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Comprehensive, compelling, intelligent, impressive and moving… I like that you took particular care to present the specialized histories/experiences of women of color along with the better-known generalized history … a lasting contribution to our struggle for social change and human rights — Everyone needs to see this.
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The fight for reproductive rights is more important than ever. Don’t miss BC Voices’ free virtual screening of Stand UP, Speak OUT – Reproductive Rights: Know Your Rights on August 15, 2023 from 7:30 – 8:30 pm EST. Please join us for the film and live Q&A session.
To register for the Watch Party, send an email, by 6pm. On Tuesday 8/15 around 6pm, you should receive an email with the url to join the Launch Zoom.
From the late 1800s till the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, Native Americans fought the US government to raise their children within their ancestral cultures. The recent Supreme Court decision in Haaland v. Brackeen on June 15 upheld the right of Native American children to be adopted within their tribes.
By 1890, through bloody wars, massacres, and treaties intended to eradicate Native American culture, Native Americans had been pushed off their ancestral lands and onto US government-designated reservations. As part of the US government’s continuing annihilation campaign, from the late 1800s through the 1970s, the US government broke up Native American families by forcing children to Christianzing boarding schools and removing an estimated 20-25% of children from their homes families, placing them in European-American homes
After decades of activism by organizations such as Women of All Red Nations (WARN), in 1978 the US Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, requiring states to seek adoptive placement of Native American children within the child’s tribe.
Despite the argument in Haaland v. Bracken that the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act discriminated against non-Native American adoptive parents, the ruling recognized that disrespecting the tribal tradition jeopardizes the rights and protections of the tribe and the child. Native Americans will continue to be able to raise children knowing their ancestral culture.
Coming from BC Voices in August: The historical overview video for Stand UP, Speak OUT: Reproductive Rights, which will review the American women’s long struggle for autonomy in choosing to bear or not bear children, and in raising the children we have in a safe and supportive community.
On June 24th, 2022, the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving it up to the states to decide whether women can exercise what should be a constitutional right for everyone.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, abortion is completely banned in 13 states, and many more states ban abortion after 6 weeks when most women don’t even know they’re pregnant. Women are dying of pregnancy complications that doctors are afraid to treat.
Doctors and women are finding creative ways to ensure a woman gets the abortion she needs.
Doctors are creating new organizations. Just The Pill, founded in 2020 by Julie Amaon in Minnesota, brings reproductive health care through mobile units and telemedicine to women in rural areas of Wyoming, Minnesota, and Montana and in adjacent states that have banned abortions. Dr. Meg Autryis creating a floating abortion clinic in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, offering reproductive health services to women in the Gulf States.
While abortion pills can cost hundreds of dollars, some organizations waive the fee to support low-income women. To access abortion pills by mail, women can go to Plan C, founded by Elisa Wells, or Aid Access, run by Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, who charges a sliding scale fee of up to $110.
Women are organizing to teach one another a safe, self-managed menstrual extraction/abortion technique for the first trimester, the Del-Em. Reproductive rights organizations continue to raise funds to pay for women’s abortions.
As this anniversary passes, the fight continues until abortion becomes a constitutional right and stays that way. Women are lobbying state legislatures to reinforce existing abortion protections and to amend state constitutions to protect a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. Some are advocating for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment to ensure abortion is a right nationwide.
Watch Stand UP, Speak OUT Episode 3: Reproductive Rights to hear women’s personal stories about facing the decision to terminate a pregnancy.
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