The Fight for Rights: Shifts in Reproductive Justice Organizing after Dobbs
By Victoria Hsieh • September 20, 2021
I vividly remember the silence and palpable anger amongst my friends when news first broke out last May about the leaked Supreme Court opinion on Roe v. Wade. That evening, in solidarity with many of our classmates, we chalked messages on the sidewalk condemning the decision. The next morning, our student Planned Parenthood group organized a protest that would include speakers and a march through campus. Doctors, students who had faced abortion and many other speakers shared their stories about the importance of protecting access to safe abortions. Despite these efforts that exemplified community and offered hope, in conversations with my friends and classmates, it was hard to not despair, especially knowing that in California and in my home state of Washington, Governor Gavin Newsom and Governor Jay Inslee had quickly tweeted promises to uphold abortion access laws.
When it comes to reproductive rights, there are stark differences in governance between communities, counties, and states To help protect reproductive rights, we need to organize at multiple levels. We need to build power not only for a national cause, but in communities most directly affected by the rapid shifts in policies. My access to reproductive health would be fundamentally different if I resided in Louisiana as opposed to Washington. I have begun to think about the ways I may be able to plug in to efforts across the country. I’ve started by seeking to learn and share information about the history of reproductive justice across the United States.
Within the past two years, access to reproductive health was greatly limited, not only by the recent Supreme Court decision but also by resource constraints further exacerbated by the pandemic. More than half the women surveyed in a study done by Columbia University reported additional barriers, ranging from difficulty finding open clinics to accessible childcare in the midst of the pandemic.
A report from the Population Reference Bureau shows that COVID-19 complicated access to contraceptives in many communities of color, low-income communities, and especially for women who faced income loss and food insecurity. Even before the pandemic, According to a 2020 CDC report, statistics show that, over the study period, Black women faced a higher maternal mortality rate than any other demographic and faced birth complications at a rate almost three times higher than white women. With the pandemic, Black women had to tackle additional barriers such as overrun hospital systems. It is also important to acknowledge that the medical field of maternal and childhood health is rooted in oppression. The practitioner known as the father of American gynecology had horrifying roots to the institution of slavery.
Despite these barriers, Black women and organizers have historically taken and continued to take the lead on securing opportunities in reproductive health for all. The term “reproductive justice” came about officially in 1994 when a group of Black women in Chicago recognized the need for a national movement that uplifted the rights of those from marginalized communities, especially in relation to bodily autonomy according to Sister Song. Since then, organizations and communities, especially those led by BIPOC communities, have continued to organize and fight for reproductive justice rights and their presence was much needed during the pandemic.
A couple of organizations doing this important work include the Asian American Organizing Project (AAOP) and Khmer Girls in Action (KGA). I (VH) had the honor of interviewing Michelle Vohs (MV), a gender justice organizer from AAOP, and Joy Yanga (JY), communications director at KGA. In these interviews I was able to learn more about how their organizing and frontline work shifted during the pandemic and at the heels of Roe v. Wade decision. AAOP is a community-led nonprofit working towards the empowerment of young Asians in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, especially those who identify as LGBTQ+ and/or women/femme, to create systemic change, while KGA works with Southeast Asian young women in Long Beach, California to build collective power.
VH (Praxis): What are the main campaigns and initiatives your organization has to support reproductive justice efforts?
MV (AAOP): Our gender justice program began in 2019 with the launch of our Gender Visibility Project. We really wanted to highlight and begin some of those conversations with folks surrounding their identities surrounding their sexualities and gender, because nothing's binary. There's so much room for other identities and such, and so we really want to highlight that with that project. Moving into 2020, we began our first participatory action research cohort. It's our research project that looked to better understand how young Asian Americans in Minnesota engage with sexual wellness and health such as comprehensive sex ed as well as queer allyship. What do they know? What do they not know? What are gaps in their understanding? Looking into those gaps, in 2021, we launched into our workshops surrounding both of those research projects that I just mentioned. And so those workshops are actually being relaunched this year, which is actually wrapping those up for the summer. But those workshops are on comprehensive sex ed for Asian American folks.
JY (KGA): We work with Southeast Asian women and youth and our members are in high school and Long Beach has the highest population of Cambodians and so what's important is that we cover things in our programs that may not be covered in school. A lot of that has to do with identity and identity spanning cultural identity, ethnicity, their historical background, topics their parents might not talk about. Firstly, we cover topics like gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation, related to learning about themselves. Then, in the next program here, they start learning about community and all the different issues that are impacting their communities lives, whether it's around gentrification or policies that decide how much funding youth programs get or don't get. And then after that, they have a program where they work on campaigns that affect young people and their families. So in short, we have a tiered program. At the very beginning, we start with who you are, how you express yourself and we talk about stereotypes, which become pathways to start understanding why their experiences are actually part of a bigger system that we do need to work to change.
