Allison Kupfer Poteet is a member of Groundswell Collective. She lives in South Portland with her husband and daughter. 

Susan Collins is one reason my daughter will grow up with fewer rights than the generations before her.

The month of March was all about celebrating women’s history, and paying tribute to all the women who stood up for our rights — like being able to vote, having control over our own bodies and being heard equally in our country’s decisions.

But in a year with an election as consequential as this one, we have to recognize that one of Maine’s longest tenured elected officials, a woman herself, has turned her back on other women. 

I’ve spent more than a decade organizing in Maine, phonebanking and talking to voters during election cycles since I moved here in 2011. In that time, I’ve heard a lot from Mainers about Susan Collins. 

For years, Collins has tried to portray herself as a moderate voice who supports women. We’ve heard her say she’s “concerned” so often it has become a running joke across the state.

But when the most important votes of her career came, Collins chose not to stand up for women. Instead, she sided again and again with the extremists who have spent decades trying to take our rights away.

In 2018, Sen. Collins voted to put Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Supreme Court. Back then, she told the people of Maine that the law protecting abortion, Roe v. Wade, was not going to change. A lot of people believed her. But just a few years later, Roe was overturned in the Dobbs decision — ending nearly 50 years of constitutional protection for reproductive freedom.

That decision was only possible because of the justices Susan Collins helped put on the Supreme Court, including Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.

Abortion bans have since gone into effect across the country. In some states, women can no longer access care even in cases of rape, incest or dangerous conditions like ectopic pregnancy, and doctors face threats of prosecution for providing basic health care. Families are forced to travel hundreds of miles to receive treatment.

For those of us in Maine, the threat is real — especially with many rural communities already struggling with access to health care. And even after Roe was overturned, Collins has refused to stand up for women.

When the Senate had the opportunity to restore Roe v. Wade through the Women’s Health Protection Act, Collins voted against it.

She has also continued to rubber-stamp Trump-appointed anti-choice judges working to strip reproductive rights away from women across the country. These judges will serve for decades and will decide whether women can access reproductive health care.

And now Collins is backing policies that will undermine women’s rights in another way — by making it harder for them to vote. She recently cast a decisive vote for the SAVE Act, legislation that would impose new documentation requirements for voter registration.

According to the Center for American Progress, the SAVE Act could disenfranchise millions of Americans. As many as 69 million women nationwide who have taken their spouse’s last name do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name.

In Maine alone, 343,619 women could face new barriers to registering or casting a ballot under legislation that Collins supports.

Women fought for generations for the right to vote. Going back more than 150 years, women have organized, marched and demanded a voice in our democracy. The last thing we should be doing now is putting new barriers in their way. Collins knows that these laws are bad for women but doesn’t seem to care — or just cares more about her corporate donors or the orders of Republican leaders in Washington.

As someone who has spent years talking to Maine voters and organizing in our communities, I’ve seen something shift since Roe was overturned. More people recognize that Susan Collins is not the moderate she claims to be and it’s finally catching up to her. Mainers can famously spot phonies and sycophants, and politicians who say one thing and do another. 

This November will be the first time Collins faces voters since Roe was overturned.

Her record is clear. Susan Collins has turned her back on women. And they will remember when they reject her at the ballot box in November.