Making Adoption Easier

It has been a long standing Conservative project to make adoptions easier – hence an article from 2015 in The Federalist titled LINK>We Need To Make Adoption Easier. All Sides notes that this publication LINK>displays media bias in ways that strongly align with conservative, traditional, or right-wing thought and/or policy agendas. A “Right” bias is the most conservative rating on the political spectrum. As to the photo above, Slate did a reveal that LINK>The Real Story Behind the “We Will Adopt Your Baby” Couple Is So Much Worse Than the Meme.

The effort continues as written about by an adoptee blogger, Tony Corsentino, that I follow in his latest LINK>In the Woods. Several states are actively aiming to “streamline” the process of relinquishing and adopting a child. One is Indiana who is poised to pass a bill to “streamline” abandonment and adoption of newborn infants, which would omit any oversight and regulatory safeguards to prevent anonymous trafficking of those infants, through the state’s so-called “newborn safety devices,” commonly known as “baby boxes.”

He links to an article posted just in the last week at the Adoptee Rights Law Center titled LINK>Indiana’s Secret Adoption Pipeline. He asserts that SB345 will facilitate corrupt off-the-books adoptions with direct baby box referrals from fire station to adoption agency to “pre-approved” adoptive parents to final adoption, all completed in the span of a single month and all without any state oversight. Tony also links to Marley Greiner’s site LINK>Stop Baby Boxes Now.

Indiana is not alone in these efforts – enter now Alabama and Tennessee seeking to “streamline adoption. They suggest that they are only “trying to get kids into a permanent home as fast as possible.” The principal change is to speed the timeline for termination of parental rights. Reading about foster care and the goal of reunification of children who have been removed from their parents informs me that rarely do such parents actually get the support and time they need to meet the requirements of the state.

Tony shares an excerpt from Ann Fessler’s – The Girls Who Went Away. She notes that losing her son to adoption had a profound effect on her. She goes further to say “a few years after I was married I became pregnant and had an abortion. It was not a wonderful experience, but every time I hear stories or articles or essays about the recurring trauma of abortion, I want to say, ‘You don’t have a clue.’ I’ve experienced both and I’d have an abortion any day of the week before I would ever have another adoption—or lose a kid in the woods, which is basically what it is. You know your child is out there somewhere, you just don’t know where.”

He goes on to say – Given adoption’s unpopularity and the resulting mismatch between the domestic demand for infants and the domestic supply, it is no surprise that proposed measures to “streamline” adoption by making it faster and easier to terminate parental rights amount to an even deeper undermining of vulnerable pregnant people’s agency. We do not ameliorate the injustice of banning abortion by “streamlining” relinquishment and adoption. We compound that injustice. Both for those who seek abortions, and for their offspring.

Tony ends his essay with this – For adopted people to make progress in defending our rights, we need first to be heard. It’s a big forest.

Adoption Is Only The Beginning

Image by Madelyn Goodnight

Today’s blog is inspired by an article in The New Yorker – LINK>Living in Adoption’s Emotional Aftermath. From the article –

Deanna Doss Shrodes believes that a child who starts life in a box will never know who they are, unless they manage somehow to track down their anonymous parents. It distresses her that many of her fellow-Christians, such as Amy Coney Barrett, talk about adoption as the win-win solution to abortion, as though once a baby is adopted that is the end of the story. If someone says of Deanna that she was adopted, she corrects them and says that she is adopted. Being adopted is, to her, as to many adoptees, a profoundly different way of being human, one that affects almost everything about her life.

“I explain to friends that in order to be adopted you first have to lose your entire family,” Deanna said. “And they’ll say, Well, yes, but if it happens to a newborn what do they know? You were adopted, get over it. Would you tell your friend who lost their family in a car accident, Get over it? No. But as an adoptee you’re expected to be over it because, O.K., that happened to you, but this wonderful thing also happened, and why can’t you focus on the wonderful thing?”

