WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME Remains a Tough Watch

Will America’s democratic promise ever be fulfilled for future generations of women or are we headed straight to Gilead?

Heidi Schreck’s play What the Constitution Means to Me continues to be a tough and deeply personal watch for American women in 2026. We live in a country where almost 47%, that’s 51 million women have experienced sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. 

The Pulitzer Prize finalist, and Tony nominated play was recently produced for a short run by Theatre West and Torrance Cultural Arts Foundation. TOCA’s Artistic Director, Christian Wolf directed the outstanding cast led by Jessica Hayes as Heidi, Brian Singer as the Legionnaire and Brooklyn Reiss as The Teen Debater. Their performances were so powerfully authentic that in the post show Q&A it was clear that some audience members thought their relationship was reality. Well done!

First produced in 2017 as part of the Summerworks festival in New York City, Schreck’s award-winning and thought-provoking play explores the relationship between American women and the U.S. Constitution. We first became aware of this play when it was produced in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum in early 2020 starring Maria Dizzia and we have to admit that in today’s United States, it is an even harder, yet necessary watch.

We did the research

Schreck’s, What the Constitution Means to Me breaks through any lingering illusions that The U.S. Constitution will shield women’s rights and bodies from reactionary forces. The rights and freedoms that women and girls assumed were won and done can (and will) be taken away at the whim of men’s pens, fists and firearms. 

After the performance, we dove into research on the issues at its core and while this wasn’t easy to cover it should be discussed. Admittedly, we lost a lot of sleep… The play addresses gender-based violence, reproductive rights, and systemic inequalities by analyzing the Constitution as a living document and instigating the question: can our Constitution be used to expand equality and justice for all or should it be abolished and we start all over? In the early 21st century United States, this “living” document demonstrates that no right is guaranteed unless you’re a white man with economic means. The very idea of the United States as the land of freedom has neglected women, failing them over and over again.

On Wednesday, February 1, 2026 the US House of Representatives passed the SAVE America Act, introduced by hard right chowderhead Rep Chip Roy (R-TX) which would implement strict limitations on voter registration and casting a ballot. It has yet to pass the Senate but if it passes it will establish new rules that could make it more difficult for married women or LGBTQ+ people to register if they’ve changed their names, have misplaced their original birth certificate or can’t afford a passport.

Right to vote, or deja vu

Women voted in Revolutionary America, over a hundred years before the United States Constitution guaranteed that right to women nationally. The 1776 New Jersey State Constitution referred to voters as “they,” and statutes passed in 1790 and 1797 defined voters as “he or she.” This opened the electorate to free property owners, Black and white, male and female, in New Jersey. This lasted until 1807, when a new state law said only white men could vote. Source: Museum of the American Revolution

The 119th congress is covertly eroding the 19th Amendment to The Constitution, which was ratified just 105 years ago on August 18, 1920. The 19th prohibited the federal government and states from denying the right to vote to any citizen on the basis of sex. 

Attempts to pass the SAVE ACT on top of the overturning of Roe v Wade make it clear to American women that none of their rights are guaranteed, nor are they in any way safe or seen as whole human beings with inalienable rights. 

Breeding gulags?

Ten days after Congress passed the SAVE ACT white nationalist hemorrhoid Nick Fuentes, during his livestream declared that women are America’s top political enemy. MediaMatters reported that Fuentes called for imprisoning all women and girls, later determining which ones are acceptable. Fuentes blamed women for declining fertility rates, support for poor and minority populations, and constraining men’s behavior, drawing explicit comparisons to Hitler’s imprisonment of political rivals. He proposed sending women to what he called “breeding gulags,” claiming good ones would be liberated while others would face forced labor. 

Fuentes’ virulent hatred of women barely makes the news. He’s invited instead to dinner with a president convicted of sexual abuse of a woman and accused by scores of women of far worse. 

Over the last ten years in the United States women’s rights have been significantly eroded with a deadly cost. Trump boasts responsibility for the overturn of Roe V Wade but in 2022 during the Biden administration democratic Senator Joe Manchin blocked the codification of Roe. Since that time there is much research that reflects the impact of that for American women, and children.

Unintended effects – CDC data

Access to birth control and reproductive health care through the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) requirement reduced rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion up to 78%. 

–In the wake of Roe’s overturn, states with abortion bans have seen an increase in infant deaths and excess deaths of women during or after pregnancy.

–Evidence shows access to reproductive health care and abortion reduces child poverty, reduces maternal deaths, and increases women’s wages while allowing them to accumulate more assets. 

–Reproductive health care restrictions are EXPENSIVE and predicted to add over $1.24 billion in social costs.

-The Journal of Health Economics reported the increase in death and domestic violence is evidence of an ‘unintended effect’ of the overturn of Roe vs Wade.

-Abortion bans are linked to a sharp rise in sepsis, infant death, and pregnancy-associated death, new research shows at this LINK

–JAMA Psychiatry recently published a study investigating the relationship between state-level access to reproductive care and suicide in the United States. Read Jonathan Zandberg’s research on abortion restriction and suicide rates HERE.

Here we pause and wonder, are they unintended effects? 

Post-Dobbs increase in violence against women

-Since Roe vs Wade was overturned, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) against American women has increased significantly.  

–In Dec. 2025  the Journal of Health Economics reported that there is evidence that abortion restrictions in the post-Dobbs era have impacted women’s risk of exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV). 

–On average, a woman’s risk of being killed in the U.S. increases by 20% when pregnant or after giving birth.

–Pregnant and postpartum women are more likely to be murdered than to die from childbirth-related issues.

Many killings of women are the result of domestic violence. PBS special correspondent Sarah Varney reported that abortion restrictions are putting women further at risk. LINK

THIS IS NOT A JOKE!

As more news of the torture and sexual violence upon female (and male) children by powerful men is revealed in the Epstein files, American women understand. Cover up, denial and deflection are built into a system designed  to protect men with power and money no matter how horrific their crimes against women. Gaslight, threaten and expose the victims, protect the abusers. Women and children are not safe in the United States, perhaps they never were.

Ancestral trauma

When Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Nominee playwright Heidi Schreck resurrected her teenage self and traced the profound impact of the US Constitution on four generations of women in her family, I’m not sure if she realized how relevant, tragically, her play would be less than 10 years later. We reflect on the past. I’m reminded of my own ancestors’ story… In 19th century America, RabbleRouser’s great-great grandmother Mary Jackson Pascoe, died in October 1861 in Georgia at the birth of her 15th child, Virginia Mourning Victoria Pascoe. The child died nine months after her mother in July of 1862. Walk through any cemetery and you’ll find tombstones with mothers and young children etched in time… inscribed in our DNA.

From the womb to the tomb

Did any of our grandmothers really want to bear children like livestock or was death a welcome escape from the weight of the impossible constraint of systems dominated by men. Have we exited a brief window in time where reproductive freedom and rights of personhood brought longevity and a better quality of life for American women and children?

In an article for Scientific American Rachel Yehuda reports that: Ancestral trauma is transmitted through the womb via epigenetic mechanisms, where a mother’s stress-induced chemical alterations to her genes are passed to the fetus. Studies show this in-utero environment can alter a baby’s brain circuitry and stress response, predisposing them to mental health conditions. This biological, non-genetic inheritance means trauma affects future generations. –Scientific American

In early 21st century America, we will certainly transmit today’s trauma to future generations of both female and male descendants if man’s impact on earth even allows for future generations. Like women’s rights, nothing today seems guaranteed, yet still we hope for our futures, share our collective stories and fight to keep what our grandmothers earned.