Northwest Indiana (NWI) AntiSexist ACTION

Reproductive Justice FAQs

What is reproductive justice?
Reproductive justice is
1. A human right,
2. The ability to make choices about our bodies without fear, pressure, or force,
3. Access to affordable, safe reproductive health care such as comprehensive sex education, contraception, sexually transmitted infection prevention and care, alternative birth options, gender transition surgery and hormone therapy, adequate prenatal and pregnancy care, domestic violence assistance, abortion, cervical, prostate and breast cancer screening and treatment, and HIV/AIDS testing and treatment,
4. Equity—freedom from structural racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and other oppressions that make obtaining reproductive health care harder for many BIPOC, LGBTQ+, immigrants, elderly, and poor and working-class people and people with disabilities and mental illness. This may mean situating more health care facilities in low income and rural communities, routing public transportation to these sites, requiring translation during appointments, insisting that providers are culturally competent, working for universal health care, ensuring that detained immigrants and women prisoners have menstruation products, and much more.
How do we achieve reproductive justice?
To achieve reproductive justice, we must
1. Analyze power systems to understand how social structures and health care policies and practices are based on gendered, sexualized, classist, ableist and racialized acts of dominance that occur daily,
2. Address intersecting oppressions to understand how different injustices intensify each others’ effects and thus reduce the barriers to reproductive health care that have the greatest impact on marginalized people,
3. Center the most marginalized to ensure that they are able to access the resources required to live healthy, self-determined lives without fear or discrimination, and
4. Join together across issues and identities with the realization that all oppressions impact our reproductive lives, and that the intersectional approach is an opportunity and a call to come together to achieve equity and freedom.
What happens in Indiana now that the Supreme Court has ended abortion protection?
What happens in Indiana now that the Supreme Court has ended abortion protection?
NOTHING CHANGES in Indiana unless and until the state legislature votes to put more restrictions on abortion. Governor Holcomb has called to include abortion in a special session called for July 6, 2022. Holcomb opposes reproductive justice in the form of abortion. The Indiana legislature is likely to ban abortion. Illinois will not, and that state is readying to provide care for women from other states, including Indiana.
What is Roe v Wade?
In Roe v Wade (1973), the Supreme Court established that under the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects a person’s liberty interest against state deprivation without due process of law, a person has a right to choose to have an abortion before viability — that is, before approximately 24 weeks into a pregnancy. The Court concluded that when a pregnancy reached viability, state interests in the life of the fetus are high enough to permit states to prohibit abortions.
This decision meant that states did not have the right to ban abortion, but since then, states have passed more than 1,300 laws and restrictions that make it harder and more expensive to get an abortion.
What does it mean for the Supreme Court to overturn reproductive rights?
If reproductive rights are overturned, abortion would not automatically become illegal nationwide. Individual states would decide whether and when abortions would be legal. NOTHING CHANGES in Indiana unless and until the state legislature votes to put more restrictions on abortion. Governor Holcomb has called to include abortion in a special session called for July 6, 2022. Holcomb opposes reproductive justice in the form of abortion. The Indiana legislature is likely to ban abortion. Illinois will not, and that state is readying to provide care for women from other states, including Indiana.
What is ableism?
Ableism is discrimination in favor of non-disabled people. It is linked to disablism, which is discrimination against people with disabilities. Both can be structural and institutional as well as interpersonal. An example of interpersonal ableism is bullying someone with disabilities. Institutional ableism occurs when a school or employer punishes students and employees with disabilities and refusing to provide reasonable accommodations as specified by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Structural ableism is exemplified by unnecessary institutionalization and lack of a transportation system that is accessible.
What is classism?
Classism is prejudice against or in favor of people belonging to a particular social class. Classism is usually directed against and harms people who are working class and/or impoverished. It is inseparable from racism, sexism, ableism and other forms of oppression, whether interpersonal institutional, structural and interpersonal inequities.
Like other forms of oppression, classism can be individual and structural. An example of classism is the idea that “lower” classes are lazy and/or immoral. Their class status itself is assumed to be proof of a moral or character flaw. This idea is very strong in the dominant culture in the US because of our society’s idealization of individuality—the idea that everyone can “make it” if they only work hard enough. This, of course, is false thinking because our society unfairly distributes power and resources to some and denies it to others on the basis of numerous factors, especially race, ethnicity, sex, and bodily ability. In other words, the playing field is not level, so not everyone has the same opportunities as others. Moreover, capitalism itself, which is the economic system used in the US and most parts of the world, relies on class inequity to function. For example, corporate profits depend on paying low wages, which perpetuates poverty. At the same time, the profits that corporations make enable them to influence law, policy, and conventions that maintain their power and profit while workers and impoverished people, unless they organize effectively, don’t have the resources that the wealthy use to maintain their wealth and power.

