(Coinciding with Trump’s first 100 days in Office — a period of time historically used as a benchmark to measure the potential of a new president — PRA will share readings, videos, and tools for organizing to inform our collective resistance based on principles for engaging the regime, defending human rights, and preventing authoritarianism. Daily readings will be posted on our Facebook and Twitter accounts and archived HERE.)
Week 11: Reproductive justice
The more recent trend in anti-reproductive justice attacks is a state-by-state approach designed to gradually chip away at existing rights. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in the 40+ years since Roe v. Wade, states have enacted over 1,000 abortion restrictions. These laws and policies have expanded requirements for parental involvement and abortion counseling, and apply limits to medication abortions, later abortions, and coverage requirements from private insurance companies. Other strategies, such as the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA), effectively manipulate the language of equality and exploit negative stereotypes about women of color in order to advance their agenda. Additionally, the Right’s redefinition of religious liberty — as exemplified in the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling — represents a serious threat to reproductive justice and civil liberties more broadly.
Featured resources
- Defending Reproductive Justice Activist Resource Kit
- Whole Woman’s Health’s Unexpected Win for Science by Alex DiBranco
- How the Right is Co-Opting #BlackLivesMatter to Roll Back Repro Rights by Cole Parke
- When Exemption is the Rule: The Religious Freedom Strategy of the Christian Right by Frederick Clarkson
- Abortion as “Black Genocide”: An Old Scare Tactic Re-emerges by Kathryn Joyce
Additional Readings
Engage
The National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund has developed the Queering Reproductive Justice toolkit to support the integration of repro* and LGBTQ advocacy. The toolkit aims to help advocates understand the intersection and allow them to better reflect and serve the repro* needs of LGBTQ people.