reach a critical mass of applicants. Apply now!

Organizing for Power 2025: Training for Organizers by the Late Jane McAlevey

Our planet is on fire, with an accelerating carbon catastrophe, old and new wars, rising authoritarianism, and billionaires and their buddies ready to burn it all down in pursuit of endless riches.

What are you going to do about it? Learn to win. Teach to lead. Organize for power.

Organizing for Power’s Core Fundamentals is a skills-based training program founded in 2019 by the late, great labor organizer Jane McAlevey, and DSA’s partnership on an O4P training series was a major factor in our organization’s membership growth during the first Trump administration.

O4P has since worked with more than 40,000 people in 20 languages, coming from 1,800+ organizations in 115 countries. This program imparts essential organizing skills applicable to individuals at all levels, from beginners to experts. Topics covered include leader ID, semantics, organizing conversations, charting, and structure tests, and will teach you and your organizing group how to win more and win better in the campaigns that matter most to you!

The next Core Fundamentals training takes place in weekly sessions over six consecutive Thursdays from February 13th until March 20th, 2025.

Registration is free and open exclusively to groups of 10 people or more. Get together a group of members in your chapter, organizing body, or any collection of individuals, and help level up your skills together quickly! The registration deadline is February 2nd — so sign up your group ASAP, because you’re only going to win if we’re in this together!

Register your group of 10+ now!

Work for DSA! Apply by 2/17

DSA is hiring a Data & Technology Coordinator. The application deadline is Monday, February 17. Apply now if you think you’d be a good fit!

We Are the Union Discussion Group Launch on 3/3

Join us on March 3 at 8:30 PM ET/5:30 PM PT for the opening event of a national and international discussion group on Eric Blanc’s new book We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big. Participants receive a 50% off book discount.

Featuring Kim Kelly (Teen Vogue), Moe MIlls, (Starbucks Workers United), and Eric Blanc. Sponsored by DSA, EWOC, and Organizing for Power. RSVP here!

The post Don’t Panic! Organize with DSA — Your National Political Committee newsletter appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

The post From Our Co-Chair: A Vision for Memphis Midsouth DSA 2025 first appeared on Memphis-Midsouth DSA.

Thorn West: Issue No. 223

Last week, several explosive and destructive wildfires erupted across LA County. Over 25 casualties have been reported, and many thousands of homes have been destroyed in and around the communities of Altadena and Palisades Park. DSA-LA has put together this evolving emergency resource guide, containing news and organizing opportunities.

State Politics

• In response to the devastation of the ongoing wildfires in LA County, Governor Newsom has proposed a 2.5 billion aid package. Newsom also called for the suspension of some environmental laws that he argued would impede rebuilding.
• Newsom also published an open letter inviting incoming president Trump to tour the areas devastated by wildfires. Trump has incoherently blamed environmental conservation policy for causing the fires, and threatened to withhold disaster relief.
• On Friday, the Governor released an early draft of the proposed budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Though drafted before the wildfires, the budget forecasts a small and unexpected surplus after two years of heavy shortfalls.

City Politics

• LA Public Press breaks down the controversy surrounding recent budget cuts to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Many departments experienced cuts after hundreds of millions of dollars were committed to raises for LAPD officers. More granular breakdown here.
• Former mayoral candidate and real estate billionaire Rick Caruso, who has been outspoken in his criticism of Mayor Karen Bass’ handling of the fires, hired private firefighters to protect his Palisades mall while local public hydrants ran out of water.
• In response to the wildfires, Los Angeles has extended the filing period to register as a candidate for Neighborhood Council elections, and also made it for Neighborhood Councils to issue monetary grants to local nonprofits.

Housing Rights

• The wildfires have been followed by rampant price gouging on rent, as landlords attempt to profit from the devastation. While citizens have responded by collaborating on a rent-gouging spreadsheet (here), the State Attorney General has vowed to investigate and prosecute landlords in violation of the price gouging laws; violations can also be reported here.
• A motion from Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez would reintroduce COVID policies mandating a blanket temporary rent freeze, as well a moratorium on evicting tenants affected by the fires, but the city council postponed voting on it.
• LA Public Press documents the work of unhoused communities and advocates in developing networks of mutual aid during the wildfires.
• Grist puts the recent fires in the context of the rapidly rising cost of homeowner insurance in California, and the recent state attempts to regulate and reform the market. Meanwhile, The New Republic debunks the myth that insurance companies are being “forced” to raise rates, rather than using disasters as an opportunity to maintain and increase profits.

