Black women’s unyielding fight for reproductive freedom

Members of Congress protest in support of abortion rights prior to arrest at the U.S. Capitol on July 19, 2022. Members, from left, are Cori Bush of Missouri (in black shirt), Nydia Velazquez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Jackie Speier of California, Carolyn Maloney of New York, Alma Adams of North Carolina and Barbara Lee of California. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

As a Black woman, navigating the landscape of reproductive rights in 2024 feels like walking through a battlefield strewn with both the victories of resilience and the scars of generational trauma. We stand at a crossroads where our bodies, rights, and voices are under constant scrutiny, regulation and, often, outright attack.

In the wake of Trump’s Supreme Court overturning Roe, we’ve seen abortion bans in states that so many Black women call home followed by rising Black maternal mortality, and in public debates that question our rights to control our own bodies, one thing remains painfully clear — our reproductive freedom has always been treated differently, and, in many ways, continues to be.

We must continue to wield our power in 2024, fighting for our autonomy and dignity. Our bodies belong to us, not to any system or institution. The Supreme Court with the overturning of Roe v. Wade unjustly took away rights that generations of women, especially Black women, have fought for.

We stand on the shoulders of the countless Black women who came before us — those who were experimented on, sterilized without consent, and denied agency. We are the joy they dreamed about, fighting with all the tools they gave us to ensure that no more of us are lost to a system that refuses to see our full humanity. 

It is impossible to discuss reproductive rights, the subject of Amendment 79 on the Colorado ballot, without confronting the dark history of gynecology’s roots. The so-called “father of modern gynecology,” Dr. J. Marion Sims, built his practice on the mutilation and torture of enslaved Black women. He performed surgeries without anesthesia, dismissing their pain because of the racist belief that Black women had a higher threshold for suffering. Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy — these were not just nameless subjects but women who endured unimaginable pain, who were denied their dignity, and whose bodies were sacrificed in the name of medical progress that would not serve them equally.

This history is not distant; it lingers in our medical institutions today. Black women continue to be ignored, their pain dismissed, and their voices silenced when it comes to reproductive health. Maternal mortality rates are highest among Black women, not because we are biologically predisposed to die in childbirth, but because racism is embedded in the very systems meant to care for us. 

Our communities face limited access to quality health care and greater economic barriers to obtaining reproductive care. Clinics that serve predominantly Black neighborhoods are often the first to close when restrictive legislation is passed. This leaves Black women with fewer options, forcing many to travel far distances, take time off work, and find childcare — barriers that are often insurmountable. 

Moreover, Black women are disproportionately criminalized when it comes to reproductive health decisions. Whether it’s being prosecuted for a miscarriage or targeted for seeking out care, the policing of our bodies has become a systemic tool for controlling our autonomy. We cannot afford to ignore how reproductive justice for Black women intersects with the broader issues of mass incarceration, health care disparities, and systemic racism.

Reproductive justice is not just about the right to choose. For Black women, it is about the right to live, to thrive, to raise our children in safe environments, and to make decisions about our bodies free from coercion, fear, or punishment. This framework, birthed by Black women activists in the 1990s, goes beyond abortion and birth control. It calls for the complete dismantling of systems that oppress and dehumanize us — systems that, from slavery to sterilization, have sought to control our reproductive destinies. 

In 2024, with the constitutional right to control our own bodies again taken away from us, Black women are at the forefront of the reproductive justice movement, pushing for a more inclusive, holistic approach to rights that acknowledges our lived experiences. This is the essence of Black women’s unyielding fight for reproductive freedom in 2024 — a struggle that demands not only reclaiming our rights but redefining the very future of our autonomy and dignity.