Designs and artists react to losing abortion rights

The Supreme Court will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to a leaked draft acquired by Politico. If the court’s final decision, which is expected next month, resembles the draft, it would end federal protection of abortion rights, leaving it to individual states to determine whether abortion is legal.

What happens next isn’t hard to predict: The 26 states that already have abortion-limiting laws today will likely ban it altogether; 13 actually have “trigger laws” in place already, bans designed to automatically go into effect if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned. That means that in more than half the states in the United States, abortion will be illegal—and in many cases, there is no exception for rape or incest.

In response to this terrifyingly retroactive decision, designers and artists, ranging from professionals to hobbyists, have taken to social media in powerful visual protest. We’ve assembled a selection of what we’ve seen here.

To begin, star designer Jessica Walsh pays homage to the colors of the women’s suffrage movement with the use of purple garments and yellow flowers.

Popular design podcaster and Editorial Director of Print Magazine Debbie Millman evokes the motif of coat hangers, the dangerous pre-Roe v. Wade option people had to terminate pregnancy.

Brittany Paige is a New Jersey-based illustrator who posted the equivalent of a digital picket sign. Each letter of BODY appears as its own independent protest.

Architect-turned-illustrator Rajiv Fernandez bends a coat hangar into the shape of the United States. Its red backdrop could be a nod to blood, the Republican party, or both.

Dr. Willa Hammitt Brown, a preceptor in expository writing at Harvard, offers a homemade book cover. It plays on “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” (an idiom first sourced from playwright William Congreve in 1697). But Brown adapts and escalates the phrase to new proportions.

In a completely self-explanatory work of art, Pennsylvania painter Kyle Kuczma challenges the very concept of men governing women.

Finnish illustrator Sari Airola—who creates books and clothing for children—offered this stomach-churning portrait of a girl facing womanhood without her reproductive rights.

Designer-illustrator Gaby Flores spells out a clear message, rendered in coat hanger, with the abstract backdrop of flesh and blood.

And artist Caitlin Blunnie offered this now-viral illustration of protestors standing outside the Supreme Court.