Honoring Roe on what would have been its 50th anniversary
Our hearts are heavy today after yet another community experienced a senseless act of gun violence. It’s unimaginable that while people were dancing - an expression of passion and joy – lives were lost and lives were forever changed. We lift up the Monterey Park, CA community in love and light as they pick up the pieces and comfort one another in healing.
Also heavy on our hearts is that today marks an anniversary of a fundamental right that is no more. Fifty years ago the U.S. Supreme Court delivered the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling which granted bodily autonomy to any person who can get pregnant, ensuring that the choice to assume the responsibility of parenthood remained firmly in their hands. Fifty years later, people who can get pregnant find themselves without these protections, stripped of their bodily autonomy, and at the beginning of a fight already won.
In this new environment states are stripping people who can get pregnant of their rights through a windfall of legislation that has placed unprecedented bans and restrictions on abortion access. By criminalizing abortion and pregnancy outcomes, these bans contribute further to criminalizing women, girls, nonbinary folx, trans men, and intersex people, especially those of color, for making the personal choice that is best for them.
As a result, reproductive rights must be recognized as not just a gender equity conversation, but a racial equity conversation, a criminal justice conversation, an economic justice conversation, a public health conversation and above all a human rights conversation.
Without Roe, we have been devastated but far from defeated. At Alliance for Girls (AFG), we continue to believe that safe abortion is a human right and that a person’s right to choose what they want to do with their body is theirs and no one else's. We are committed to amplifying the work of our 120 member organizations who are teaching girls and gender expansive youth to love, respect and fight for their bodies and bodily autonomy, and who have doubled down on their advocacy efforts in favor of reproductive rights and justice. Here’s how we are collectively fighting for reproductive rights and access for all, and fostering healing from the pain of losing this basic human right:
AFG is lifting up the work of members who are on the frontlines in the fight for reproductive justice. At our World We Imagine conference last year, Janette Robinson Flint, Executive Director of Black Women for Wellness delivered a powerful keynote address emphasizing the importance of reproductive justice as a human right. This was followed by a panel led by three of our member organizations, HEART, National Center for Youth Law (NCYL), and Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, to discuss the abortion rights landscape post-Roe and how various communities have been working toward reproductive justice and freedom. Through this discussion the audience, which included youth and intergenerational leaders, received the call to action to learn their rights and exercise their political power by voting to protect abortion rights.
AFG co-hosted Healing Justice Circles with Malikah, HEART, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York Action Fund, SOAR, Queer Crescent, and other organizations to check in with our bodies and hearts following the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. In these circles we mourned together and had open, honest conversations about the impact of the decision on our own health and wellbeing. Together we heard from members of our community, and created a space for pause and processing, simultaneous to all the organizing and actions our communities were taking just after the decision.
AFG is expanding the conversations about reproductive choice in an intersectional way. Last year we launched the When Young Moms Thrive, We All Do (WYMT) initiative - a first of its kind program for and driven by young moms in East San Jose and Gilroy- with the aim of not only closing service gaps for young mothers but also changing the cultural narrative around young parenthood. When we advocate for the expansion of childcare services for young mothers, we are disrupting the current culture that stigmatizes the choice they exercised in becoming parents to one that supports and empowers them. Recently, two young mothers from the WYMT initiative, Senior Advocacy Fellow Viviana Arenas and Young Women’s Freedom Center Policy Fellow Arabella Guevara, discussed the need for stigma-free systems in an op-ed for the San Jose Spotlight. For more information about the WYMT initiative, please check out the Alliance for Girls website.
AFG is sharing its member’s resources. Since the overturning of Roe, we have diligently uplifted resources and member-led events encouraging folks to take action to safeguard reproductive rights. One such resource is Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s fight back web page which debuted post-roe and serves as a guide for folks eager to to support the movement for reproductive rights. Check it out to learn how you can get involved.
Today, as we reflect on what would’ve been, let us also remember to hold space for our healing and wellness. It is okay to pause and unpack how this is affecting our bodies and hearts. There is resistance in prioritizing our collective care because that is how we sustain ourselves in this fight.
