This is so surreal. In this very moment I have so many emotions. I have been very anxious about coming back here.  Thank you for the warm welcome. Your energy fuels both my disdain and my persistence for the fact that we should not be here again! 

My name is Amy Hagstrom Miller, and I am the founder and President of Whole Woman’s Health and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance. We provide abortion care all over this country. We center our work in the South and the Midwest – where fabulous, compassionate and determined abortion providers are needed most. 

I am ALSO a Supreme Court case winner in the historic case of 2016; Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. 

Today Whole Woman’s Health stands with June Medical.

We are proud independent abortion providers and we stand in the light.

We are the clinics that lead this country forward and fight the bad laws every single day.

Please support the Independent clinics in Louisiana by donating at www.keepourclinics.org

Four years ago, almost to the day, on these very steps, we were all here leading this same fight for Texans. We were pushing back against House Bill 2, a law designed to make it virtually impossible for providers like Whole Woman’s Health to offer compassionate abortion care for mothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors, co-workers, church folks and people just like you, who,  when faced with unplanned pregnancy , make the decisions that are best for our lives.

And then – again, on these very steps – in June 2016 the Supreme Court called out the lies of Texas lawmakers and ruled in our favor and on the right side of history, affirming what we all had been fighting for:

That abortion should be accessible and safe, and that House Bill 2 was medically unnecessary, burdensome and flat out deceptive.

And yet … here we are again.

An almost identical set of abortion restrictions.

We are back here doing this same thing for the people in Louisiana. But Why?!?

We should not be here again!

These cruel attacks on our lives will not stop.

And it is precisely because of that we must be here. Every single time they design restrictive laws that oppress us and take away our rights- guess what? We will be here, in this very spot, doing what we collectively do best!

With the same rigor. 

Listen, we won in 2016! And guess what… we will win again in 2020! 

I firmly believe that it is expressly because we won – because we moved the ball so far forward in the Whole Woman’s Health case – that they are coming for us.

Of course, they are. 

They are going to try and narrow the scope of the Whole Woman’s Health standard and try to chip away at it.  WHY?

Because we did damn good work.

We can’t be surprised by their tactics. But we sure can be angry.

The fact is, we need liberation for everyone, y’all. They have made abortion a political fight and that’s a shame. They are jeopardizing our lives. And it must stop.

So, as I stand here in front of all of you – in the same place I stood in 2016- it brings me joy, and most of all it brings me hope.

Hope that we will continue to be BOLD.

Hope that we continue to be loud.

Hope that we will continue to be angry.

Hope that we continue to be unapologetic and build community while we FIGHT to ensure that abortion is safe and accessible for all people!

Thank you from all of us at Whole Woman’s Health and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance. Thank you from the thousands of families we have had the honor and privilege to provide abortion care for. People across this country thank you for being such fierce and fabulous reproductive freedom fighters.

In closing I ask you again to please support the Louisiana independent abortion providers whose clinics are at stake with this trial by donating to keep our clinics dot org. 

And let’s win this thing. 

Again!