This is the less than fairytale ending – There are disproportionate numbers of adoptees in psychiatric hospitals and addiction programs, given that they are only about two per cent of the population. A study found that adoptees attempt suicide at four times the rate of other people. Adoption begins with the ending of the connection to the people who conceived and birthed the adoptee.

“Coming out of the fog” means different things to different adoptees. It can mean realizing that the obscure, intermittent unhappiness or bewilderment you have felt since childhood is not a personality trait but something shared by others who are adopted. It can mean realizing that you were a good, hardworking child partly out of a need to prove that your parents were right to choose you, or a sense that it was your job to make your parents happy, or a fear that if you weren’t good your parents would give you away, like the first ones did. It can mean coming to feel that not knowing anything about the people whose bodies made yours is strange and disturbing. It can mean seeing that you and your parents were brought together not only by choice or Providence but by a vast, powerful, opaque system with its own history and purposes. Those who have come out of the fog say that doing so is not just disorienting but painful, and many think back longingly to the time before they had such thoughts.

Adoptees are often looking for those pieces of their lives or their selves that were missing, or had been falsified or renamed, trying to fit them to the pieces they had. I think those missing pieces were what motivated me to go looking and find out what could be found out. And I did. Families of people I was genetically related to that I never knew existed, living lives I had no idea about. Some knew my parents had been born and given up for adoption but didn’t know about me. DNA has helped with being accepted as being another one who is actually part of their family but building relationships has not proven as easy as finding out about these.

Reproductive Justice

And Reproductive Justice MUST include adoptee voices because adoptees are intimately familiar with the same systems of white supremacist violence that make reproductive justice necessary. Today’s blog is thanks to an op-ed by Tina Vasquez in LINK>Prism. The goal of this series about reproductive justice and adoption was simple – disrupt the adoption storytelling that has become the norm in mainstream media. These feel-good stories from the perspective of adoptive parents rarely include the voices of adoptees or question the preponderance of “cheap, easy, and fast” transracial and international adoptions by evangelicals that amount to little more than child trafficking.

No more salvation narratives. No more narratives of gratitude. No more framing adoption as a “win-win.” No more white saviors. We will question adoption as a system—its power dynamics, its economics, and its privileging of certain “reproductive destinies.” “Out of the Fog” is a phrase adoptees often use to describe facing the reality of their adoptions.

LINK>Operation Stop Child Protective Services (CPS) was founded by Amanda Wallace. She spent 10 years as a child abuse investigator before realizing that “she had become the silent enforcer for an oppressive system.” She now lends her insider knowledge to families navigating the system and trying to regain custody of their children.

About 27% of adoptions are transracial, according to a recent survey from the Department of Health and Human Services: birth mothers are disproportionately women of color, and adoptive parents are overwhelmingly white. Low-income Black and Native American children are the most likely to be separated from their families. Poverty is often interpreted as neglect when applied to these people.

When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, white evangelicals wasted no time communicating their desire to take the babies that result from forced pregnancies. Never mind that most people denied abortion care simply become parents and that there is little evidence linking abortion bans to increases in adoption.

Time and time again, the solution offered to state violence is adoption, yet we fail to center adoptees whose lived experiences and areas of expertise touch every injustice and systemic problem our movements battle against. This is especially true when it comes to reproductive justice. While efforts are being made to explicitly discuss adoption as a reproductive justice issue, adoptees’ voices are still not being uplifted in these conversations. Adoptees are building their own movements—including Facebook groups like LINK>Adoptees for Choice—but will movements for sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice invite them into the fold?

Almost Aborted ?

This story got my attention – LINK>My Family Oversimplified My Brother’s Adoption Story by Carrie McKean in The Atlantic. She writes –

My brother arrived in my life like the rain always did: after fervent prayer and petitioning. With the matter-of-factness of a child suddenly convinced of her cosmic power, I greeted God with a new request: “Can I have a little brother or sister?” True story from this blog author – before our sons were conceived, I prayed for my husband to want children. The rest is obvious (though I never told him about those prayers).

