Race, Gender and Abortion

How Reproductive Justice

Activists Won in Georgia
SisterSong Policy Report
October 2010

SisterSong
Women of Color
Reproductive Justice
Collective
© 2010
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Contents
Introduction 1
This report was made possible
by the support of the following: First the Billboards, then the Bill 3
Mary Wohlford Southern Exposures of Race and Gender 4
Foundation

Anderson Rogers Analyzing the Political Moment 5

Foundation
SisterSong’s Response 6
Irving Harris
Foundation Mobilizing the Reproductive Justice Movement 8
The Catalyst Fund Developing Our Strategies 10
MaryKay Penn
Reframing the Debate 11
Sara Weinstein

Vanessa Daniel Researching the Opposition 11

This report was written by

Developing a Communications Plan 12
Loretta Ross
Heidi Williamson Providing Data and Facts 15
Laura Jimenez
Serena Garcia
SisterSong National Office Recruiting Civil Rights Organizations 16
With editing assistance by
Shawn Evans Mitchell
Engaging Faith Communities 16
Graphic design by Organizing the Legislative Strategy 17
Claudia Arkush, CA Graphic Design
Trusted Experts: 18
The Medical and Legal Communities

Mobilizing Our Allies 19

Creating a Lasting Impact: 20
Lessons Learned for the Future

Trust Black Women Founding Partners 23

1237 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd., SW
Atlanta, GA 30310-1731
Statement of Solidarity 24
404-756-2680
Email: info@SisterSong.net SisterSong Staff and Management Circle 25
Website: www.SisterSong.net
 Introduction

W
omen of color and our allies won a significant policy victory in Georgia in 2010 when we
successfully challenged a dangerous publicity campaign launched with billboard-splashed
allegations that claimed “Black Children are an Endangered Species.” We defeated state
legislation attempting to expand abortion restrictions by linking race, gender and abortion. More
than 600 bills reducing abortion access were introduced in state legislatures in 2010, according to
the Guttmacher Institute. Among this tsunami of abortion restrictions, one bill – Georgia Senate Bill
529 – failed due to the leadership of women of color working together using the reproductive justice
framework.
SisterSong, along with our allies, effectively rebuffed the anti-abortion movement in our home state
by mobilizing our community and our larger network of national reproductive justice activists. As
reproductive justice activists, our intersectional approach effectively contested this new front in the
abortion wars that would have wielded race and gender as a weapon to undermine abortion rights.
By working strategically with pro-choice allies in our state and across the country, we brought
our collective resources together to deliver one of the few national success stories in the 2010
legislative season.
Women of color groups played a unique and essential role as a trusted voice that galvanized leaders
of color and key civil and human rights organizations to take action on abortion rights issues,
sometimes for the first time. We proved that leaders and institutions that needed to be activated in
the African American community could only be moved by black women working together. We had
the cultural competency to craft the right messages, but even more importantly, we had the long-
standing relationships within our communities of color to be able to tap into trusted messengers to
deploy them effectively. We enlisted members of the Congressional Black Caucus, religious leaders,
and national Civil Rights organizations, demonstrating how women of color reproductive justice
leaders must lead in defeating such race- and gender-based efforts. Our vision for the future is that
national Civil Rights organizations officially and publicly join the Reproductive Justice movement in
defending the human rights of women of color.
We worked strategically to divide our opponents’ base of support and – in the end – increased
frictions between the extremist and moderate wings of the conservative anti-abortion movement in
Georgia. With their absolutist, non-compromising stances, the Tea Party faction of the Republican
base fought with moderate Republicans. They created an internal implosion among their own
forces. Women of color played a helpful role in this process by negotiating reasonably with
moderate Republican allies and splitting our opponents. In a conservative-dominated legislature in a

INTRODUCTION
decidedly “red” state, extremism was a huge part of the bill’s unpredictable failure.
This intrusive bill would have written into law the right of the state to question the motives of every
woman seeking an abortion. Its proponents falsely claimed that the majority of women obtaining
abortions are coerced, denying that women can be trusted to make decisions for ourselves. If this
race- and gender-baiting legislation succeeded, it would have had damaging national implications
for the entire pro-choice movement by driving a racial wedge in the pro-choice movement and a
gender wedge in communities of color. It would also trigger a national challenge to Roe v. Wade,
making it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion that had allegedly been “coerced” due to the
race or sex of the fetus.
This report is a brief summary of the policy victory in Georgia and some subsequent activities
since the legislative session. It outlines how we won by shifting the debate, organizing our allies,
engaging our communities, and achieving policy success. We protected abortion rights in Georgia
from perilous legislation. At the same time, we shifted the behavior of African American women
leaders to form the Trust Black Women Partnership (TBW), a long-term strategy to ensure that
black women can mobilize wherever such campaigns appear in African American communities.
This report will share the lessons we learned so that activists in other states and communities can
benefit and build on the momentum of our success.

