I am struck by how art and politics seem to have traded places in Missouri. The documentary After Tiller represents everything that is messy and complicated about the world, while politics here seem to exist in a fantasy world.

The more I sit and consider what the Roe v. Wade decision means at 40 years, the more I am sure that it actually means the same thing now as it did then. The question isn't what does Roe mean at 40. The question is who is the new Roe?

The cases documented in our study, as well as recent cases, make clear that, 40 years after Roe v. Wade was decided, far more is at stake than abortion or women's reproductive rights.

I keep waiting for a candidate to actually talk about the lifesaving significance of safe, legal, accessible abortion. But what I hear instead are scripted responses that completely and carefully ignore the messy reality of women's lives.

If Proposed Initiative 46 passes, men who rape women in Colorado will be secure in the knowledge that their efforts to humiliate and degrade those women will be backed up and reinforced by state action forcing those women to go to term -- whether they want to or not.

The new WHO guidelines on abortion policy and standards of care make it painfully clear that, nearly 40 years after Roe v. Wade, we're doing everything wrong here.

Every 90 seconds, somewhere in the world, a woman dies from a pregnancy-related complication. This isn't just a "third world" problem. The United States currently ranks 50th in the world for maternal health. It is safer to give birth in Bosnia or Kuwait than in California.

The Liberty Counsel has established that the "pro-life" position is "pro-punishment," not just for doctors who perform abortions, but also for pregnant women who have no intention of ending their pregnancies and go to term.

While people in Mississippi were considering Proposition 26 and deciding whether fertilized eggs and embryos would be treated as entirely separate legal persons, a prosecutor and courts were addressing the same question behind the scenes, where voters have no role or voice.

The question isn't about modifying a cruel law to make it less cruel when the pregnancy was hoped for; it's about abolishing laws this punitive to all women.

Turning the clock back includes shaming women for their sexuality and punishing them for terminating a pregnancy (which is still legal, by the way). This brings us to one of the more degrading tactics up the radical-right sleeve: mandatory ultrasound laws.

Would so many individuals -- 'Racers for the Cure' and celebrities alike -- rise up in protest? My guess is no, they would not -- and this is the power of the stigma around abortion. When access to health care is limited by money or geography, we cannot afford to limit it further with politics.

As with all reproductive justice struggles, from access to birth control to the right to choose, self-determination in childbirth is about putting social trust in the hands of women.