Immigration

• In neighboring Kern County, Border Patrol agents conducted a massive raid, targeting agricultural workers for detainment and deportation – a return to the practice of frequent workplace raids carried out during the first Trump administration.
• Capital & Main explores how immigrant communities mobilized local relief efforts to help navigate the wildfires.

Local Media

• As false information about the wildfires is proliferating, The Institute for Nonprofit News is offering grants for local independent news sources covering the wildfires.

Environmental Justice

• Climate protesters with Sunrise Movement LA rallied outside a facility operated by oil company Phillips 66, and 16 demonstrators stormed the facility’s office building. The protestors demanded that the oil industry accept financial responsibility for the damages caused by current wildfires.
• Why does climate change lead to more dangerous wildfire seasons? Not only because of the longer dry seasons, but also because of the wild swings between drought and heavy rain.
• KCRW conducted a panel discussion (available in English and Spanish) on the impact of the wildfires on air quality in Los Angeles.

The post Wildfires Devastate Los Angeles County Communities appeared first on The Thorn West.

Nosferatu demands we critically examine our social order and how it has deluded social relationships. What demons have we summoned and what would their pact demand of us?

MnDOT is “confident in their analysis”. They shouldn’t be. Report authored by Mateo Frumholtz in collaboration with TCDSA, Our Streets, and the Minnesota Communities over Highways Coalition.  The attached report outlines the inconsistencies and biases in MnDOT’s decision making process using information gathered from a FOIA request.

A brisk recap of the 2024 Metro DC Democratic Socialists' local convention.

The end of World War II marked the beginning of an unspoken era in our history: the baby scoop era. Conservatives, obsessed with an idyllic 1950s America that never really existed, are trying to force us back into a baby scoop era. Overturning Roe v. Wade was just the beginning.

THE Baby Scoop ERA

By Saige S

The nuclear family — the idea of a working dad, a stay-at-home mom, and their children — is one of many family structures that has existed in American and world history. Compared to other family structures, particularly multigenerational households, a nuclear family is relatively easy to uproot and move around according to the changing needs of capitalist production, making it the favored family structure of capitalist countries and the bourgeoisie that rule them. In the post-war era, an ideology of hyper-atomized, pure-strain nuclear families came to predominate in the United States. This concept of family, which is still with us today, roots itself in white supremacist patriarchy by centering white, heterosexual nuclear families and othering alternative family structures.

The social attitudes brought on by this rising ideology especially stigmatized  “unwed” motherhood, “illegitimate” children, fertility issues, choosing not to have children, and divorce. Single white women were pressured to give up their infants, often by sending them away to maternity homes. These women were looked down on for failing to meet the expectations of white supremacy and patriarchy, and social workers viewed them as “abnormal” and “breeders”. The phrase “Baby Scoop era” was coined to describe the resulting increase in non-relative infant adoptions from the end of World War II until the 1970s.

Maternity homes, many of which were religious, were known for strict rules, exploitation, and an isolating environment of shame and grief, and oppressing vulnerable single mothers. Women sought out maternity homes for support or were pressured into entering against their will, but more than 80% of them had surrendered their babies for adoption by the mid-1960s. While many of these homes shut down during the 1970s, Jerry Falwell opened his own “Homes for Unwed Mothers” during the Moral Majority movement.

Rickie Sollinger, author of Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v. Wade, describes,

“For white girls and women illegitimately pregnant in the pre-Roe era, the main chance for attaining home and marriage… rested on the aspect of their rehabilitation that required relinquishment… More than 80 percent of white unwed mothers in maternity homes came to this decision… acting in effect as breeders for white, adoptive parents, for whom they supplied up to nearly 90 percent of all nonrelative infants by the mid-1960s… Unwed mothers were defined by psychological theory as not-mothers… As long as these females had no control over their reproductive lives, they were subject to the will and the ideology of those who watched over them. And the will, veiled though it often was, called for unwed mothers to acknowledge their shame and guilt, repent, and rededicate themselves.” Sollinger differentiates this era from those before, where “Black single mothers were expected to keep their babies as most unwed mothers, Black and white, had done throughout American history. Unmarried white mothers, for the first time in American history, were expected to put their babies up for adoption.”

Records from the era show that demand for white infants, an appetite for trimming welfare, and a desire to punish unwed mothers inspired adoption agencies to develop an array of devious or coercive methods for separating mothers from their children. One social worker, Georgia Tann, became infamous for kidnapping newborns by telling mothers that the child died shortly after birth and would be (“buried” free of charge). By paying off lawyers, judges, social workers, and nurses she was able to remain undetected for two decades, profiting the whole time from the sale of infants to rich couples. Despite her horrible legacy of child trafficking, she created the closed-adoption model largely still used today. 

