You Must Stand Up: The Fight for Abortion Rights in Post-Dobbs America

by Amanda Becker

The inspiring, on-the-ground story of the rising grassroots leaders in the abortion rights movement in the pivotal first year after Dobbs.When the Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization-overturning the constitutional right to abortion care-the country was thrown into chaos. Abortion providers and their patients faced sudden closures, new restrictions, and rapidly changing rules as nearly half of the state's moved quickly to ban or severely curtail abortion access. Against this backdrop, an army of health care providers, lawyers, activists and everyday people mobilized to protect what a majority of Americans legal abortion. In You Must Stand Up, Nieman Fellow Amanda Becker provides a real-time portrait of the creative resistance that unfolded in America's first year without the protections of Roe v. Wade. At a moment when healthcare access shifts daily, new legal battles are argued before partisan courts, and state constitutions are re-interpreted or amended, Becker traces the story of the people rising to meet these new challenges-doctors and staffers turning to new financial and medical models to remain open and provide abortions, volunteers campaigning against anti-abortion ballot initiatives, and medical students fighting to learn to provide what can be life-saving care.By depicting the splintered reality of post-Dobbs America, and by capturing how the decision fueled Americans to think in new ways about how to best protect their constitutional rights, Becker ultimately shows how outrage can beget hope, and give rise to a new movement.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Politics, Health, American History, Social Justice

272 pages, Hardcover

Published September 10, 2024

Reviews

[Sharon Orlopp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amanda Becker's book, You Must Stand Up: The Fight for Abortion Rights in Post-Dobbs America, starts off with a bang by illustrating the aftershocks in a remade landscape after Roe was overturned. Becker focuses on key states such as Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Ohio where some state laws reverted to abortion laws implemented in the 1800s. The confusion it causes for women seeking abortions, abortion providers, lawmakers, and citizens is dizzying.

The wording on legislation, amendments, and ballots was purposefully confusing. In many instances, voters were unsure what the proposed legislation meant. Becker describes the importance of canvassing efforts for helping citizens understand proposed legislation. These canvassing efforts don't necessarily help change peoples' minds, but it is effective in increasing voter turnout.

Becker mentions that independent bookstores have taken on the renewed roles as hubs of progressive civil resistance. She highlights the New Orleans Blue Cypress bookstore and its slogan, Bad Bitches Read Good Books.

For me, the book dragged a little in the middle with many state-by-state details compared to the strong opening.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Alexis || abookandAstory · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me so angry, I was cussing on goodreads at 8am. Although, I completely stand by what I said, Samual Alito makes me fucking sick. As does the majority of the SCOTUS.

The fact that Roe was overturned is bad enough, the fact that the laws now reflect abortion laws made in the EIGHTEEN HUNDREDS is astounding and disgusting.

This book is so detailed and dense with information.

Becker clearly did her research. This book is so necessary because as a woman, if you aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention.

Barry Goldwater, who helped define what it meant to be a Republican in Arizona through his book, The Conscience of a Conservative, and was the 1964 Republican White House nominee, is quoted in an interview with the LA Times, “They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the Pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.” Listen, it’s few and far between that you’ll find me agreeing with an old white man but I’ve gotta say.. right on, Barry.

I love that independent bookstore have been a haven for social justice, championing books like this and others that inform us about what’s happening to us, personally.

“Bad bitches read good books”

Thank you to Goodreads, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read this ARC.

[Lindsey Bluher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is dense and detailed, but I loved it and am so grateful to have had the chance to read an ARC on netgalley via the publisher (though, I do think per the book’s outline, we were missing the final chapter?). As someone who is pro-abortion, I am so glad this book exists and outlines what some of the specific states who have had abortion rights impacted post-dobbs have gone through/are going through. As someone who lives in Mass (the section on what this state is doing to protect our rights made me so proud), I didn’t know the realities of so many states’ unique laws and limitations. I also DEEPLY appreciated the chapter about what can/should/needs to happen to reverse the impact of Dobbs.

Heading into a presidential election, this book is an important one and I’m so grateful to have read it.

[Mary C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impact of the reversal of Roe Vs Wade has had a huge impact on women and medical professions. Everchanging laws have made it more difficult in providing care, regardless of the impact on the women's health. The distance some need to travel to get care adds to delays and the cost of treatment. It is unfortunate that the mother' s health is not a main concern, only the birth of the child, no matter how short the child's life is or any medical issues the child may suffer. Why are politicians making decisions that are best left to the doctors and patients? Stories from
women who have had their lives/health put at risk to the new laws are horrifying.
#YouMustStandUp #BloomsburyUSA #NetGalley

[Alisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed, well researched and written, Becker weaves together stories of individuals to demonstrate the effects of the Dobbs decision. The story telling of the individuals cited is respectful and poignant. This book gives a clear depiction of the difficulties faced by those seeking and providing reproductive care in post Dobbs America.