continued

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Women of color won this victory by proving that our leadership can achieve policy victories by
influencing decision makers, allies and funders. Our primary strategies worked to:
1. Reframe the debate to focus on women instead of abortion
2. Research the opposition to expose their distortions and hidden agendas
3. Develop a communications plan to work with the media and inform our base of
reproductive justice activists
4. Provide data and facts to challenge the opponents’ distortions
5. Recruit Civil Rights organizations and leaders to alert the African American community
6. Engage communities of faith as allies in religious institutions
7. Organize a legislative strategy to defeat the bill
8. Mobilize the medical and legal communities for expert testimony
9. Utilize our allies to strengthen our capacity
10. Create a lasting impact of lessons learned for the future.
SisterSong thanks our strong partners in this fight, including SPARK Reproductive Justice
NOW!, Feminist Women’s Health Center of Atlanta, Planned Parenthood of the Southeast Region,
Raksha, and SisterLove, Inc., as well as many allies around the country (who will be named
later) who worked with us to defeat this misleading bill. We would particularly like to thank
Heidi Williamson, SisterSong’s national advocacy coordinator; Paris Hatcher and Tonya Williams
of SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!; Nikema Williams, the public policy director at Planned
Parenthood of the Southeast Region; and Lauren Williams of the Feminist Women’s Health Center
for their successful management of the legislative strategy.
When race, gender and abortion intersect in public policies, the leadership of women of color
is vital for success. We proved the power of the reproductive justice framework in achieving a
legislative victory.

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 First the Billboards, then the Bill
On February 5, 2010, 65 billboards were quickly erected in predominantly African American neighborhoods in Atlanta
with a sorrowful picture of a black male child proclaiming, “Black Children are an Endangered Species.” Georgia
Right to Life and the newly-formed Radiance Foundation spent a mere $20,000 to sponsor the
billboards that included the address of a previously unknown anti-abortion website. The billboards
themselves were owned by CBS -- the same CBS that ran the anti-abortion ad during the 2010
Super Bowl – sponsored by Focus on the Family, featuring football star Tim Tebow. Interestingly,
CBS previously refused pro-choice advertisements on their billboards in Atlanta sponsored
by the Feminist Women’s Health Center, claiming that advertising abortion services was “too
controversial.”
These stunning billboards attempted to use the history of medical mistrust in the African American community to
accuse abortion providers of racism and genocide in a bizarre conspiracy theory. Not so coincidentally, they launched
a misogynistic attack to shame-and-blame black women who choose abortion, alleging that we endanger the future
of our children. After all, many people in our community already believe that black men are an endangered species
because of white supremacy. They used a social responsibility frame to claim that black women have a racial obligation
to have more babies – especially black male babies -- despite our individual circumstances. This social responsibility
frame challenged the individualistic, privacy-focused frame of the pro-choice movement. At SisterSong, we speculated
they chose to use an intersectional approach in this new attack campaign because our transformative reproductive
justice framework – that intersects race and reproductive politics within a human rights context – is effectively forcing
our opponents to shift tactics to try to racially segment our movements.
The campaign also accused Planned Parenthood, the largest single provider of birth control and abortion services in
the black community, of targeting the community for “genocide” because of its “racist founder,” Margaret Sanger. The
billboard campaign was quickly followed by a 2009 documentary film with the same theme, Maafa 21, distributed to
black churches and organizations.
Because of the conflation of race, gender and abortion in the provocative marketing campaign, the racist billboards
very quickly became national news, picked up by CNN, The New York Times, MSNBC, ABC, The Washington Post, The
LA Times, many other newspapers, and dozens of national and local radio and television shows. Georgia Right to Life
and the Radiance Foundation, working with Priests for Life of Staten Island, NY with their $10 million war chest, also
announced plans to spread their campaign to at least 10 other states. Since the Georgia campaign, similar billboards
have already appeared in Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, and Tennessee.
These outrageous billboards were the opening salvo in a campaign to introduce a bill into the Georgia Legislature
called the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (PreNDA), modeled after national legislation introduced by Trent Franks
(R-AZ) in Congress, deceptively and disrespectfully called the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick
Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2009 (H.R. 1822). Although the national legislation
failed in Congress, it provided a model for anti-abortion groups in states to criminalize abortions
provided to women of color allegedly because of the “race or sex” of the fetus. Anti-abortion
advocates identified Georgia and other Southern states and Midwestern states as fertile ground in
which to organize the black community against abortion rights, and split African American voters
along a gender fault line. Simultaneously, they could fracture the pro-choice community along a
racial fault line. They could also use xenophobia to attack Asian American communities, building
on anti-immigrant attitudes.
In Georgia, this outlandish proposal became House Bill 1155, but the companion bill was Senate Bill 529 or the “OB/
GYN Criminalization and Racial Discrimination Act.” Central to their argument is the false claim that most, if not all,
abortions are coerced, with the black community and Asian girls as the primary targets for elimination. The proposed
legislation targeted abortion providers to drive them out of our state, making it a racketeering crime for them to
provide an abortion to women if they have any reason to believe that the abortion is being sought because of the race
or sex of the fetus. As a result, this bill would have intruded on patient confidentiality and threatened doctors with
criminal sanctions.
Because of SisterSong’s work, our partner organizations, and the intransigence of our opponents, SB 529 was killed
in the Rules Committee, the last committee before reaching the floor. Had this bill passed, however, it would have
violated our human rights in the following ways:
• It would open the door to racial profiling of women of color, particularly African American and Asian American
women, who seek reproductive health services, including abortion.
• It would isolate and stigmatize African American and Asian American women because doctors would be compelled

