A Frontline Reflection: Three Years After Dobbs
Dear supporter,
Where were you on June 24, 2022? For me, this day will forever be etched into memory. At the time, I was a NYAAF volunteer and board member, working tirelessly to make abortion access possible for New Yorkers and the small but growing number of folks coming from out of state.
We knew the decision was coming. The leaked opinion a month prior laid it out in plain language. Still, when the Dobbs v Jackson ruling officially overturned Roe v Wade and ended abortion as a constitutional right, I dropped my phone in disbelief. I sobbed—for myself, for my people, for my ancestors, and for future generations. And then I got up, and hit the streets.
I gathered with my community—friends and strangers, longtime comrades and folks brand new to the movement—and together we publicly grieved. I knew that although we had lost this battle, we had not lost our will to fight. The stakes were simply too high.
That day and in the days that followed, so many people asked me what they could do. I knew I had to channel my grief into purpose. After the tears, the chants, and the speeches, I went home, got some sleep and woke up the next morning ready to continue the sacred work of funding abortion, just on a larger, more urgent scale.
Shortly after the Dobbs decision, the NYAAF board asked me to become our first staff member and lead the organization’s response. In the three years since, we have stayed nimble, grown, and risen to meet the moment. We are now a staff of six leaning into love and rigor as we foster systems of community care and build collective power to dismantle barriers, shift systems, and advance reproductive justice.
In 2021, the year before Dobbs, we moved just over $550,000 in abortion funding. In 2024, we nearly quadrupled that number, moving more than $2 million. In 2021, we supported 775 people. In 2024, we supported 2,771 callers from near and far.
I am deeply proud of what we’ve collectively built to meet this moment. But three years after Dobbs, things have only gotten worse. More states have enacted bans. More clinics have closed. More people are being criminalized. And we know that Black and Indigenous people, queer and trans folks, immigrants, people with disabilities, and those at the intersections, are bearing the brunt of the state’s endless cruelty—because we always have. As a Black and Latinx woman, this is personal.
I mourn the lives of Candi Miller, Amber Thurman, and Adriana Smith. I mourn for everyone harmed by the aftermath of Dobbs, many whose names we may never know.
Our community still has a monumental task ahead of us. There is no quick fix to the current mess we have all found ourselves in. But we must continue to fight. We must continue to dream. We dream of a world of true abortion freedom: one without barriers, criminalization, or stigma. A world where all reproductive outcomes are honored and celebrated.
This is not something the courts can take from us.
Not our dignity.
Not our joy.
Not the power of our community.
And for damn sure, not our abortions.
Abortion is ours, forever.
Chelsea Williams-Diggs
NYAAF Executive Director