The Baby Scoop era’s maternity homes inspired the creation of “crisis pregnancy centers” when an anti-abortion activist in Hawaii fought unsuccessfully against the passage of the country’s first law legalizing abortion. The following year, he and his wife opened their home as a maternity home and counseling center for people with “crisis” pregnancies. He later created a string of over 200 anti-abortion centers in more than 60 cities.

The decline of the adoption industry is often attributed to a falling fertility rate. This is linked to various factors, including the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960, the legalization of artificial birth control and abortion, and increased federal funding to family planning services for young and low-income folks. These factors worked together with other social and political reforms of the era like no-fault divorce, the legalization of interracial marriage, and women winning the right to open their own bank accounts. Along with Roe v. Wade, these reforms brought the Baby Scoop era to an end, but the social and political forces that created it were never really dealt with. Although single mothers and “illegitimate” children face less overt stigma, conservatives have been very successful at connecting social problems like poverty and crime to more abortions and more divorces, to fewer adoptions and fewer (white) babies, and, ultimately, to women’s health and women’s independence. If the rollback of a half century of reforms continues on this track, we may well see a second Baby Scoop era.

To fight back, it isn’t enough to highlight the cruelty of Republican policy — we must investigate the social attitudes and power structures around race, gender, and capital that brought us to this point. When conservatives shake their fists over a declining birth rate while the population grows, we must ask whose fertility rate is declining? Which industry is benefiting and which is losing money? Which narratives are being upheld and which are being challenged? Who is benefiting from this system and who is being exploited?

Ushering in the Second Wave Baby Scoop

Conservatives began chipping away at Roe as soon as they got the chance. Slowly but surely, policy by policy, they decimated abortion access by throwing up compounding barriers over a 50 year span. They went after everything from Medicaid to Title X funding, and they implemented mandatory counseling, waiting periods, parental/spousal consent, and TRAP laws designed to force clinics to close. The anti-abortion movement is rooted in the white supremacist “great replacement” theory, which has driven rising anti-immigrant sentiment and a record number of attacks on abortion in the last decade. The escalating rhetoric surrounding the nuclear family and “traditional” gender roles, as well as the rollback of bodily autonomy, is the patriarchy working overtime to undo decades of progress. 

This assault culminated in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the Supreme Court decision that completed Roe’s death by a thousand cuts. Though nominally their decision was a critique of Roe’s legal basis, the conservative court betrayed their real motives when they argued that safe haven laws are an adequate alternative to abortion and that there was no need to worry about children given up for adoption, because “the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent” (emphasis mine).

Besides the bone-chilling implication that infants are commodities to be bought and sold, the “domestic supply” language suggests that the religious right’s plan to “fix” this problem is a return to the Baby Scoop era, with natural mothers serving as “breeders” for a revitalized adoption industry. This rhetoric also goes back to chattel slavery (using women’s bodies as vessels and their children as commodities to both materially benefit and and idealistically benefit the capitalist class) which is precisely why the 14th amendment was constructed the way it was, as an effort to put an end to that practice. The machinery needed to exploit this infant windfall is already in place in the form of Christian adoption agencies, crisis pregnancy centers, and maternity homes. Jessica Valenti, who has been closely following the anti-abortion movement post-Dobbs, details the “move in anti-choice states to ‘streamline’ the adoption process and terminate parental rights—and the link that has to the anti-abortion movement and their relationship to evangelical Christian adoption agencies. (In short, it’s a racist clusterfuck.) … Republicans there have advanced legislation to implement baby boxes in the state, which most people don’t know allow the state to terminate parental rights. That means people in their most desperate moment, would be unaware that by using the boxes they may never be able to get their babies back—there have been cases of women spending months to years in court battles trying to reclaim their parental rights.”

Crisis Pregnancy Centers

The anti-abortion movement is well aware that abortion today is much safer than it was before Roe v. Wade1, and have renewed their disinformation crusade post-Dobbs. Anti-abortion centers (also known as “crisis pregnancy centers” or “pregnancy resource centers”) spread misinformation about abortion, pregnancy, and target people who might be seeking an abortion. These centers target pregnant people who might be considering abortion by strategically choosing locations near abortion clinics and utilizing SEO in their online advertising by strategically choosing locations near abortion clinics and specifically targeting searches as simple as ‘pregnancy symptoms’ on Google. While search engine optimization (SEO) is a foundational part of online marketing, this allows AAC websites to be towards the top of search results for queries that call for licensed medical advice.

