A message to the young women of America:

There are many differences that separate Gen X from Millennials from Gen Z. But as of June 24, we all find ourselves trying to navigate the same unfamiliar situation: a post-Roe world. Like some Dystopian alternate reality, you’d see in a movie or read in a book, this new era resurrects the archaic, misogynistic belief that a woman’s only worth is to serve as a baby factory. But this isn’t fiction, and in the few short weeks, since the Supreme Court overturned nearly 50 years of precedent and progress, we’ve already started to see our worst fears realized.

Like you, I’ve never lived in an America where abortion wasn’t legal. While extremists and religious zealots worked overtime to dismantle our reproductive rights, Roe was our lifeline. It might have been a right finally granted by nine men in 1973, but it was the product of a long battle fought by generations of women. These women risked (and many times sacrificed) their lives to liberate, protect, and empower future generations — not so that their granddaughters could be denied critical medical care for treatable conditions like rheumatoid arthritis.

RA is extremely painful when not managed with medications like methotrexate. So, I was speechless when I learned that some medical providers are refusing to refill similar prescriptions for women with autoimmune diseases who are of “child-bearing age” — whether or not they’re pregnant or ever intend to get pregnant. In a post-Roe world, not only do women no longer have control of their own bodies but they’re forced to unnecessarily endure life-limiting pain on the mere possibility that they MIGHT have a baby one day in the near or distant future. Of course, methotrexate continues to be widely available to men. It’s a grotesque byproduct of a decision and a movement that is anti-science, anti-fact, and anti-woman.

And, as if the American health care system didn’t already completely fail and endanger women (for proof, look no further than our shameful maternal mortality rates), we’ve already learned about several cases of women with ectopic pregnancies that ruptured because the doctors had to discuss treatment with lawyers. When doctors take the Hippocratic oath, it isn’t littered with clauses and amendments. “Do no harm” was never meant to be limited by terms and conditions.

As I reflect on the past two months, I understand how easy it can be to feel paralyzed with anger and lose hope — to give up. In fact, it’s what the anti-choice, forced-birth movement is counting on. And though America continues to make it extremely difficult to be a woman, we cannot allow this to be a place where it’s acceptable to force a 10-year-old rape victim to carry her rapist’s baby to term. We have to carry the torch for our foremothers, even though it’s not a fight we ever thought we’d inherit.

Interspersed between these gut-wrenching stories of women and girls in peril, I also read anecdotes that inspire me to keep going. Like the pilots who are volunteering their time and resources to fly women to places where they can access the care they need when it isn’t available where they live. Or the synagogue suing the state of Florida on the grounds that their abortion ban violates their religious liberties. Or the doctor who proposed creating a floating abortion clinic in the Gulf of Mexico. And, of course, the bravery demonstrated by Dr. Caitlin Bernard, who continues to provide life-saving reproductive care in the face of unrelenting harassment — and threats — from elected officials and right-wing extremists. And I am encouraged by the everyday people opening their homes to help women get the care they deserve.

But, ultimately, voting is the only thing that can prevent this country from dissolving into a fully-realized Dystopia. We don’t vote for tomorrow or a month from now — we vote for 50 years down the line because this is a high-stakes long game. We are currently living with the consequences of decades of not showing up at the ballot box because as the old adage goes: if you don’t speak for yourself, someone else will speak for you. Right-wing politicians know how powerful (and sometimes dangerous) our votes are, and it’s why they’re obsessively committed to prevent people from accessing their fundamental democratic right. We don’t have the luxury of feeling “voter fatigue” because women’s lives are on the ballot.

As election day nears, remember that before June 24, 2022, we lived in a world where Roe was the law of the land only because of the women who came before us fought for it. Now it’s our time and our responsibility to fight for future generations.

Authored by Christian F. Nunes, President of NOW