This piece was originally published in We Organize to Change Everything: Fighting for Abortion Access and Reproductive Justice (Verso Books and Lux Magazine. 2022).
Jen Deerinwater shows the connections between tribal sovereignty, and what it means for full reproductive justice.
This article is part of We Organize to Change EverythingLux and Verso collaborated to create, an award-winning socialist feminist magazine. We organize to change everythingThis book examines the struggle for abortion from the 1970s through the present. It brings together the voices and experiences of clinic defenders, doctors, and feminist activists who help pregnant women get care from Mississippi to Mexico. Contributors consider the intimate connection of abortion rights to forced sterilization and structural racism, incarceration and criminalization, Indigenous people’s sovereignty, transgender rights, and the growing threat of a white supremacist far right. The collection shows how activists in the United States can learn from the dynamic feminist movement in Central and South America.
Most importantly, this collection describes what a fighting movement for reproductive justice could look like — one that fights for the right to parent as we wish or not parent at all, and rejects the criminalization of anyone’s body.
I’ve supported abortion since I was ten years old. I noticed the adults that mistreated girls and womxn were overwhelmingly antiabortion, and I didn’t want to be like them. That’s no surprise, given that my youngest years were spent in a small town in Tulsa County on the now reestablished reservation of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Collinsville was a small, two-stoplight kind of town with a Main Street similar to many others I’ve seen across the so-called United States.[1] It’s an ultra-conservative, Trump-loving part of the country with many evangelical Christians and a long history of attempting to legislate the bodies and lives of those with wombs.
After my boyfriend raped and raped fourteen-year-old me, I had my first encounter with this. I was scared that I might become pregnant after my period was too late. I didn’t know what I would do, but having a baby wasn’t an option. A friend’s mom bought a pregnancy test for me because I was worried, given how small my town was, that everyone would know if I bought one myself.
I was recently hospitalized after attempting suicide. I was also from a divorced household, which meant that many people in this small community looked down on my attempts. I also witnessed how rape survivors were treated by the media. William Kennedy Smith, a member the famous Kennedy family, was on trial for rape just a few short years ago and was quickly acquitted of all charges despite the testimony and a rapekit. First, the survivor was portrayed as a liar, then as a slut who received what she deserved. Given that I was a mixed Native child from a “broken home,” and had just been in a mental hospital, I didn’t think anyone would believe me, nor care. Thankfully my period returned and I didn’t have to worry about how I would access an abortion as a minor in rural Oklahoma — but that moment in time solidified my commitment to reproductive rights.
My step-dad was fifteen when he accepted a new job in Abilene Texas. Abilene is the main urban area in this part of West Texas. It has a population of approximately 125,000. Dallas is approximately 180 miles away.
Abilene was initially used as a stop point for cattle drives. It later became home of three private, ultra-conservative Christian colleges as well Dyess Air Force Base. If at all, it was difficult to find sexual education, condoms, birth control, condoms and abortion. My high school sex ed consisted of our health teacher, a football coach as I recall, hanging a “True Love Waits” t-shirt on the chalk board. “True Love Waits” is the Baptist Church’s deeply misogynistic, anti-queer, and rape culture–oozing abstinence-only program that is fixated on female purity and virginity.
At high school, I heard stories about unwanted pregnancies and secret trips made to Planned Parenthood in Dallas. There were also cases of or fears of contracting STIs. My mom made sure I had hormonal birth controls when I needed it. And, being the research nerd that she is, I did my best to learn as much as possible about STIs and pregnancy. Even if I had the financial or privacy concerns to steal them, I made sure I had condoms in case I decided to be sexually active on my terms.
I finally fled my home and moved to the coasts. I grew and changed over the years, and found a place of my own in political movements, including the pro-choice movement. This helped me to get pregnant at the age of 26 when my birth control was unsuccessful. I knew with unwavering conviction that I had the right and power to control my life and my body. Having that knowledge, though, didn’t make it easy.
