Advocates for Black women call for creation of allies and partnerships to combat ‘disproportionate barriers to accessing abortion services'
In June 2022, before the Supreme Court overturned 49 years of abortion access for women, billboards began popping up around the city of Los Angeles.
"Abortion is and will remain legal in California," proclaimed signs that had been paid for by Black Women for Wellness, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that advocates for the health and well-being of Black women and girls. When the court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that women do not have a constitutional right to abortion, Janette Robinson-Flint, executive director of California nonprofit Black Women for Wellness, wasn't surprised. "We saw this coming and have an opportunity now to create different allies and partnerships, and I hope we take advantage of this and leverage it," she says. In the majority opinion, the justices said the only rights protected in the Constitution – such as protection against excessive fines or the right to bear arms – are those "deeply rooted" in our history as a country. Such rights were developed by white, heterosexual men who controlled the government at the time of the nation's founding. California is one of more than 20 states that have abortion protections written into state law, but many other states – particularly those in the South and Southeast, where roughly 55% of the Black population lives – have adopted more restrictive laws. As a result, for Black and other minority women, the Dobbs ruling has saddled them with disproportionate barriers to accessing abortion services.A 500-mile trip for services In Jackson, Mississippi, where the Jackson Women's Health Organization was the only clinic in the state providing safe abortion access after the other clinic closed in 2006, Black women are already experiencing extreme challenges. The closest abortion clinic to Jackson is 500 miles away in Illinois, says Michelle Colon, founder of Sisters Helping Every Woman Rise and Organize, a Mississippi-based nonprofit dedicated to "reproductive justice." Colon spent six months helping Black women from Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi get out-of-state abortion services. "Many of these people have never left their towns. Sometimes they have to get in the car with strange people. That in itself is a psychological attack," Colon notes. Some of the women keep their trips secret from their families and churches. When they return, they may delay or avoid post-abortion care because they don't want people to know they are bleeding or cramping. Some women are afraid to tell anyone what happened, says Colon, who adds she tries to "put them in contact with positive people who are counselors," she said. Abortion rights ‘were never about our women' The abortion rate is highest among Black women, at 23.8 per 1,000 women, compared to 6.6 among white women and 11.7 among Hispanic women, according to data from Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit which provides information on national health issues. Those higher rates can be attributed to factors including limited access to contraception and pregnancy planning, and a history of racist practices in reproductive health care that has led to mistrust and economic inequities that impact health, according to the Kaiser report. Abortion rights "were never about our women, it was about white women staking their claim in business and society so they could build wealth and legacies and have independence from white men," Colon says.
For activists like Colon, the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that established a woman's right to an abortion, has triggered a relentless drive to help Black women stay safe and get help. That can also have significant health impacts. "I can't let women and girls down," says Colon. "We are pushing our own" limits "to the detriment of our physical and mental health."Colon says she and other activists conduct weekly and monthly check-ins with each other to ensure depression doesn't settle in. They try to avoid internalizing the feeling that no one really cares about Black women in Mississippi. "The state has legally sanctioned forced childbirth and pregnancy," Colon declares. "I can't imagine what it feels like to be a parent or pregnant person stressing about how am I going to feed my children today and now there is no abortion clinic." Losing access to abortion has implications for Black women extending well beyond ending a pregnancy. "The media paints it as if Black women have abortions as birth control," says Robinson-Flint. "Every abortion is thoughtful. Every person who is pregnant gets to be thoughtful about if they want to continue that pregnancy or not. Possible results of a ‘forced pregnancy' "What is the impact of a forced pregnancy?" she asks. "How does that contribute to the health and well-being of a woman? If a child is born to a forced pregnancy, what does that mean for the economic status of the child?"Black women are three times more likely to die in pregnancy, postpartum than white women, says the Population Reference Bureau, a longtime partner of the Census Bureau. A forced pregnancy can push that number up by 33%, she said, referring to data in an article from the December 2021 issue of Demography, a research journal published by Duke University Press. The reversal of Roe could also empower intimate partner violence by giving a violent partner another tool to inflict abuse, Robinson-Flint says. A 2021 report from the National Partnership for Women and Families indicates that many women report abuse starting or intensifying when they became pregnant. Four out of 19 non-Hispanic Black women, American Indian or Alaskan Native women have been a victim of physical violence, rape or stalking by a partner in their lifetimes, according to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. That is a rate 30% to 50% higher than what white non-Hispanic, Hispanic and Asian women experience. It took 50 years to overturn Roe, but Robinson-Flint doesn't think it will take nearly as long to restore it, though she recognizes it likely won't return soon enough to help some women. "The short-term strategy (for overcoming obstacles to getting abortion services means some folks are going to be hurt," she asserts. "We have to figure out how to get the resources that are needed to the places where they are needed. We have to engage and radicalize the people in those places to say, ‘We can do better.'" Colon says Black women and Black activists will continue to do the work they have always done, but in some ways the focus has changed. "I have made a conscious decision to fight for and sustain those movements that pertain to issues of abortion rights and queer rights (only) for communities of color because I don't see nobody running to help us," she says.
First published in Black Mental Health Today, Winter 2023 (Vol. 6).
