I urge you to defend a woman’s right to a safe abortion. We must protect our reproductive health. We must urge our legislators to vote no on these bills and stop the bans.Evonnia Woods lives in Columbia.
Tag Archives: Black women reproductive rights
Huge Racial Disparities Found in Deaths Linked to Pregnancy – The New York Times
African-American, Native American and Alaska Native women die of pregnancy-related causes at a rate about three times higher than those of white women, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday.The racial disparity has persisted, even grown, for years despite frequent calls to improve access to medical care for women of color. Sixty percent of all pregnancy-related deaths can be prevented with better health care, communication and support, as well as access to stable housing and transportation, the researchers concluded.“The bottom line is that too many women are dying largely preventable deaths associated with their pregnancy,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the C.D.C.
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Sexualizing Young Black Girls, Growing Up Too Fast
“For Black girls like me the transition out of childhood into a complex and ill-defined “womanhood” happens swiftly and without warning. According to a Georgetown Law study released earlier this year, Black girls are stripped of their innocence as early as the age of 5. The study, called “Girlhood Interrupted,” found that survey participants perceived that Black girls need less nurturing, protection, support, and comfort, and that Black girls are more independent and know more about adult topics, including sex. This phenomenon was dubbed “adultification” by the study authors, and they wrote that it refers to “the extent to which race and gender, taken together, influence our perception of Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers.”And sadly, America’s fraught history with race plays a role in this: The “adultification” of Black children has its roots in slavery, when Black girls and boys were treated like chattel and subjected to cruel treatment, just like their adult counterparts. And in the case of Black girls, it’s further exacerbated by the often early onset of puberty. As the study reported, “on average, African American girls mature physically at a faster rate than [w]hite girls and as a result can be perceived as older.”
Source: Sexualizing Young Black Girls, Growing Up Too Fast
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Roe v. Wade at 40: What Keeps Black Women from Going Public with Our Stories? l Ebony Magazine
Roe v. Wade at 40:
What Keeps Black Women from Going Public with Our Stories?
AS WE MARK THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE HISTORIC SUPREME COURT DECISION, DANI MCCLAIN WONDERS WHEN BLACK WOMEN WILL HAVE THE FREEDOM TO SPEAK OUT ABOUT ABORTION
ByDANI MCCLAIN
January 22nd marks 40 years since the Supreme Court affirmed a woman’s right to a safe, legal abortion. Reports from nationwide rallies celebrating the landmark decsion will inevitably include photos of women wearing “I had an abortion” t-shirts and holding signs with slogans that tie their personal to the political.And if 2013 is anything like years past, very few of those women will be Black.
Of course we, like other women, decide not to carry our unplanned pregnancies to term. In fact, we tend to do so at higher rates because of barriers to quality birth control and accurate information about our bodies. But when we do choose abortion, few of us go on to share our experiences in online and offline spaces. We don’t purchase t-shirts or offer testimonies that open us up to having to defend our decisions.
This week, the DC-based reproductive health organization Advocates for Youth will release a book that builds on its “1 in 3” campaign. The name references the fact that one in three U.S. women will have an abortion in her lifetime. Out of the 31 moving, intimate videos posted online, four appear to feature Black women. Why so few, given our rates of choosing these procedures? As Steph Herold, an advocate who tracks abortion storytelling, has noted, middle class, young, White women are more likely to offer up their stories and have them published.
Black women have been targeted in recent anti-choice attacks,including a billboard that read “The Most Dangerous Place for an African American is in the Womb” and others like it that popped up in Atlanta, New York, Oakland and elsewhere beginning in 2010. Anti-choice advocates use images of Black women and girls to sell their agenda. Why the cultural gap when it comes to telling our own stories?
One reason, says Mia Herndon, is that it’s not clear how this gets us closer to securing the healthcare we need. Herndon is a reproductive justice leader and former executive director of Third Wave Foundation.
“We need leadership in terms of connecting the dots,” Herdon told me. “How does me telling my story actually change the conversation rather than get me more judgment?”
Many of us just don’t believe in putting our personal business in the street. And some of us fear blowback from family members or religious communities if word gets out. But Black women face the added burden of having our stories colored by media depictions that tell the world we’re oversexed, poor decision-makers or both.
…SOME OF US FEAR BLOWBACK FROM FAMILY MEMBERS OR RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IF WORD GETS OUT. BUT BLACK WOMEN FACE THE ADDED BURDEN OF HAVING OUR STORIES COLORED BY MEDIA DEPICTIONS THAT TELL THE WORLD WE’RE OVERSEXED, POOR DECISION-MAKERS OR BOTH.
“Because images of Black women are so compromised, the idea of coming out and saying ‘I had an abortion’ and feeling like you can still hold your head high and be fine, that’s just not our experience,” Herndon said. “We don’t have that many experiences of being treated well publicly.”
When 28-year-old Brittany Mostiller got an abortion in 2008, talking about it with her family was hard enough. She never expected she’d be telling her story in high schools or in the Chicago neighborhoods where she now passes out condoms and information on laws related to reproductive health.
But the organization that helped pay for her procedure, Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF), invited her to join a group of women who meet regularly for peer support and to organize in their communities. Last year, CAF raised $60,000 to help 184 low-income women access second trimester abortions. Four out of five women who receive funds from CAF are of color, said its executive director, Gaylon Alcaraz.
The process of getting these women engaged takes time. After checking in to see what help they need post-abortion – from sexual health information to housing and employment referrals – the organization supports the women in building trust and friendships. That’s the necessary foundation to storytelling.
“I think that women of color want to tell their stories,” Alcaraz said. “There’s no platform. And let you be poor, or let you be fat, or let you be gay. The media is not friendly to that.”
To get around the gatekeepers, CAF creates its own media, including a monthly local TV show called “The A Word.” Mostiller, who is mother to four girls and attends college full-time, has been on the show. At the start, the host introduces herself by saying, “My name is ________, and I’ve had an abortion.”
It was difficult to speak those words on camera early on, Mostiller said. But that’s changed.
“It’s my story. It’s mine to tell,” she told me. “And it’s someone else’s truth also.”
Dani McClain is a Nation Institute fellow, reporting on reproductive health and sexuality.
RELATED TAGS
- reproductive justice
- roe v wade
- black women and abortions
- abortion laws
- third wave foundation
- chicago abortion fund
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