Posts Tagged: reproductive justice
Earth Day and Reproductive Justice
As many of you know, yesterday was Earth Day. Some of us may celebrate by making a pledge to reduce waste, or to avoid driving, or plant a tree. But what isn’t usually on our mind on Earth Day is how Environmental Justice and Reproductive Justice are connected. As RJ advocates, we should look to any opportunity to expand our fight beyond the traditional issues and include other social justice issues that affect our communities. So you might be asking, how does Environmental Justice relate to RJ? The answer lies first in how our environment is linked to our health. Issues such as pollution can directly impact health, including reproductive health. And in addition to that, women and children are often more susceptible to the effects of toxins in the… Read more »
Pregnancy and Incarceration: Intersectional Justice
Reproductive justice within prison communities does not get discussed nearly enough. People who are pregnant and incarcerated are subject to many injustices. These injustices are particularly felt by low income communities and people of color. This week there was a workshop held at my school to talk about these issues hosted by Students United for Reproductive Freedom (SURF), our URGE branch. They write, “The mainstream pro-choice movement focuses on protecting the right to choose abortion, but the right to carry your pregnancy to term safely and with full agency is often overlooked. However, in the United States today, the personhood of pregnant people is systemically under attack. Fetal personhood legislation, the “War on Drugs,” and the medical industrial complex all chip away at the humanity of pregnant persons, and these… Read more »
California’s Cruel Policy that Keeps Families in Poverty
At the end of last month SB 23 passed its first committee in the California Legislature. For those of you who don’t know, SB 23 is a bill that seeks to repeal the CalWORKs Maximum Family Grant Rule (MFG) which bars families from receiving additional aid for any child born during the time that family is already receiving CalWORKs aid. A family receiving CalWORKs is a family who is struggling. How can a state say that they are not willing to provide assistance to any additional children knowing that children who grow up in poverty end up with poorer health, have behavioral and emotional problems, and are at higher risk of unintended pregnancy in their teen years? This is inhumane. What’s worse is that the rule applies to every member of… Read more »
Public Assistance is Reproductive Justice
Recently, my home state of Kansas passed a law that places several restrictions on the usage of benefits received from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF), commonly referred to as welfare. Among other things, the bill prohibits TANF benefits from being used at swimming pools, movie theaters, cruise ships, and tattoo parlors. Also, the bill limits ATM withdrawals from the TANF account to $25 per day. On top of these new restrictions, Kansas also requires recipients of TANF benefits to be working or looking for work, and has instituted a drug testing policy for those who qualify. And Kansas isn’t the only state to be fighting this “problem” of the luxury of being poor. Missouri lawmakers have been pushing for a bill greatly restricting what type of groceries… Read more »
Flyover States Matter
With all of the recent news coverage of Indiana’s new “religious freedom” law and the imprisonment of Purvi Patel for having a miscarriage, we have an opportunity to look at how people across the country view Reproductive Justice in the Midwest. Unfortunately, the conversation has been going in the same direction we usually see when problematic things happen in a red state. This scenario leads us to a discussion about flyover states, what it means to work for change in them, and how national organizations can support people on the ground. Too often we run into the problem of local organizations not having the funding or resources to handle these fights alone. However, national organizations in some cases are either unwilling or unable to offer the support that is needed… Read more »
Purvi Patel’s Imprisonment and the Implications of Anti-Choice Laws
Yesterday, thirty-three year old Purvi Patel of Indiana was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment on the charges of feticide and neglect. Patel was sentenced with thirty years of jail time on charges of neglect, six years for infanticide (to be served at the same time as the neglect charges), and is likely to spend five years time on probation post-prison. RH Reality Check coverage of the news described Patel as an Indian American who, “lived in a conservative Hindu household in which it was expected that she would not engage in premarital sex, and wanted to keep the pregnancy a secret from her parents.” Purvi Patel sought medical care at St. Joseph Hospital, a Catholic organization, after she was experiencing bleeding. According to the Vatican’s Catechism 2270, the Catholic Church… Read more »
Self Care Isn’t Only Bubble Baths and Hot Tea, Sometimes It’s Simpler
Self-care is a necessary part of life in order for people to stay healthy, rested, and well. Sometimes life can just get too hectic and it’s important to remember to take a step back and take care of ourselves. Especially in activist spaces we tend to be so focused on others that our own well being can easily get pushed aside. Luckily however there exists the concept of self-care. Before I was even introduced to the terminology a year or so ago that notion has always existed. And it can look a variety of different ways for different people. Self-care can look like taking quiet time to read a favorite book, taking a long warm shower, or splurging on desert or a new piece of clothing. As the concept of… Read more »
Your Pro-Choice Cheat Sheet: How to Respond to Anti-Abortion Arguments
Last week, my school was “lucky” enough to play host to an anti-abortion group called Creating Equal. The group stopped by for two days as part of their annual “justice ride,” in order to spread propaganda and put down the pro-choice movement. Their argument was based on the fact that abortion is “ageism” and the group showed pictures of “abortions,” as well as a video of what an abortion looks like (on a large screen in the middle of campus, no less). When students realized what was happening, they formed a counter-protest, complete with safe spaces to help those who were triggered by the images. Arguments over ethics and the pro-choice movement littered Facebook and one counter-protest participant admitted that an anti-abortionist had her talking in circles. I get it…. Read more »
5 Things I Learned From Lobbying at the Capitol
Yesterday I did something I wouldn’t have expected myself to do in a million years. I went to my Texas State Capitol and lobbied for a package of reproductive healthcare bills under the ‘Trust. Respect. Access.’ campaign. We had bills that addressed the need for comprehensive sex education in schools, to bills that addressed the state-mandated 24-hour waiting period for abortions. But all the bills really simply fit into the platform of ‘Trust. Respect. Access.’ which means that we: Trust Texans to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions Respect the knowledge of healthcare professionals and their medical and ethical judgement about the care each patient needs. guarantee that everyone in Texas, if so chooses, gets Access to a safe, compassionate, and timely abortion. I learned so much from the training before… Read more »
Taking Root through Civic Engagement
This past weekend, I attended Take Root: Red State Perspectives on Reproductive Justice. It’s a conference held in Oklahoma dedicated to outlining and working through the struggles of RJ activism in unfriendly environments. As was expected, the conference was excellent, the panels were very informative, and this year they had the largest number of attendees yet! One panel I attended that I really thought was interesting was called RJ and Civic Engagement. The question it raised was, “How do we develop and support effective reproductive justice activism and civic engagement?” The panelists all spoke on effective RJ campaigns they have been a part of, and the strategies that led to that success. The first thing they talked about was the definition of civic engagement and how to accomplish it, in… Read more »