Then, our old family doctor in a neighboring town, a man familiar with my mom’s longing for another baby, asked if my parents would like to adopt a newborn boy. It was to be a private, closed adoption, as requested by the infant’s birth mother, who faced an unexpected pregnancy in a rigidly conservative and nosy town.

In truth, I don’t think my parents ever knew much about the circumstances leading to my brother’s adoption. They never met William’s mother, so the doctor was the only narrator, which left plenty of room to fill in the story’s gaps with details that suited them.

At a local crisis-pregnancy-center fundraising event, when her brother was already a teenager, her father called her brother up to the stage and announced – “His birth mom wanted to get an abortion, but the doctor wouldn’t do it.” It was the perfect fairy tale for the occasion, featuring a thwarted villain, clear protagonists, and a satisfying resolution. She writes that she joined in the applause. We were the heroes. We’d saved him. We would save them all, if we could.

She admits that – For most of my adulthood, I haven’t thought much about the fact that my brother was adopted. But in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned, I find myself considering his entry into my life yet again. Watching the gleeful moods of many in the pro-life community post-Roe, I see glimpses of my past. Believing that your brother was “almost aborted” has a way of crystallizing one’s convictions. Growing up in a conservative evangelical community, I was taught that morality was black-and-white. It was an orderly worldview with no room for messy complications; those were hidden behind closed doors.

She goes on to share – People like me were “single-issue voters,” and the voter guide in my church bulletin told me which politicians were pro-life. Just like so many within the pro-life movement today, we were blinded by our convictions to the uniquely complicating circumstances and considerations in each unwanted pregnancy.

In the middle of the extremes of a polarized country, the majority of Americans believe that at the least, abortion should be legal in some circumstances and illegal in others. Many lawmakers seem more interested in pleasing a vocal base than they are in having nuanced and thoughtful policy discussions. No person should be reduced to a political pawn. When it comes to aborted or not – we can’t objectively weigh the life we have against the one we don’t. Even in my case, I can’t weigh what my life might have been like had I been given up for adoption because I was not.

Regarding her brother’s adoption, she recognizes regarding his birth mother that – It is possible that adoption was her Plan A, despite the story we grew up hearing. Or maybe she wanted to keep her baby, but her parents pressured her into a different decision. In my own family, my mother pressured my sister to give up my niece. My youngest sister was always going to give my nephew up for adoption. Both were true of the birth mothers in my own family.

The story’s author says – These days, considering that my brother’s mother might have bravely endured a set of circumstances she never wanted because she had no other choice sends my emotions spinning wildly. I move through anger, indignation, and sorrow for the circumstances she faced, for the personal agency she might have been denied, for the losses my brother and she have always had to live with, for the persistent grief that comes from severing a primal relationship. But the spinning can stop in only one place: gratitude for the abortion she did not receive, for the brother that I have. For the family that we’ve made.

Adoption tends to run in families – I know it has in my family – abundantly. The author adopted her youngest daughter. At the age of 10, this girl has begun to grapple more and more with the fact that she doesn’t look like the rest of her family. Her adoptive mother notes – “For weeks, she’d been dissecting our family tree and figuring out how everyone fit together.”

One day this daughter said to the author’s adopted brother – “You’re not my real uncle,” she said, keeping her voice falsely nonchalant and tossing her head so that her long black hair fell to cover half her face. “Because you’re not my mom’s real brother.” He quickly glanced up and caught the author’s eye. They both heard what she was saying between the lines about herself and her place in their family. The author realized that her brother knew better than she ever could, what this daughter was feeling, so she stayed quiet and let him respond.

“Hey,” his voice softened as he leaned over to gently bump her shoulder with his. She didn’t budge. He playfully kicked her cheetah-print Converse with his mud-caked work boot and she finally looked up to catch his eye. “I’m here, aren’t I? Doesn’t get more real than that.” I looked up at the sky and blinked back tears. His voice, gentled by his West Texas drawl and infinitely tender heart, landed like rain on the brittle places.

