On June 24, 2022, in an outrageous act of monstrous cruelty to women throughout our country, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, dragging us back half a century to the status of breeding chattel and endangering the health of millions of pregnant people.

Now more than ever, the pioneering work of Pat and the Army of Three is newly, urgently relevant.

Now more than ever, we need to draw inspiration from the courage, the strategies and the tactics that made the Army of Three the pioneering — and most effective — abortion rights movement in the history of the United States.

Even at its passage in 1973, Pat knew that Roe was insecure, and commented on its fragility, insisting that we would be secure only when it was codified into law.

For various venal political reasons from both parties, that never happened. So now here we are, with a Christofascist Supreme Court, an increasingly emboldened alt-right insurrectionist GOP, a Democratic majority in Congress rendered useless by two rightwing DINOs, and a Democratic President who has never supported abortion, who championed the Hyde Amendment for decades, abandoning it only during his 2020 campaign, and who refuses to take the two actions that might restore Roe: to end the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court.

Fifty years ago, three women stood up against the law, against the church, against all odds — and made a historic change, ushering in half a century of reproductive rights in the United States. Now those rights have been obliterated — and again we need to make a historic change.

I can only imagine how Pat would feel if she were still with us… and I’m certain she’d be right here alongside us in the streets, handing out her trenchant cartoons and protesting this monstrous decision with all her might.

Now it’s up to us to think: WWPD? — and do it ourselves!