A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo warns that the expected Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v Wade could trigger a spike in violence and embolden extremists and white supremacists who could target abortion rights advocates, Reuters reports.
High on the target list could be Indigenous women, adds the Urban Indian Health Institute, one of the leading research institutes on Indigenous and Alaska Native people across the U.S. The institute warns that the already high rates of crimes against Indigenous and Alaska Native women, many of which go unreported, compounded with not being able to access legal abortions, can leave Indigenous people at an increased risk, reports The Guardian.
A 2016 National Institute of Justice study found that more than one in three Indigenous and Alaska Native women had experienced violence in the past year, including sexual violence and violence by an intimate partner. They were 1.7 times more likely than white women to be the victims of violence. Indigenous and Alaska Native women along with Black women are also two to three times more likely to die as a result of their pregnancy than white women, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Having to access unsafe abortions or experiencing the mental anguish of being forced to go through pregnancy could increase these numbers.