This is the latest threat to end the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision comes as yet another blow to women in general — and Black and poor women in particular, as well as trans and nonbinary abortion seekers. Recent leaks of the draft opinion by the conservative court indicating that they plan to overturn Roe are part of a larger right-wing backlash, which is gendered & racialized. It would be politically dangerous and terribly misguided to view. RoeIsolation. Black feminist politics insists on the opposite.
Black women have been the saviors of so many aspects of the coal mine. Low-income people — disproportionately women of color, and even more disproportionately Black women — in large numbers have experienced restricted access to abortion since the passage of the Hyde Amendment in 1976, which prevented the use of federal Medicaid funds for this important health procedure. Some of the most vulnerable women have had to be denied access to abortions due to the attacks on south-based clinics.
We Black feminists understand that abortion is a racial justice issue. However, the right to have and to parent children is also a human rights issue. We refer to intersectionality as the understanding that these struggles are not separate.
Bodily sovereignty should have been a fundamental right. But, Black women in America have never enjoyed that right. Black women were subject to being told that their bodies were not theirs in slavery. This message was enforced through a brutal regime terror and the state. Black women are still more likely to be raped and brutalized than ever before. It is a distopic outrage to force unwanted pregnancies upon anyone. It is outrageous to do this while simultaneously systematically denying our children access to the essential resources they need to properly raise and care for them. But here we are.
It is vital that we recognize this attack. RoeIn a larger political context, this is reflected in our growing carcerality and control over our lives, as well as growing repression of marginalized and historically oppressed groups. Our system of mass targeted prisoneration reflects the notion that punishment is an intervention of choice for this state. Pregnant patients and health care workers will be prosecuted, jailed, and even tried for making a decision that should not be personal. This is consistent with a prison-industrial system that has always held the patriarchal ethos that domination and violence at its core.
Class is always a key variable in racial capitalism. If Roe Those with unwanted pregnancies, especially those who are poor, will be the most affected. People with unwanted pregnancies who are wealthy will have a harder job, but they will still be able to use their privileges and money to obtain abortions when necessary. Roe. The choice is almost impossible for those without cars, bus fares, or the ability to take even a single day off without a financial hit. This is the “afterlife of slavery,” to quote writer and academic Saidiya Hartman. This is an extension of the horrible racist and misogynous practices that were established centuries ago.
Social justice activist and scholar Dorothy Roberts’s new book, Torn Apart,This article outlines how Black families are devalued, and even violated by the same forces that claim to be concerned about the sanctity the fetus. These same passionate advocates care less about the lives of Black children and are brutalized, criminalized and beaten in large numbers.
Our response to this threat was to overturn Roemust be fast and broad-based. It is already happening, but it needs to grow. Even though this attack is not surprising, reproductive justice groups, particularly Black reproductive justice organizations, have taken bold steps to stop it. We must stand up, speak out, and fight back with all our might, but we must also contextualize this fight within the many interrelated fights to justice and survival.
Many groups, both organized and unorganized, have taken to streets and gathered at the Supreme Court and doorsteps of anti-government protestors.Roe Supreme Court justices. Los Angeles, California: A militant protest led to the arrest of protesters who protested against the pending decision. They refused to be silenced and were not allowed to leave the streets.
Also, President Joe Biden as well as Vice President Kamala Harris must be pressed. Black women voters were the driving force behind this election. To reverse the trend of RoeThis would be a betrayal, even if every ounce was of executive power to stop it.
This is above all a political struggle — which includes legislative efforts to codify RoeThe first attempt at enacting it was unsuccessful. It is a struggle in streets, through protests, and direct-action tactics. It is also an ideological struggle within our communities.
This is a struggle that takes place in the streets, courts, as well as in our communities and families. There is a constant debate in Black communities about abortion. A majority of preachers are predominantly male and claim that it is destroying Black life. This offensive and biased framing must be challenged. This view is not widely shared, even if it is often amplified. Janette Robinson Flint, Black Women for Wellness, reports on this. 78 percentBlack women are opposed to the reversal Roe, 85 percentBlack women are more likely to support someone they love having an abortion. Rev. Raphael Warnock and other progressive faith leaders have stood up for reproductive justice despite being pushed to the contrary.
The bottom line is that we must support groups such as SisterSong, Black Women’s Health Imperative, the Women’s March, Black Women’s Blueprint, Black Feminist Future,Other groups. Other groups that are not primarily focused on gender and reproductive justice are also mobilizing their responses. The Movement for Black Lives coalition’s Table to Abolish Patriarchal Violence is engaged in ongoing work to combat all forms of gender and sexual violence through political education, narrative strategies, direct action and leadership training.
Black liberation is about fighting for and defending Black humanity, freedom and autonomy. This is what our ancestors did during slavery, and what our current family is doing today. Forced pregnancy is the other side of forced sterilization suffered by Black and Puerto Rican females in horrendous experimental projects that were an extension and continuation of the racist and sexist pseudoscientific eugenics movement of 20th century. The notion that the state should control pregnant people’s bodies has to be rejected unequivocally by all of us.
We may lose this round, no matter how hard we fight the attack and others. However, victory is never complete and defeat is not inevitable if resistance is formed. We must respond now to the crisis by embracing mutual aid, community-based health care, collective financing for health procedures, and continuing electoral strategies. Forward never. Never go backwards