[Jamie Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been fighting for abortion rights since before I got my first period. It has always been about medical options, and minding my own business. People have forgotten history. This book is from the perspective of the actual health care providers and the people with their boots on the ground fighting for these rights.
I had successful fetal surgery in 2015. The other options were just fetal demise or selective abortion. I think a lot of people who support these laws do not understand why abortion is so important from a medical standpoint. I was able to afford fetal surgery, get to it (over 1000 miles away), and stop working to be on bedrest for six months. I was incredibly sick. If things progressed naturally I would have had stillborn babies, or if one survived she would have been severely brain damaged. The best option, if I wasn't able to get the surgery, was abortion.
Yes this is sad but I wanted to be alive. Babies don't get to be born when the mother dies.
Here we are in a world where pregnancy is deadly again, or more deadly than it was a few years ago.
This book gave me hope and I cannot pinpoint why. Maybe it was because it talks about all the people fighting for these rights.
Amazing work.

[Mr. Book · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can also see this review, along with others I have written, at Mr. Book's Book Reviews.

Mr. Book just finished You Must Stand Up: The Fight For Abortion Rights In Post-Dobbs America, by Amanda Becker.

This book was published in September 2024.

This book was an excellent look at what happened right after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade. The book covers so much material, such as when the draft decision was leaked, to what was happening on the ground the day the decision was announced, the false history that the Dobbs decision was based on and what has happened in many states. The author combines both discussions of the law, the court’s ruling as well as the stories of many people involved.

I give this book an A+ and inducted it into the Hall of Fame.

Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at Goodreads and Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

Mr. Book finished reading this on December 9, 2024.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

You Must Stand Up by Amanda Becker is an excellent account of the period immediately after the Dobbs decision while also showing how we got there and how we feel about it.

I want to start by commenting on another review I saw and clarify what I am afraid some people may take from it. The reviewer loved the book largely because it is an excellent example of data journalism. And I agree. She also mentioned the book's focus on statistics, which is also a valid point but, I'm afraid, could be misinterpreted. I am worried that some may read that and think this is a book of statistics. It isn't. This is data journalism, which means using data but, as journalism must do to be effective, telling a story (or stories). The strength of this book is how the data, the statistics both medical and demographic, serve to enhance the stories of those trying to provide valuable healthcare while resisting the faction of the population, and government, that cares more about asserting their personal ideology on everyone else rather than letting medical professionals make medical decisions. So if the idea of a book full of statistics sounds dull to you, don't worry, this book isn't like that. It offers the data to support the journalism and the journalism to personalize the data.

While this is about those fighting the battles for reproductive freedom and body autonomy, this is also about the country as a whole and where the people largely stand on the issues. And this is not, within the larger picture, a single monolithic issue. For many of us who have protested and done what we could (for me, dating all the way back to the time of Roe) it is several issues that together make up a larger issue, but for many it is strictly some specific aspect, some specific issue. Maybe someone who mostly just believes in more exceptions to a softer ban can't abide by the draconian measures currently being employed is side-by-side with those who believe every potential childbearing individual should have the right to decide for themselves whether to carry or not. Then there are those who believe, against science, that a human life has begun when conception occurs, even against a long history within their own so-called religion (life used to start, for them, when "life was breathed into them").

You can read this as a current affairs book to better understand where we are and why we're here. You can read it more like a history book even though a lot is very recent history. Or you can read it as a call to action using the information given to better prepare counter movements and an informed activism.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Steve's Book Stuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

You Must Stand Up is journalist Amanda Becker’s almost real-time account of the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision. It begins with the Court’s release of its decision and follows several leaders who fought back and figured out ways to offer women healthcare in the aftermath of the decision.

This is Becker’s first book. Currently a journalist with The 19th, she has “been on the beat” for almost 20 years working for Reuters and other news groups covering presidential and congressional elections, Congress and the Supreme Court. She writes in the Author’s Note at the beginning of the book that as she scanned the draft decision for Dobbs (that had been leaked in May) she knew that the seismic change the pending decision would unleash would be “the most important story I’d ever cover as a journalist”.

Over the course of the next year her book takes us across the country as she relates stories from Colorado, Alabama, Maryland, Arizona, Louisiana, Kentucky and elsewhere. Her stories show people fighting to protect their rights, how they learned to adapt, and the hardships they faced because of Dobbs. There are setbacks and quiet victories.