These centers are often affiliated with a religious organization (primarily Heartbeat International, Care Net, and Birthright). People are lured into the center with promises of free or affordable healthcare, but once inside  they are subjected to an anti-abortion sermon, fed misinformation about pregnancy, abortion, and birth control, and directed to religious services like “earn while you learn” programs, private adoption agencies, and maternity homes. Despite being a billion dollar industry, these centers receive generous funding from state and federal programs by posing as healthcare providers.

Maternity Homes

The anti-abortion movement saw the Dobbs decision as the perfect time to open more maternity homes, with the total number of maternity homes increasing nearly 40% during the last two years. There are now over 450 maternity homes across the country. In some states, these homes operate with little regulation from the state. This makes the women who enter them especially vulnerable to financial and emotional abuse through the weaponization of law enforcement and homelessness Unsurprisingly, many maternity homes have affiliations with crisis pregnancy centers and private adoption agencies. 

Anti-abortion proponents respond that modern maternity homes provide housing and financial support. But just like during the Baby Scoop era, these homes are “treating women like criminals“. Residents of maternity homes can be forced to attend morning prayer, may have their phones confiscated at night, and may require a pastor’s approval to enter a romantic relationship. They may also be asked to hand over food stamps to pay for communal groceries, or required to install a tracking app on their phone, and homes have called the police on residents who disobeyed the rules. And while they supposedly exist to support mothers, some homes still prioritize adoptions — ultimately, these homes exist to supply infants to a growing market, and provide yet another node where capitalists can mine profit from vulnerability.

Private Adoption Agencies

Both “crisis pregnancy centers” and maternity homes have ties to private, Christian adoption agencies. These agencies are oftentimes religious. There is no federal regulation of the industry, despite federal tax credits for subsidizing private adoptions (as much as $14,300 per child for the adopting parents). These regulations are made at the state level and vary greatly, and govern everything from caps on financial support to how birth parents give consent to an adoption. Many are a part of the broader religious right and will only work with Christians. A Jewish couple in Tennessee were denied adoption by a Christian state-funded foster care placement agency because of their religion in 2021. While LGBTQ couples can’t be denied the opportunity to adopt a child jointly from a public adoption service, private adoption agencies have reputations for refusing to adopt to same-sex couples. It’s been common for adoption agencies to price babies based on their race, although some states and agencies may use other formulas to determine adoption prices (like sliding-scale or uniform prices). 

Moving Forward Post-Dobbs

This new Baby Scoop likely won’t look quite the same. Unwed mothers aren’t likely to be sent away for breaking social rules. Instead it will be fueled by the housing crisis, barriers to abortion and birth control, privatized and defunded social services, the weaponization of CPS and termination of parental rights. But much like the first Baby Scoop, it will target those living in poverty, in rural communities, young people, and black, indigenous and communities of color. Anti-abortion centers, adoption agencies, and maternity homes are the forefront of the anti-abortion movement, diverting people toward religious services intent on restricting bodily autonomy. Language is one of the first steps in the escalation of a human rights crisis. The combination of anti-immigrant, pro-nuclear family/anti-LGBTQ, and anti-abortion rhetoric used by the religious right show their need to maintain these systems of oppression to hold onto power. The misinformation campaigns and consequent shifting social attitudes will inevitably be used to justify more restrictive laws, all the way up to full criminalization. Many people will suffer, but a few Christian entrepreneurs will grow rich as white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism are further entrenched.

If we want to see a different future, we have to fight the anti-choice movement on every front. We have to organize and educate our communities, sustain each other through mutual aid, and build collective power at work and where we live, through labor unions, tenant unions, and strategic campaigns like DSA’s own effort to shut down Gateway Women’s Care, an AAC in Raleigh. Above all we have to build solidarity between movements and across the lines of gender, race, and class. It feels vulnerable, hopeless, even naive to call for a solidarity that generations before us failed to build, but the fact remains that the power of regular people can only be realized when they’re together — solidarity is our only weapon, and we need it now as much as we ever have.

1.  There have been a number of medical advancements like safe and effective abortion medication, better ultrasound technology, and more accessible and reliable pregnancy tests. Abortion medication has been shown to be as safe as in-clinic procedures (less than a 2% complication rate) and data shows that 63% of abortions in the United States were performed using abortion pills in 2023. There have been technological advancements in the internet and social media, connecting people to resources and information they may not have otherwise known about. Telehealth makes healthcare more accessible and allows people to get services who may not be able to travel for healthcare due to barriers like cost, navigating insurance, ability to travel long distances, finding childcare, etc. ↩︎

A look back at some of the popular ideas and theories developed on the (digital) pages of the Metro DC DSA's home publication.