Of course, as this girl matures, there will be more questions. It is good that there is another adoptee in the family that she will grow up close to as those questions demand answers.

Culture and Identity

I am going to try and summarize a complex situation which could apply to others who might be reading my blog.

So a 17 year old got pregnant. A relationship that had lasted almost 2 years had broken up about a year before she got pregnant but they were still ”seeing each other” on and off. He wanted her to terminate, citing that he had a very traumatic childhood and was not ready to bring a child into the world, much less with someone he no longer wanted a relationship with.

She decided against it because she had previous losses and suspected infertility due to PCOS. As soon as she saw her baby’s heartbeat on the ultrasound screen, she knew she didn’t have it in her to terminate. That child is now 4 years old and carries the woman’s maiden name.

So the father then shamed her for her decision and told her she would regret it, tried to convince her to “at least put the kid up for adoption so it has a chance at a good life” and she honestly heavily debated doing that as they weren’t the only one to shame her and try to convince her she couldn’t be a good mother. She was very lost, confused and scared but ultimately decided she would keep the baby and try to give it the best life that she could, prepared to do it all on her own.

Before giving birth, she met someone. She had a gut feeling that she was capable of having a healthy relationship with this man. He there for her throughout the pregnancy, cut the umbilical cord and helped name the baby. After getting married to him, she discovered that she was again pregnant. She thought about changing her first daughter’s name but wondered if that was the ethical thing to do because she technically had another parent.

Recently, she reached out to her daughter’s estranged father and discovered that they had both changed exponentially. However, the father still does not think it’s a good idea to have contact with his daughter. He thinks his presence would somehow “mess up” her life because he still has personal issues he needs to work on. Her father is indigenous and this mother doesn’t want her daughter to grow up not knowing half of her lineage. She feels that her daughter is missing out on the rich and beautiful culture that she descends from. She says that he is not a bad person at all.

One commenter said – You are asking the right questions. You’re approaching this with humility and a desire to uphold what is best for your daughter, even if there are “easier” solutions that others are pushing for. Consider allowing her to decide when she is of age, whether she would like to be adopted by her stepdad. Adoption can be a good choice WHEN the adoptee’s needs, desires, and AGENCY are fully recognized and active. It’s as big a choice as marriage (perhaps more so!), and it is a decision that no adult should make for her, especially since she may want to consider tribal affiliation in the future.

A World Without Adoption

I bring this up frequently – we do not support families well enough in this country. If poverty, racism, and health care inequities were properly redressed, adoption would be a last resort. Very short on time today but picking up a few points from an article in LINK> The Nation – We Should Be Fighting for a World Without Adoption by Michele Merritt.

Remarks from the Supreme Court, most notably from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in the recent overturn of Roe v Wade position adoption as a viable alternative to abortion. Framing the tragedy of losing reproductive freedoms as a problem easily solved by the relinquishment of a child obfuscates the reality of adoption as an institution that is steeped in systemic injustice. Moreover, such a framing underscores the way adopted people—the ones purportedly “saved” by adoption—are overlooked.

The social narrative that places adoption on a pedestal and views adoption as an alternative to abortion completely misses the point that it is not a reproductive choice at all. It’s a parenting choice—and one that should be a last resort, instead of being lauded as a great act of charity or a cure for a world where abortion is all but outlawed.

In the conservative adoption fairy tale, a pregnant person who does not feel that they are capable of adequately parenting hands off these duties to people who have been desperately hoping to become parents. The child, it is assumed, will fare better, escaping a life most assuredly filled with poverty or neglect. Above all, this child “could have been aborted,” so adoption rescues them from annihilation.