On the one-year anniversary of Roe, Becker takes us to a rally of antiabortion groups at the nation’s capital. The rally headliner was Republican former Vice President Mike Pence. He told the group that “we’ve not come to the end of this cause”, but rather “the end of the beginning”. These groups were trying to work out where to go and what to do next, and “fetal personhood” was a goal they all shared.

Fetal personhood is the idea that a fetus, from the moment of conception, is a person with full legal rights. This idea also applies to fertilized eggs that are a result of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), some proportion of which remain frozen in storage at fertility clinics and may or may not ever be called for.

Mary Ziegler, abortion law historian, is quoted in the book as telling the Guardian newspaper that fetal personhood “has the potential to establish that abortion is always illegal and potentially to expose women to punishment…” The potential for criminalizing bad pregnancy outcomes like miscarriages and still births would be very real in a world where fetal personhood was the standard at law.

At the end of the first year of Dobbs Becker concludes that the way forward in the fight for abortion and reproductive rights will be long and hard. We could well be in for a multiyear fight that may require amending the Constitution. At the least, Dobbs will become a litmus test for future Supreme Court nomination hearings, just as Roe was for close to 50 years.

You Must Stand Up nationwide story looking at the impact of Dobbs in its first year. Well-researched and compact, this book is a worthwhile survey of the post Dobbs fight for reproductive rights, a fight which may take many years before we get back to the set of rights enjoyed under Roe v. Wade.

NOTE: I read an advanced reviewer’s copy of the book provided by NetGalley and the publisher, Bloomsbury.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely difficult to read, given the sadistic inhuman ways some evangelical-backed conservatives justify restricting reproductive health care with zero care for the life of the people they claim to protect. The fact that the same states that ban abortion because they are 'pro-life' will also ban centers that provide pregnancy care (NOT ABORTIONS! CARE FOR PREGNANT MOTHERS WHO LIVE TOO FAR FROM A HOSPITAL AND SEEK MEDICAL CARE SO THAT THEIR BABY HAS A HIGHER CHANCE OF MAKING IT TO TERM ALIVE) is beyond criminal. The fact that we're even debating if a dying pregnant patient should be rescued, especially when the baby is already non-viable, is sadistic and justified by only misogyny and racism. Fortunately people are rightfully angry. We've gone too far down dictatorial pathways, and the politicians in charge are no longer in agreement with the caucus they're supposed to represent. The moment is now to start clawing back our rights. This book offers in depth discussions on how misogyny and racism advise the court rulings, about how politicians and states try to prevent people from having their voices heard, about the unintended inhuman consequences of draconian bans, and about how we can start reversing this madness. The solution is to organize, stand up, be patient and train for the marathon. The book ends by comparing the anti-abortion movement with the prohibition of the 20th century. “Prohibition and Dobbs we're projects that seek to impose the values of a cohesive and well organized cultural minority upon a diverse and less organized cultural majority. These projects can work for a time but only for a time period in a country with the representative voting system, even as system is distorted in favor of the rural and conservative as the American system was in the 1920s and is again today, the cultural majority is bound to prevail sooner or later.” Read with breaks because it will make your blood boil, even if you thought you were informed about the movement. There's so much happening behind the scenes...

[Roger Smitter · Rating 5 out of 5]

National political correspondent, author Amanda Becker, has a good book. Her book is interesting and important about where our country is going. And her book takes the reader to get some information but more importantly, the book shows a big change in DC in the past few years.

Chapter 2 (Washington, “Women are not without electoral or political power.”

Chapter 3 tells us what kinds of states we have. There’s “Maryland: What am I going to do about it?” And there is a piece about this from Michigan.

In Chapter 4, there’s a good piece on Reagan and Goldwater. Chapter 6 tells us that when it comes to ballot money wins. And, of course, there’s the “abortion policy’s” (p. 85). And there’s some pages about Ohio and Alabama that show one of things that are different in our country. (121)

And there are 200 pages in this book.

You Must Stand Up is a book for the people who can understand what the country should do with the people who can do the right things.

[Amanda ( boookstamanda ) · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I saw this book, I knew I had to read it, especially as women’s rights are progressively being taken away in the USA. This is an inspiring story of the people fighting for access to women’s healthcare in post Roe vs. Wade America.

I am so grateful for this book. The author details the impacts of Dobbs, and most importantly what people are doing to fight for women’s rights to bodily autonomy and healthcare. Personally I am very terrified after the election, and this book inspired me beyond words. It helped me move from grief to hope. I want to thank the author for detailing the fight and resistance to these horrible laws and restrictions.