3
 to question our motives for seeking abortions and increase the barriers to reproductive health care.
• Unless the provider has reason to suspect a white woman is carrying an interracial fetus, preexisting biases and
stereotypes would subject women of color to intrusive questions that white women would not be asked.
• This bill mandated disclosures about motives, which violates the patient’s right to privacy and confidentiality.

While it is obvious that this bill would have directly affected women of color, SB 529 also targeted doctors, placing
them at risk for criminalization:
• This bill would harm doctors by holding them criminally and civilly liable for “alleged” coercion by a third party,
such as a parent who urges a young woman to have an abortion.
• This bill would make providers hesitate to offer abortion services to women of color if increased vulnerability to
criminal investigations result from providing legal abortions.
• This bill would increase medical malpractice costs, opening medical practices up to lawsuits for the “criminally
aborted.” This would mean that fewer doctors would provide abortion services, further limiting the availability of
abortion access in the state.
• Doctors would have an additional burden, even beyond the current law, of proving that they are not attempting to
“solicit” abortions, like through routine advertising. Not only does this violate the free speech rights of doctors,
it would mean invasive questioning of women, and massive amounts of paperwork, further delaying women’s
access to services.

Southern Exposures of Race and Gender

As a region, the South does the least to protect women’s human rights and the most to oppose
progressive legislation such as civil rights and immigration reform. Offering white Southerners a chance
to pretend to champion racial justice and women’s rights at the same time proved to be an irresistible
opportunity for the anti-abortion movement in Georgia.
It is important to analyze why African American and Asian American women were targets of such
legislation. African Americans, particularly in the South, have consistently served as sacrifices for
political gain, subject to attacks from many directions. It may be mere coincidence that African Americans
in the South are some of the most loyal supporters of President Obama and his policies. We have large
concentrations of voter strengths that can determine the outcomes of local and national elections. The
religiosity of the black community compounds many injustices by heightening sexism, and shame and
fear around issues of sex and sexuality. It was significant that the anti-abortionists were largely silent on
the role of black men in pregnancy and parenting in this new strategy, except to use religious appeals to
recruit them to support this new conspiracy theory that purports to eliminate black men.
While the average African American might reference the well-publicized and government-sanctioned Tuskegee Syphilis
Experiment, better know as the “Tuskegee Experiment,” as a reason for silence and apathy around the issue of
abortion, there is a distinct cultural memory and historical context that drives how African American women approach
reproductive health in the United States, and manifest mistrust of the medical community. During slavery, Black
women were bred for the production of labor. After slavery, coercive sterilization was used to restrict the population
growth of the poor and uneducated. Even today, we have to fight against the colonization of our genes, such as the
case of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who died of cancer in 1951, but whose pirated cells from her unwittingly
donated cancerous tumor form the basis of much cancer research in this country.
Asian American women, on the other hand, are targeted as foreigners bringing strange customs around pregnancy,
parenting and sexual stereotypes from their home countries that “contaminate” U.S. values and mores. The stereotypes
endure over centuries, no matter how long Asian Americans have been in the U.S., but are particularly applied to more
recent immigrants. They claim that Asian American women in America are pressured to have male children by their
husbands and families. By combining the xenophobia of anti-immigrant racism and sexist beliefs about the alleged
submissive nature of Asian American women, abortion opponents claim that they are preventing “gendercide” or the
intentional elimination of female fetuses.