Certainly, this was Georgia Tann’s theory when she took my blond, blue-eyed mom from her poverty afflicted parents by exploiting my maternal grandmother’s desperation under extreme circumstances (a missing husband, gone off to another state while working with the WPA to fight an epic flood on the Mississippi River in 1937). My mom did grow up under affluent circumstances in the adoptive home of a banker and socialite mother. Her first mother never had another child (not uncommon among women who lose their first born to adoption).

It is true that many parents who relinquish children for adoption cite financial concerns as a chief obstacle to parenting, but that does not mean that adoption is the solution. Positing adoption as a solution to impoverished parenting ignores the fact that another solution exists: supporting struggling families. You can read more at the link in the first paragraph.

Most Were Unnecessary

The fact is most adoptions are unnecessary.

Answers to the questions that statement raises. Babies are highly in demand and sought after. There are 40 waiting hopeful adoptive parents to every ONE expectant mother/baby. From a business sense it is purely Supply and Demand. This is why domestic infant costs so much. This is why some wait YEARS for a baby. These babies aren’t “in need.” They won’t age out of foster care. They won’t grow up with “nowhere to go.” Adopting these babies isn’t helping anyone except the adoptive parent. Domestic infant adoption is 100% selfish. Most of these adoptions are unnecessary. Most of these mothers relinquish their babies for FINANCIAL reasons. If they had more money/support/resources they would keep their child.

The woman who simply doesn’t want her baby is RARE. These babies don’t need to be adopted because they have a mom and family. The family needs support to stay together. Most newborns are placed bc of TEMPORARY situations. Adoption in the US is a major industry. There isn’t a shortage of children to adopt. There is a massive shortage of babies/toddlers to adopt.

There is definitely a false but virally advertised dichotomy between abortion and adoption. One does not prevent the other. Making abortion illegal, doesn’t mean you’ll get your baby. Forcing a poor woman to give birth so that a wealthy infertile woman can have a baby makes women into breeding stock. It further traumatizes poor families, poor communities and in the case of trans racial domestic infant adoption a recognized form of cultural genocide.

The majority of adoptions are Euro-ethnic INFANTS. Children under the age of 6 years old are the MOST likely to be adopted in the United States and most of those infants are adopted through private adoption (by which I mean not through the state agencies). Some actually place the number of people hoping to adopt vs the number of infants available for adoption as high as 100/1. Some of those people hoping to adopt may decide for whatever reason to adopt darker-skinned infants and a handful may choose to adopt an older child at a later time.

If an expectant mother seeks “help” from a Crisis Pregnancy Center, or calls an adoption agency, they will be pressured with coercive tactics such as guilt (“this family has been waiting so long! You’ll be the answer to their prayers! You’re so brave!”) or shame (“this family can provide two parents for your child. How can you give this child everything they need?). All to convince expectant parents to relinquish their child to the adoptive parents, at which point the money comes into the picture as the adoption agency receives a “finder’s fee” for that child.

This is honestly how the process works. I support financially supporting families so that they can remain together. This is known as family preservation. I will continue working to make the adoption of newborn infants less necessary.

Utterly Disgusting Attitude

This adoptive mother thinks she has it all figured out but adoptees and many biological mothers are NOT buying it. This is why open adoptions close and is used as a marketing tool. This comment is very disrespectful towards birth moms. Many do think about their children. They grieve. They feel loss too. Keeping birth parents away will not prevent the child from feelings of abandonment.

From the adoptive mother – I kinda feel like some groups in the adoption triad lean towards having relationships with biological relatives. Not every time though. I felt in our situation, it is toxic. So I joined several groups… I honestly don’t think it’s the best decision in like 90 percent of these situations. It seems like everyone wants to sugar coat the biological parents. The fact is they couldn’t/didn’t want to get their crap together for their children…. We did!!! I decided to do some research and joined groups that I didn’t fit in…Like I am in a “I regret my adoption, birth parents group” and “Adoptees who didn’t find out they were adopted until they were adults” and even a “I regret my abortion group.” I think it’s the best thing I have ever done and it has truly been an eye opener to see ALL sides. I joined the abortion group after seeing several women in the “I regret my adoption” group say that, because their ADULT biological children didn’t want anything to do with them, they wish they had just aborted them.