I discussed the situation and my then-boyfriend with whom I was at that time dating. We both agreed to have an abortion. I would become part of the 25 percent of womxn in the United States who’ve had an abortion since Roe v. Wade1973 became law. Although my ex was prochoice and supported my decision for an abortion, he did so only out of convenience. He did not give me any money and left it up to me to resolve the problem. He complained that I didn’t schedule the abortion at a time that was convenient for him. As if abortion was available on demand and it wasn’t my body going through it.
My friend went with me to Planned Parenthood. There, we waited all the day to get the pills for the medical abortion. This was something I thought would be less invasive and more private. However, I didn’t fully understand that I was about to go through something akin to the process of giving birth. Medical staff repeatedly told me to have someone there with me. However, no explanation was given. I lied and said I wouldn’t be alone when I took the pills, because I was afraid I’d be denied an abortion. I couldn’t tell them that the father didn’t care enough to be with me. I was also suffering from PTSD symptoms from the events that occurred when I was 14. I needed an abortion immediately. I would have given anything to get one.
I wished that he was still there, hours later, in the throes extreme nausea and cramping. I didn’t want my ex back — he wasn’t a good person, nor someone that I would want to raise a child with — but I would have given anything to have him with me to get the glass of water I was too sick to get for myself. After the pain had subsided, I found myself alone on my bathroom floor. He never called me to ask how I was feeling after the abortion.
A month later, the annual protest that the Massachusetts-area affiliates the National Organization for Women held against the Boston antiabortion demonstration was over. I thought I was prepared for the onslaught of demeaning, derogatory words that the antiabortion zealots use about people like me, but I wasn’t: a sign claiming abortion was manslaughter brought tears to my eyes. I have dedicated my life to fighting for justice, equality, and a better world. Did these people not realize that I didn’t take having an abortion lightly and that I took every means necessary to prevent a pregnancy? Didn’t they realize that there was a (cis)man involved, and that the responsibility didn’t lie solely on my shoulders?
I was overwhelmed by rage. I was furious at being called a murderer, while my ex got away with it. He didn’t have to beg for a day off work, or go through hours of excruciating pain or weeks of bleeding. He wouldn’t be called a murderer or a slut and he wouldn’t have to fight for his rights to control his body. He wouldn’t have to write such an essay, and he wouldn’t feel angry or frustrated about having to explain why he had an abortive birth. In a just world I wouldn’t owe anyone an explanation at all.
***
Despite my commitment to abortion rights, I didn’t see myself reflected in prochoice spaces. My surrounds were predominantly white, hetero, ablebodied, ciswomen of middle-to-upper socioeconomic classes. As I’m a multiply-disabled, bisexual, Native, Two-Spirit womxn these spaces often felt dismissive. Many of those people would feign concern over the privileged make-up of the prochoice movement, but wouldn’t do much to change it. I didn’t see the prochoice activists I met work in solidarity with oppressed people who were without abortion access, nor did I see their concern for those who lost their rights to parent entirely. It is estimated that around 80% of all abortion access was denied in the 1970s. up to 50 percent of Native womb carriersThe Indian Health Service (IHS) sterilized them against their will.
IHS was established under the 1921 Snyder Act. It is a federally funded trust that has a treaty responsibility to provide healthcare to citizens and members federally recognized tribe nations. This means that our ancestors paid for it through the loss or their lands. The US government has used IHS to commit genocide. The Claremore Indian Hospital in OklahomaAs a child, I was forced to sterilize myself in, which is where I went. Our womb-carriers being denied the ability to have children is a continuation of over 500 years of misogynistic violence towards Indigenous peoples. It is also an attack on tribal sovereignty, self-determination, and tribal sovereignty that uses our womxn for fodder. It would be difficult to eliminate all of us from the Earth, as there are so few of us left.
