Women’s Rights. And Wrongs

Men cross state lines and nothing changes. Their rights remain untouched.

Women cross state lines and the rules change. What is legal in one state becomes criminal in another. What is protected in California vanishes in Texas. Her rights are not hers to carry—they are borrowed, and they can be revoked depending on where she stands.

Women’s rights fracture at state borders. Men’s do not.

We are told this is “democracy.” That states should decide for themselves. That “local control” makes us free. But this is not freedom. It’s a patchwork of control.

The U.S. Women, Peace & Security Index ranks states on women’s well-being. Massachusetts sits near the top, while Louisiana hovers at the bottom. In Massachusetts, women are more likely to have access to paid caregiving leave, reproductive healthcare, and representation in leadership. In Louisiana, maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the nation, reproductive access is restricted, and workplace protections are thinner. Same country, same Constitution—entirely different realities.

And this isn’t just about abortion. It’s about healthcare, safety, and equality at every level. The United States has no guaranteed paid maternity leave, making us an outlier among wealthy nations. Mississippi and Louisiana lead in maternal deaths, while California has cut its maternal mortality rate by more than half over the last 15 years by investing in healthcare access. In some states, abusers are still not required to surrender firearms after domestic violence charges, while others enforce stricter protections. These are not quirks of local governance—they are fractures in human rights.

Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, reproductive freedom has become a geographical lottery. Nearly one in three American women now live in states where abortion is banned or severely restricted.

• In Texas, abortion is banned at nearly all stages, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

• In Alabama, the ban is so strict that even doctors face prison time for providing care.

• Meanwhile, in California, Michigan, Ohio, and Vermont, abortion rights are protected in state constitutions, ensuring access regardless of federal tides.

A woman’s autonomy depends on her ZIP code. A right in one state is a crime in another. Crossing a border can turn her into a felon for making the same decision she could have legally made hours before.

And it’s not just bans—it’s surveillance. In Idaho, legislators are pushing laws that could criminalize helping minors cross state lines for abortions. In Alabama, activists face prosecution for aiding out-of-state travel. Pregnancy becomes not only a medical condition, but a legal tether.

Men can travel anywhere in this country without asking themselves what rights they carry. Their autonomy is never questioned at a border. Their freedoms are whole.

What does it say about a nation when half its population cannot trust that their rights will follow them?

Of course, inequality doesn’t strike evenly. Women of color face the steepest consequences—Black women in the U.S. are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. In states like Georgia and Mississippi, the disparity is even greater.

Indigenous women face staggering rates of violence—more than four in five experience it in their lifetime—yet some states fail to enforce protections, leaving them in legal limbo.

And increasingly, these laws target not only women, but also transgender and gender-diverse people. In more than 20 states—including Florida, Texas, and Ohio—lawmakers have barred transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams, weaponizing “fairness” as a tool of exclusion.

The contradiction is glaring. We wave the American flag and speak of liberty as if it were universal. But freedom that bends depending on gender is not freedom. Rights that fracture at borders are not rights at all.

This is not democracy. This is patriarchy in patchwork—stitched together with laws designed to remind women that autonomy is conditional.

We cannot accept this geography of control.

Because equality must not depend on which state you stand in.

Because rights are not favors to be granted—they are human.

Because liberty that does not extend equally is no liberty at all.

Until women’s rights are the same everywhere, America cannot call itself free.