✨I’m going to get personal for a minute. In 2021 I had a missed miscarriage, meaning my body would not complete the miscarriage, and I needed a D&C. Today if this occurs, I would need to wait until my life is in serious danger. It is terrifying, and women are dying because of these laws. This book gives me hope. It’s time to stand up and fight.

This is a must read, regardless of your views on current and proposed laws.

Big thanks to Bloomsbury Books and the author for sending me a gifted physical copy of this book!

[Jeannie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is thoroughly researched and even though it was published before the November 2024 elections, it still feels relevant as abortion rights activists stand up for women’s reproductive rights. This books explains both the lead up and fall out surrounding the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

I remember voting in the November 2022 midterm election and voting “No” to protect abortion rights in Kansas. I consider it to be the most important election of my lifetime, but I hope we continue to make greater change in states with politicians who’ve attempted to silence their constituents.

As the title suggests, we must stand up. Now’s the time to organize and strategize. We must all become activists and advocates so as to not be tossed around in a political game rigged by antiabortion groups making medical decisions on behalf of people and families they will never know based on religious beliefs they’d wish to enforce upon every citizen.

[Kathy Shimpock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Becker describes the true dystopian world that exists after the Dobbs decision. The author's focus is on doctors and abortion clinics in states with draconian abortion laws. She describes the continuing fight by antiabortion groups to bring forth fetus personhood laws and the long journey to bring back a pre-Roe America. The author uses the term "abortion rights" to signify those who support Roe. This language limits the argument to abortion only, when these laws have applied to women needing other reproductive care and to people seeking such medication for reasons outside of abortion. Using the term reproductive rights is more inclusive of the issues women face post Dobbs.

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

THis is thoroughly researched and organized in a clever way. I 'enjoyed' this (as much as one can enjoy a book that also leaves you infuriated). However, after hearing Becker speak at her book-signing, I'm cautiously optimistic for our country. (Not a spoiler) I liked the part at the end comparing the cluelessness of lawmakers during prohibition to our current lawmakers with regard to abortion rights.
To republicans credit, they played a long game and have passed laws pretty strategically. However, I *think* the country is pretty close to a tipping point and there are some things (women's health) that might turn some red voters blue.

[Meghan Bohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't bookmarked and annotated a book this much since grad school. This is a timely, readable book chock full with statistics, stories, and an explanation for how we got where we are now (it's been a long time coming). Highly recommended.
Thank you very much to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for the ARC!
I'd also like to note that on 8/21/24, the three one star ratings were all made on the same day (7/25/24), over two months before the book is out. Kirkus has given it a starred review, and Booklist is positive as well.

[Lindsay Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an advanced reader copy of this book and this is my honest review.
This was an incredibly interesting read about the history of abortion rights happening all over America after Roe fell. However, I was hoping for more call-to-action and how-to to help continue the fight. This read more like a history book, which is important, but would've been much better had the author included a section at the end for what's next! Hoping the "Winter 2024" section that wasn't covered in the ARC will include that.

[B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is both comprehensive and easy to follow along. While I've been keeping abreast of the situation for years, I didn't realize this problem went all the way back to 2010. Many books out there on current events and women's rights make the reader angry and frustrated, but Becker's approach to writing doesn't incite (pointless) anger; rather, it shows how we got here and lends insights into how we might move forward.

[braith · Rating 3 out of 5]

first of all, let me start off by saying i am pro choice. this book, obviously touches on an important and sensitive topic, however, it was not amazing. despite it's strong and powerful opening, the book drags with all of the state by state minutiae, talking about every single legislative move with a huge focus on alabama, that causes for a whole lot of skimming. maybe not the best book to read if you want to learn more about the fight for abortion rights.

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work is non-fiction, but could also read as dystopian, horror, and political intrigue.
I need to go back to the beginning and start all over again.

I can't be the only one who wants to cheer for the doctors at Camelback - reading the law, finding loopholes to give women care, and partnering with a clinic on the California side of the California-Arizona state border.

[Paige Welch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative but dense with political science terminology that left me a bit winded. I did like learning about how there are people fighting for us every single day. It gave me hope.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an eye-opening read, even for someone who is pretty well-versed in reproductive rights! I enjoyed that each chapter took place in different states and looked at different areas of the fight for abortion rights, from the government level to activists, doctors and clinics. I definitely found some new people and organizations to follow since we will still be in this fight for even longer now. I received an advance review copy for free and I'm leaving this review voluntarily.