Compounding the dire genocidal conditions that IHS’s sterilization caused is the reality that our children are continuing to be stolen from us and Native people are being denied the right to parent, which was exacerbated by Indian boarding schools. The boarding schools were created as part of a series of genocidal and white, Christian assimilationist policies known as “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” Atrocious acts of torture, sexual and physical assault, and murder occurred at these schools. A recent report by the US Department of the Interior on the federally funded Indian boarding schools found there were 408 schools in thirty-seven states or the then-territories of Alaska and Hawai’i. Unmarked Native children’s gravesites have been found at fifty-three schools. As has been the case in similar investigations in Canada, additional gravesites will be discovered.
Native children were taken out of Indigenous communities to be adopted into white, Christian homes. Our children were taken so seriously that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), was made a federal law in 1978. ICWA helps Native children who are eligible for enrollment in a federally recognised tribal nation to be protected from being adopted by overwhelmingly white, Christian families. Before ICWA 25 to 35 percent of all Native children were removed85 percent of them were taken from their homes, and 85 percent were placed outside their tribal nations and families even though they were able to return to their relatives.
Even with ICWA in place, many of our children are still stolen today, and our womb carriers’ rights to parent are still in question. Native people are up to four timeOur children are more likely to be placed in foster care than those of non-Native parents. Oklahoma has one of the largest Native American populations in the United States. reported in 2020 that Native children represented more than 35 percent of those in foster care, yet Native people only comprised 9 percent of the state’s population. It’s quite telling that many of those who want to overturn ICWAYou may also be interested in overturn Roe, including Supreme Court justices Thomas, Alito, and Roberts (and most likely Kavanaugh and Coney Barret) — the idea, here, is a full-scale bid to control reproduction across the board. The Supreme Court will rule on ICWA in the 2022–23 session in Brackeen v. Haaland.
Our right to have and to parent our children has been taken away, as has our right of abortion. Roe didn’t grant abortions for all. Native people have a right to full healthcare at IHS, including reproductive healthcare, but under the Hyde Amendment abortions can’t be performed using federal funds except to save the life of the pregnant person or in cases of rape or incest. Regardless of the circumstances, IHS abortion services are almost always available. one study by Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center reported that between 1981–2001 IHS performed only twenty-five abortions, and that 85 percent of IHS facilities were noncompliant with IHS and Hyde Amendment regulations. Only 5 percent of IHS facilities offered abortion services onsite. No IHS pharmacy kept Mifeprex, RU-486, for medical abortions. The study also found that IHS didn’t make referrals to outside abortion providers.
Native Americans are significantly more likely than others to live in poverty or to be disabled. Many of us can access our health care through Medicare and Medicaid, which are also subject to Hyde Amendment. But states have the option to use some of their Medicaid funds to pay for abortions for Medicaid recipients. Despite having access to three forms federally funded health care, I have had difficulty accessing even the most basic reproductive health care. Most recently, I was a year late in replacing my IUD and suffered unnecessary pain as a result, because there weren’t enough providers that would accept Medicare and Medicaid to perform the simple procedure. Despite being only seventeen miles from the headquarters of IHS, there aren’t any IHS facilities in Washington DC.
This is compounded by the fact that laws in thirty states as well as the District of Columbia allow for the forced sterilization of disabled people. The 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. BellThese eugenicist policies can be allowed, but it is rarely discussed outside of the disability community in prochoice or other reproductive justice spaces. This isn’t merely outdated legislation still on the books: in 2019 Iowa and Nevada codified the forced sterilization of disabled people.
All it would take is the stroke of a judge’s pen and I could legally be sterilized against my will. Except for North Carolina and Alaska which have made forced sterilization illegal, the law in the seventeen other states is not clear so sterilizations may be performed under guardianships. Guardianships, which garnered media attention when Britney Spears spoke of being forced to use long-acting birth control, is another way the system controls disabled people’s reproductive rights, and there are currently only three states that have banned the forced sterilization of disabled children.