Equity and equality

About

NWI AntiSexist ACTION is a coalition of groups and individuals in Northwest Indiana that advocates for healthcare access and reproductive justice for all genders, including abortion rights. We believe that all people are entitled to control decisions about their bodies and to access safe, affordable sexual, reproductive, and overall healthcare. We recognize that both bodily autonomy and access to resources and education are limited by race, sex, gender, class, and ability. Thus, our endeavors and goals are simultaneously anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-classist, and anti-ableist so that all communities are safe and sustainable.
Our vision is to work together across ideological and other differences to pool resources and talent in a manner that is open-minded, connected, and focused on learning and equity. We employ direct action and education about sexuality and sexual health rights to achieve our aims.
All are welcome to join zoom meetings every Thursday from 6 P.M. till 7 P.M. Central Time Zone. For the link to meetings, email [email protected]Current priorities for summer 2022 are to
1. Inform NWI residents about the legal status of abortion in Indiana and any changes that may occur after the Supreme Court publishes its decision about (Roe v Wade),
2. Organize and share information about events protesting additional restrictions on access to abortion in Indiana and possible penalties for dilation and curettage (D&C) procedures and miscarriages,
3. Notify the public of resources such as providers who use a justice-oriented model to deliver a range of services and health care options—from birth control to testing and prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and cancer to gender-affirming hormone care—to regional residents,
4. Prepare to support NWI women traveling out of state to obtain an abortion by helping organize transportation, lodging, and funding, and
5. Develop and deliver in-depth education sessions and accessible materials on reproductive justice, particularly with regard to race, class, ability, and gender.

Equity and equality

Connection

Contact Information

Want to get involved or have any questions? Feel free to click on the buttons below on our social media pages!

Partner Organizations

Just Transition Northwest Indiana (JTNWI)
LGBTQ+ Alliances at Purdue Northwest
Social Justice Club at Purdue Northwest

Reproductive Justice Resources - General, NWI, and Indiana

General

In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda
Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective
Queering Reproductive Justice
BIPOC Women’s Health Network
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice
Barriers to Reproductive Justice for Detained Immigrants
ADAPT
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A BODY IN THIS WORLD? WHAT COULD IT MEAN?
Medical News Today’s “What is Ableism, and What is its Impact?”
Collective Power for Reproductive Justice

NWI and Indiana

Everybody Counts Center for Independent Living
The Guttmacher Institute
Center for Reproductive Rights: What if Roe Fell?
Register to vote in Indiana
Women For Change

Clarifying Resources

The Guttmacher Institute is a primary source for research and policy analysis on abortion in the United States. It maintains data on related legislation, incidence of abortion, barriers to access, reasons women opt for abortion, insurance coverage, and more.
Everybody Counts Inc. operates two state & federally funded disability rights agencies in NWI, one in Merrillville and another in Hammond, that advocate for and empower people with disabilities to be in control of their own lives. lives. EC provides some direct services, such as peer counseling, independent living skills training, individual advocacy, information and referral and transition services. EC is also provides to senior citizens, to family members, to local government, business and civic organizations. One of our primary objectives is to help people with disabilities and senior citizens to leave or avoid having to go to nursing homes and other restrictive institutions so that they can live in their own homes, in their own community.

Monkey Pox Update and Resources

Safer Ways We Can Have Safer Sex in the Time of MonkeypoxMonkeypox is not a sexually transmitted infection but it is spread through contact with an infected person’s rash (including during sex), by touching contaminated objects and fabrics or by respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes. It may be possible for a pregnant person can spread the virus to her fetus through the placenta.
Everyone can get monkeypox. Transmission rates are high among gay men.
High-risk behavior
Close, intimate contact with another infected individual including ANY SITUATION THAT INVOLVES SKIN-TO-SKIN CONTACT such as sex, social dance, etc.
1. Cuddling
2. Hugging
3. Massaging
4. Kissing
5. Sharing towels, pillows, sheets, and clothing.
6. Living with/visiting someone who is infected.
7. Condoms are unlikely to prevent contact with lesions on an infected person’s groin, thighs, buttocks, or other parts of their body.
8. Medium risk behavior
9. Face-to-face or almost face-to-face contact
10. Wearing masks and, to a lesser extent, keeping 6 feet apart may prevent infection.
11. Lower risk behavior
12. Trying on clothing in a store.
Touching nonporous items like door handles and counters.
13. Public transit
14. Work and school
15. Pregnant people are at increased risk for getting severe monkeypox. During labor, monkey pox can be transmitted to the infant. Monkey pox can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, and early delivery. It is URGENT that pregnant people seek medical care as soon as symptoms appear—beginning with fever, headache, fatigue, chills muscle aches and swollen lymph nodes. Lesions will appear as dark bumps on the skin within 2-3 days of infection then expand to fluid-filled bumps. Children under 8 are also at severe risk as are immune-compromised people and people with a history of dermatitis and eczema.