Anyway, I’ve come to understand a few things. My adopted daughter will not have any type of relationship with her biological mom, because that is when trauma happens. They are too young to understand why someone can’t be around, so they feel unloved. My daughter knows she’s adopted but doesn’t know what it means. She’s 4 years old. I am telling her things like her name changed to our name, she wasn’t in my belly. I won’t lie ever to her. I keep a record of why she doesn’t get to see her biological mom (her dad passed away).

When she is old enough to be told the 100 percent truth, it will not be a shock, and like I said I will never lie to her. If I feel like the time isn’t right for a question she asks, I’ll just say that I will tell her that part when she’s a little older. Most adoptee’s end up hating their biological parents the most…. Then, they are mad that they were lied to by their adoptive parents….and they do want to know some history, and they like to have their old records (I made sure I have my daughter’s original birth certificate and social security card). I had to change her social security number because someone in her biological family was using her old number…

Most adoptees are mad at their adoptive parents for sharing pictures with the biological parents. Most wish they weren’t lied to but had the chance to have a stable childhood, where they didn’t even know they were abandoned…. They wish they had the chance to grow up in a healthy environment, instead of the adoptive parents taking care and caring so much about the biological parents who abandoned them. Adoptive parents feel guilty but shouldn’t… it isn’t the adoptive parents fault that the biological parents don’t want to be there. We cannot force them and popping in and out isn’t healthy. There needs to be boundaries. Most adoptive parents are empaths (that’s what brought them to adoption), we almost feel the birth parents pain of losing a child, but the fact is, most of the birth parents aren’t even thinking of these kids 99.9 percent of the time and have never been empaths or they would have taken care of their children.

I’ll never make my daughter feel unloved by anyone!! She won’t have to deal with all of the adults problems in her childhood, she will have a happy one!! So that’s my plan… lol

Anyway, good luck! Go join some groups. Several groups. They are all different and definitely seek all sides of each group. Every situation is different and just never make ANY person feel like someone doesn’t love them or they weren’t wanted. Keeping that biological family away in most cases insures that they WONT feel abandoned. We all want what’s best for OUR kids and all we can do is our best.

A few thoughts from the “other” side – “well, doesn’t she have it all figured out ?”

Being abandoned, makes us feel abandoned. Adult adoptees who found out later in life, prove this. They say they always felt like they didn’t belong, like they weren’t loved or couldn’t feel loved, even when it was shown – like a big piece of them was missing. It didn’t matter that nobody bothered to tell them there was a piece missing, they knew it.

And the empath stuff – I just CAN NOT. I feel like she read somewhere that adoptive mothers lean toward narcissism, and she’s just trying to say the opposite and have that take hold as a public opinion. This lady seems like a piece of work. I feel bad for her adoptee, because it’s sounds like mommy has it all figured out how to just side step her child’s experience of being traumatized at all. I’m honestly in awe of this person’s audacity. Just wow.

None Of Your Business

From the sister of an adoptee and once a hopeful adoptive parent –

After being pretty firmly childfree my whole life, I find myself pregnant and have decided to parent. In the past I have even said I would have an abortion if I found myself unexpectedly pregnant but I’ve changed my mind.

When discussing some of my anxieties surrounding single parenthood and everything, my therapist actually asked me if I had considered adoption. It kind of took me by surprise because I hadn’t given any impression I don’t want to parent, beyond discussing average normal fears a new inexperienced mom might have.

This is a new therapist, so we are still feeling each other out, but it makes me uncomfortable that she asked this. It makes me feel suspicious that she might try to subconsciously, or even on purpose, try to manipulate me into adoption. I wouldn’t surrender my child of course but I don’t want to financially support a person who does this to young vulnerable moms who might be struggling with the decision.