To add insult to injury, as a resident of Washington, DC, I can’t use my Medicaid to pay for abortion outside of the Hyde Amendment exceptions. Many DC residents and elected officials support Medicaid funded abortions. However, Congress overrules this with an annual appropriations rider in its Financial Services and General Government subcommittee. DC isn’t a state, so Congress has ultimate say over most facets of local government, and we have no voting representation in Congress. My rights to reproductive equality have been violated in many ways.
***
Today I awoke to a message from my mom reading, “Welcome to Gilead. Under his eye.” She’s never been particularly politically active, but she was enraged over the latest Oklahoma abortion ban. As I write this, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt just signed the strictest abortion ban in the country. Oklahoma Rep. Wendi Stewart of Collinsville, where I grew-up, co-authored and sponsored HB4327. Under this violent law, abortion is banned once fertilization has occurred except to save a pregnant person’s life during a “medical emergency” based on a life-endangering physical condition that could require specific medical tests to authenticate; or in case of a rape or incest that’s reported to the police. This law is effective even though it is not in force Roe still stands. It allows individuals to sue abortion providers, clinics and anyone else involved in helping someone obtain an abortion.
It is undisputed that this law is violent. Stearman was asked if Oklahoma should be forcedShe said no to financial support for those who are forced to have children by this law. As reported in the Tulsa World, when Oklahoma Rep. Cindi Munson, a Democrat representing Oklahoma City, asked Stearman “If a young girl is raped by her uncle, she’s likely not going to go report to law enforcement … She’s not allowed seek an abortion under your bill, as I understand it. And you’re OK with that?” Stearman replied: “I am OK with that.”
Two of the four Oklahoma abortion clinics had stopped offering abortion at six weeks after an earlier law. When HB4327 was passed, all four stopped offering it. There are also concerns about the potential for this bill to lead to IUDs being outlawed, especially as other states, like Missouri and Idaho, are actively working to ban IUDs, which the antiabortion zealots falsely claim is an “abortifacient” (IUDs prevent fertilization of an egg, but they also stop the implantation of a fertilized egg).
Anti-abortion forces also attack tribal nations in general. Governor Stitt recently commented that he’s monitoring our tribal nations to ensure that we don’t offer legal abortions on our reservations. Stitt is simultaneously waging war against Oklahoma tribes, our treaty rights, while a Supreme Court ruling has yet to be made. Oklahoma v. Castro-HuertaThis case could threaten sovereignty on our lands.
The point of Governor Stitt’s comment wasn’t based on any actual evidence from tribal nations, some of which have large conservative Christian populations, but was rather an attack on tribal sovereignty — just as the Goldwater and Cato Institutes have no interest or business in Native children’s affairs but support the overturn of ICWA in order to further weaken tribal sovereignty. It’s a similar approach that the antiabortion movement has taken that brought us here: they slowly chipped away at RoeAt the local level, through the accretion lawsuit after lawsuit, with support from nonprofit organizations and for profits.
I have felt overwhelmed by the oppression and colonialism that has weighed down these lands. My personal history is intricately linked to violent attacks on womxn as well as Indigenous and disabled people and a constant effort to control us. We are resisting now, just as our ancestors fought against their oppressors. Indigenous Women Rising, an Indigenous health advocacy and education organization, offers an abortion fund for Indigenous peoples and undocumented persons. People and disabled people quickly organized to ensure that disability justice was prioritized in our calls to increase abortion access. Many 2LBTQIA+ individuals have repeatedly stated that the end is near. Roe isn’t simply a ciswomen’s issue, but it touches everyone who is assigned female at birth. The resistance to the overturning Roe has been vast, and I’m hardly alone in this struggle. I will not have full reproductive justice until tribal sovereignty is the law. The colonizer’s court will never bring sovereignty.
[1] “So-called” is often used by Indigenous people in the US and Canada as a way to acknowledge that the land is older than the colonizing nations that currently occupy it and belongs to tribal nations.
