This latest threat to end the landmark 1973 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. The recent leaked draft opinion indicating the conservative court plans to overturn Roe occurs in the context of a larger right-wing backlash that is gendered and racialized. It would be politically dangerous and sorely misguided to view Roe in isolation. Black feminist politics insist that we do the opposite.
Black women have been the canaries in the coal mine on so many fronts. 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. The erosion of access and attacks on clinics in the south has further made it hard for some of the most vulnerable women to get abortions.
As Black feminists, we understand that not only is abortion a racial justice issue, but so is the right to have and parent children free of state-sanctioned and vigilante violence, free of heteropatriarchal and transphobic mandates, and free of the economic burdens caused by low wages, lack of affordable housing and child care, and lack of access to high-quality schools. Understanding that these are not separate struggles is what we mean by intersectionality.
Bodily sovereignty should be a basic right, but Black women in the Americas have never had that right. During slavery, Black women were told our bodies were not our own, a message enforced by the state and private interests through a violent regime of terror. Even today, Black women are more likely to be raped, brutalized and killed with impunity. To force unwanted pregnancies on anyone is a dystopic outrage. To do so while systematically denying access to essential resources to adequately raise and care for our children is beyond outrageous. But this is where we are.
It is important that we see this attack on Roe in a larger political context of growing carcerality and control of our lives, and growing repression and violence toward marginalized and historically oppressed communities. The idea that punishment is the intervention of choice of this state is reflected in our system of mass targeted incarceration. The fact that pregnant patients and health care providers will be criminalized, prosecuted and jailed for making a decision that should be wholly personal is consistent with a prison-industrial complex that has always had the patriarchal ethos of domination and violence at its core.
Under racial capitalism, class is always a key variable. If Roe is indeed overturned, poor people with unwanted pregnancies will suffer the most. Rich people with unwanted pregnancies will have a harder time but will be able to use privilege and money to get abortions when needed, as many did before Roe. For those without cars, bus fare or the ability to take even a day off work without a financial hit, the decision is excruciating and the choices almost nil. This is the “afterlife of slavery,” to quote writer and academic Saidiya Hartman. It is an extension of the heinous racist and misogynous practices begun centuries ago.
Social justice activist and scholar Dorothy Roberts’s new book, Torn Apart, outlines how Black families are devalued and violated by some of the same forces that profess to be so concerned about the sanctity of the fetus. These same passionate advocates are less concerned about the sanctity of the lives of Black children, who are brutalized and criminalized in large numbers.
Our response to the threat to overturn Roe has to be swift and broad-based. It is happening already but needs to grow. Reproductive justice groups, and Black reproductive justice groups in particular, have taken bold initiatives to thwart this attack, even though it comes as no surprise. We have to stand up, speak out and fight back with every fiber of our beings, but we also have to do so while contextualizing this fight among the many interrelated fights for justice and survival.
Many groups, including both organized ones and spontaneously formed ones, have taken to the streets and shown up on the steps of the Supreme Court, and at the doorsteps of anti-Roe Supreme Court justices. In Los Angeles, California, a militant protest led to arrests after protesters expressed their rage at this pending decision and refused to be silenced or pushed off the streets.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris also have to be pressured. It is Black women voters who were the decisive force that elected this administration. To allow the reversal of Roe without every ounce of executive power being exerted to prevent such an outcome would be a betrayal.
This is above all a political struggle — which includes legislative efforts to codify Roe into law, the first attempt at which has failed. It is a struggle in the streets, through protests and direct-action tactics. But it is also an ideological struggle in our communities.
This struggle is in the streets and the courts but also in our communities and families. In the Black community there is an ongoing debate that is advanced by a vocal minority of primarily male preachers who contend that abortion destroys Black life. This skewed and offensive framing cannot go unchallenged. It is not a view that is widely shared, even though it is frequently amplified. Janette Robinson Flint of Black Women for Wellness reports that 78 percent of Black women oppose the reversal of Roe, and 85 percent of Black women say they would support someone they love to have an abortion. Notably progressive faith leaders like Rev. Raphael Warnock have defended the principle of reproductive justice, despite pressure to do otherwise.
The bottom line is that we have to support groups like SisterSong, Black Women’s Health Imperative, the Women’s March, Black Women’s Blueprint, Black Feminist Future, and others. Groups that do not exclusively work on gender and reproductive justice are also mobilizing 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.
The reality is that Black liberation is about claiming, fighting for and defending Black humanity and freedom, including bodily autonomy, which has been so consistently stripped from us; from our ancestors during enslavement, and our caged and incarcerated family today. Forced pregnancy is the flip side of forced sterilization endured by Black and Puerto Rican women in despicably experimental projects that were an extension of the racist, sexist and pseudoscientific eugenics movement in the 20th century. The notion that the state should control pregnant people’s bodies has to be rejected unequivocally by all of us.
As hard as we fight this attack and others, we may (and some say, will likely) lose this round. But no victory is ever complete, and neither is any defeat, if resistance is mustered. Mutual aid, community-based care, collective financing of health procedures wherever they can be safely performed, coupled with continued electoral strategies, movement building work, and struggles with one another for a holistic transformative vision, has to be our response in this moment. Forward ever. Backward never.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.