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What’s happening Post-Roe in the US?

• There’s ample propaganda that purports the US as a beacon of hope, but we, the Black, the Brown, the poor, the female, the queer, the trans, the disabled, the immigrant, the indigenous, the most disenfranchised.. Know this is far from the truth. The US’s refusal to adequately address historical harms and ongoing systemic violence against oppressed populations is a showing of this country’s blood and shameful legacy and imperialistic existence.

• In many ways, the landscape of abortion access post-Roe, in the US, is fairly identical to how it was with Roe. Black women and birthing people have seen the writing on the walls for years. We knew Roe was vulnerable, limiting, protection, and we in large were never afforded the ability to exercise our full bodily autonomy even UNDER Roe.

• While Roe was the law of the land, the most marginalized among us, oftentimes Black women and birthing people, poor people, queer and trans people, were not able to access appropriate reproductive healthcare. And with no Roe they still can’t access appropriate reproductive healthcare.

• On the federal level, classist legislation, like the Hyde Amendment, still prevents women and birthing people on Medicaid from receiving abortion care unless they want to pay out of pocket, which for many people is cost prohibitive.

• While I underscore the impact of anti-abortion efforts, we’re also seeing massive state level push back since the fall of Roe that shows abortion access is, by and large, important to people and something that they want to maintain and have access to.

• Last summer, Kansas citizens voted in a landslide to NOT change their state constitution to outlaw abortion, an outcome that, if you listen to forced birth legislators and activists, was never going to happen.

• Just earlier this month, Ohio voted in a special election on Issue 1 which sought to raise the threshold for a constitutional amendment to pass from a basic majority of 50% to 60% SPECIFICALLY to undermine the attempts to have abortion access added as a right to the state constitution in November 2023.

• Recently, in Pennsylvania, Governor Shapiro pulled back funding for a Crisis Pregnancy Center called Real Alternatives. The fact that pseudoscience-based clinics staffed by objectively fake doctors were receiving government funding is disheartening, removing their funding is the bare minimum.

• As long as there are people fighting against the right to abortion access, there will be even more people fighting for it.

How does the rollback (and subsequent flurry of anti-rights legislation) disproportionately impact black women and LGBTQI people?

• Existing at multiple intersections of oppression means you’re statistically more likely to experience interpersonal and systemic violence against you

• Due to converging systems of oppression, Black women and birthing people are more likely to be on government assistance or medical plans, limiting their access to reproductive healthcare

• Black women and birthing people are more likely to live in or near communities that do not have access to clean water or air or are routinely exposed to toxins, making them more likely to experience maternal and infant mortality, chronic illness, and birth defects.

• Black women and birthing people are more likely to live in gerrymandered districts that are drawn specifically for their voices to be silenced and their voting power to be diminished.

• Black trans men are less likely to seek out reproductive healthcare due to body dysmorphia and adequate transgender-informed reproductive planning and medical care, by and large, does not exist.

• Our liberation cannot be legislated, we don’t look to elected officials to save  us:

• However, anti-rights legislation gives a “pass” to hateful, bigoted, racist and homophobic individuals who think that their behavior and actions and beliefs are inherently right or justified.

• This leads to loss of life, as was the case with the recent murder of gay Black man, O’Shea Sibley in NYC who’s life was taken just for dancing in the street and presenting as openly queer.

• Feminist and scholar, Audre Lorde, famously said that we do not live single issue lives, and we don’t. The sooner we all begin to realize that our neighbor’s struggle is our struggle, the closer we become to realizing a world where all of us can live with dignity and our basic needs met.

What does Reproductive Justice look like in the US context?

• Reproductive Rights: Focuses on the legality of reproductive healthcare and ensures that all women and birthing individuals have access to the same care under the law

• Reproductive Health: Focuses specifically on providing reproductive healthcare including abortion services, birth control, mammograms, pap smears, family counseling and more

• Reproductive Justice: Focuses on all of the societal aspects that affect our reproductive health and autonomy including climate activism, gun violence, mass incarceration, maternal health, state-sanctioned violence, and more.

• Reproductive Justice, as a movement, asks us to envision a world beyond just reinstating Roe or repairing the damage done over the last year. It asks us to fight for a society that provides holistic reproductive care to all birthing people in any way they need.

• Reproductive Justice in the US context provides a human rights framework for us to understand all of the different ways white supremacy, imperialism, patriarchy, and capitalism wreak havoc on Black lives in particular.

• Reproductive healthcare is connected to climate degradation, which is connected to the housing crisis, which is connected to toxic drinking water, which is connected to voter disenfranchisement etc.

• There is power, strength, and necessity in us collectively understanding and working to combat the impacts of our shared, principled struggles.

Bio of BEULAH OSUEKE

She/Her/Hers

Beulah Osueke (she/her/hers) is the Strategic Operations Director of New Voices for Reproductive Justice, a Pennsylvania and Ohio-based social-change movement dedicated to the health and well-being of Black women, femmes, and girls. Beulah has an extensive background in community organizing, international network building, and organizational development with particular focus on utilizing a human-centered approach to maximize the genius of marginalized people(s). Beulah is a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University with a Bachelor of Psychology and Sociology and earned her Master of Clinical Psychology from LaSalle University. Beulah is committed to working to ensure the complete wholeness of Black women and Black youth.