VH: Why did AAOP choose to begin with gender justice specifically instead of reproductive justice?
MV: We started off with a gender justice focus to make sure that people have the ability to live their authentic selves, whatever that looks like for them, as well as making space and community for folks. So hopefully, with our resources and programming, we've been able to encourage dialogue between community members, family members, and overall create healthy conversations surrounding that. With that as a launch point, we've begun to pivot into reproductive justice. With the framework of reproductive justice, we want to make sure that people have the right tools and information at their hands so that they can make decisions that are best for their body. And again, that could fall under gender affirming care or bodily autonomy.But ultimately, the goal here in the gender justice program is to really highlight and emphasize reproductive justice as well. So we're looking to expand and make sure that young people do have those resources by doing that with a variety of workshops and summer events this year. So there's a lot of ways for community members to plug in and get engaged in reproductive justice because it's such a vast field and topic. There's lots of different facets of it.
VH: How did the overturning of Roe v. Wade affect your work?
MV: We've always been on the path to transition to reproductive justice before Roe v. Wade was overturned. However, the timing worked out for the better for the worse. I don't know. Take it how you will. But, we always have wanted to advocate for reproductive justice and bodily autonomy from a legal standpoint as well. And so with our partners at Unrestrict Minnesota, who do work on reproductive justice, we attend a lot of marches and protests planned and hosted by them and work on advocacy together.
JY: We also want to make sure that our communities can control the narrative of abortion, because with the SCOTUS overturning Roe there's been a lot of stigma and fear; criminalization, even. So we want to make sure that young people know that there's a lot on the line and they do know there's a lot on the line. We're taking the elections to our members for those and many, many of our members also, by the way, can't vote. So we do know that their role is to inform folks in their communities who can and that young members that have graduated, are coming back to work with us as canvassers. We will be phone banking and letting voters know and reminding them of our role to prioritize reproductive justice.
The power of AAOP and KGA lies in how they are organizing and fighting for reproductive justice in their communities. An important part of the reproductive justice framework is to “center the most marginalized” and “join together across identities” according to Sister Song. Oftentimes, government policies and corporations will injure communities who already bear the brunt of oppressive systems, which can be seen in medical care quality and climate change. Without focusing on justice in health work, the roots of healthcare injustice cannot be solved.
I chose to interview AAOP and KGA because they do work centered around youth identity, covering topics that parallel the struggles I have seen in my community, such as the stigmatization of mental health. These organizations have continuously done the on-the-ground work to secure access to reproductive rights, even before the overturn of this decision. Programs like AAOP’s Gender Visibility Project and KGA’s tiered program for high school students ensure that youth, especially those from marginalized identities, can find an outlet for expression and a safe space to learn and grow.
However, organizing can both be physically, emotionally and mentally draining, especially during the pandemic where it has been hard to connect with people and the news cycle can cause waves of grief and dismay in different communities. It is important to make space for rest and for dreaming if possible in the midst of organizing. We closed our interview with their hopes for their community.
VH: What are your hopes for your community?
MV: The ideal community would look like open conversations with parents and children, open conversations with peers and loved ones surrounding comprehensive sex ed, as well as bodily autonomy. These conversations can be taboo and it is important to allow for room and space for survivors of domestic or sexual violence to feel like they're able to communicate with their family members and not feel shame or stigma surrounding topics that are difficult or even things such as like miscarriages. At least in our Asian communities, there's a lot of stress on the importance of a cis woman to be able to produce a child and not everyone wants to have a child or be a parent. Some people may want to but maybe their body is not allowing them to and that's not their fault either. And so making room for these open dialogues, making room for generational healing from trauma would be an ideal.
JY: The vision of the organization is in our mission statement is to build a sustainable movement led by Southeast Asian women and youth and we want to work on the front of racial gender and economic justice so that we can end oppression. So the end goal is really to make the systemic changes systemic and cultural changes to end cycles of oppression, you know, and then when we do that, we can start seeing interventions and changes in how like poverty rates or like access needs to like mental health resources, like we want to make sure that folks are are seen and heard.
The work to support reproductive and gender justice continues. There are many ways to plug in to the work. As someone who resides in states that have stated their commitments to protect reproductive justice, it is important to continue to find ways to expand that protection. I’ve also considered additional ways to support this work in locations that face additional challenges. Like KGA mentioned, supporting phone banking efforts is one way for you to engage with your local organizations, especially if they are focused on local legislative campaigns working to secure reproductive rights for communities. Another way to support local organizations might be volunteering with program set-up, for example, if they need volunteers to run sign-up for a workshop on gender identity, or even just spreading the word about reproductive justice organizations in your community by reposting their efforts via social media and talking to other community members about the importance of certain programs. To see the work of other incredible organizations in this space, look at the list recently published on Praxis’ statement on Roe v. Wade.
Interview responses have been lightly edited for clarity.