Access to abortion is being attacked across the country after the fall of Roe v. Wade. Each new curtailment of reproductive rights means that states where abortion is still legal are expanding their services to meet the needs of out of state patients. This amounts to increasingly difficult conditions for reproductive health care workers. At the same time, these workers are facing a hostile working environment as their newly formed unions are being punished by employers. Patients aren’t the only ones who need care, and the reproductive justice movement is only as strong as the people on the front lines providing direct services to patients amid escalating attacks on women’s bodily autonomy.

“Abortion rights are workers’ rights, we cannot have one without the other,” said Grace Larson, a recently fired licensed practical nurse at Planned Parenthood North Central States (PPNCS), at a press conference on April 3 calling for her reinstatement.

Larson, a member of the bargaining team for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local recently formed to represent workers at PPNCS, had her contract terminated on Tuesday, March 28, in what appears to be a blatant act of union busting. All twelve members of the bargaining committee have been given a final written warning from PPNCS leadership. The warning stated that any future violation of the employee handbook or code of ethics would be cause for immediate termination and would stay in their personnel files indefinitely, potentially affecting opportunities for promotions, raises, and transfers. Larson and one other bargaining team member have been fired, and two of the disciplined members of the bargaining committee have put in their resignation letters, citing management’s hostile actions.