Another who was considering adopting or fostering shared – I told my therapist I wanted another child and she questioned me due to how much is on my plate and my mental issues.

I know that’s not the same but I also felt like she overstepped. I’ve been asked that by several people. I feel like it’s not their choice. It’s my and my husband’s and we do great with our two kids. One of my kids is critically ill with a short prognosis. One is healthy. I always wanted two kids, so they can play together etc. So, one can’t play. That’s just one reason of the many I want another child. I don’t know why people try to change peoples lives like that or question them. I’m so sorry she did that to you. I don’t think your being over critical. Try to figure out why she said that. Maybe bring it back up and ask her why she asked. See if she did it to see how you felt about it and if it was something you need to discuss or if she was doubting you because of your concerns or history. She may have had good intentions behind the question but I would be sure to let her know how you feel about adoption to prevent this issue from resurfacing in the future. She’s there to listen and help you and get to know you. So open up to her and let her know how you feel about this. She shouldn’t judge you for that or try to persuade you in any way. If she does, then she is a bad therapist.

Another who is in training to be a therapist offers – She may think she is helping clients to explore all options. I agree with you on how problematic a casual suggestion to give the baby up for adoption could be for clients. You could confront her and try to educate her. Determine whether you want to stay with her based on her response. Maybe she will have a different conversation with the next client navigating a pregnancy. Or you could walk away because you are not obligated to convince or educate her.

Reproductive Justice

Yesterday, this blog was about the rights of fathers, today it is about the Reproductive Justice Movement. Reproductive justice includes the right to abort a pregnancy but also the right to raise a child in a safe and supportive community.

Why Reproductive Justice ? The experiences of Black, brown and Indigenous women who have been sterilized, abused, or punished for bearing children. Welfare laws based on misleading impressions of so-called welfare queens – Black women who allegedly had babies to collect welfare checks but wasted the money. These stereotypes have led to welfare policies that discourage welfare recipients from having more children by reducing their benefits.

The white-dominated reproductive rights movement’s “choice” framework privileges the most socially advantaged people in society. Those who have the ability to make choices. It doesn’t take into account social structures, power arrangements of race, class, gender, heterosexism, immigration status, religion – all of which shape one’s ability to have reproductive autonomy.

High Black maternal mortality is a matter of reproductive justice. States that have passed or will soon pass abortion bans have the worst healthcare systems, the highest maternal mortality, especially Black maternal mortality, and the highest infant mortality. As a result of [the supreme court decision] Dobbs, we’ll see increases in maternal mortality – deaths of pregnant people who intended to carry to term – because their health will be compromised.

It includes ending police violence, abolishing prisons, and all the inhumane carceral approaches to meeting human needs that have a profound impact on one’s reproductive life. Prisons are a major impediment in the United States to reproductive freedom. People who have had their children taken away by a discriminatory child welfare system that targets Black neighborhoods for family separation do not have reproductive freedom. To me, reproductive justice is inextricably linked to the fight against the prison industrial complex and the family policing system.

The reproductive justice framework is more effective than the reproductive choice approach. the movement for reproductive justice must be aligned with movements for housing, abolishing the prison industrial complex, environmental justice, and economic justice, because all of those movements are essential to supporting freedom, including reproductive freedom.

Movements seeking to limit or abolish the power of the criminal legal system and the prison industrial complex are relevant to opposing Dobbs’ assault on reproductive freedom. People are already being arrested and imprisoned for stillbirths and miscarriages; that standard will be applied to abortions as well. Recognizing the interconnected nature of these challenges is essential.

Today’s blog leans heavily on an interview in LINK> The Guardian of Dorothy Roberts. She is an internationally renowned scholar of race, gender, and the law at the University of Pennsylvania, who has dedicated her career to exposing attacks on Black women’s reproductive rights dating back to slavery and persisting to the present.

You can learn more about Reproductive Justice at this LINK> SisterSong. Reproductive Justice combines reproductive rights and social justice.