4
 Women of color in the South are particularly vulnerable when it comes to accessing reproductive rights and services.
While Atlanta is thought to be a progressive beacon of the South, the ugly truth bears itself out in the lives of women.
Approximately 15 percent of Atlanta Fulton County residents live in poverty, and 23 percent of related children under
age 18 are below poverty. Because of poverty and limited access to health care, infant mortality for black children has
increased in Georgia, despite the fact the rates for white women have decreased.
In November 2004, a confusing and misleading initiative appeared on Florida voters’ ballots. The initiative, which
passed by a two-to-one margin, strips young women’s right to privacy from Florida’s constitution by exempting
mandatory parental notification laws for abortion. A fetal personhood amendment to the Florida Constitution will appear
on the November 2010 ballot to determine if a fetus has all the protections of legal personhood or if a woman does.
It is not possible to protect both the fetus and the woman’s rights at the same time, because the amendment would
criminalize abortion, as well as methods of birth control that may interfere with a fertilized egg, like the morning-
after pill. Penalties for women having an abortion could range up to 30 years imprisonment. Meanwhile, within this
conservative state climate, Miami struggles to lower infant mortality and birth rates to teenage mothers, and has
alarmingly high AIDS rates of 301 cases per 100,000 people.
In Jackson, Mississippi, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization which provides reproductive health care, including
abortion to about 4,000 patients a year, has been the sole abortion service clinic in the state for the last two years.
Additionally, Mississippi has the third highest unintended teenage pregnancy rate in the country, and has some of the
highest numbers of women of reproductive age living in poverty.
As if to mock the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic during the Olympics in 1996 that killed one
person and severely wounded others, anti-abortionists launched a “Freedom Bus” tour against abortion rights at that
same clinic in July 2010 that brought a hundred mostly white protestors to Atlanta to the King Center for Non-Violent
Social Change.
While charges of racism and genocide are not at all new by abortion opponents, this was possibly one of their best
opportunities to build on backlash against the Obama Administration and mine the religious conservatism of the Deep
South. Georgia offered the opportunists the perfect storm conditions. They are determined to hijack the legacy of
the Civil Rights Movement and distort it for their own purposes. What better place to launch a revision of civil rights
history than Atlanta, the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement and the home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Analyzing the Political Moment

From the beginning, it was obvious to SisterSong we needed to immediately respond to this unexpected campaign and
legislation. The first billboards were located only minutes up the street from our national headquarters. Even before
they appeared, national media like the New York Times contacted us for interviews, because our opponents sent out
advance press alerts announcing the campaign.
Our response was even more vital because of critical vulnerabilities we analyzed from our perspectives
as women of color, including: 1) The overt religious appeals and the distortions of black history in the
campaign would make work on reproductive justice in the African American community even more
difficult; 2) They used visible black leaders in the campaign to describe themselves as protecting women
and children, and falsely claim they were saving our community from the “abortion industry”; and 3)
The pro-choice movement has not historically responded adequately to charges of racism and genocide,
visibly flinching when race and abortion are linked in narratives about ulterior motives. These accusations
can sound credible given our collective inability to thoroughly confront issues of race and power in the
pro-choice movement. Women of color generally, and African American women, in particular, had to take
these folks on.
Our opponents crafted this strategy in 2009 in a secret meeting on St. Simon’s Island in South Georgia
between Georgia Right to Life and the Georgia Republican Party. To provide an African American woman to champion
the effort, they hired Catherine Davis, who failed twice at winning a Congressional seat as a black Republican. They
hoped to build an unusual alliance between white and black conservatives, using religion and false compassion for
black children to not only restrict abortion access in Georgia, but to split African American voters along gender and
religious lines, increasing black support for conservative causes we would not otherwise endorse.

5
With a predominantly Republican legislature and a weakened pro-choice base in the South, the campaign had a good
chance at success. If the billboards were not challenged and the legislation passed in Georgia, we expected that similar
attempts would spread virally across the country in new efforts to restrict abortion, using race as a wedge. Subsequent
events justified concerns. A ballot initiative in Colorado now is comparing fetuses to slaves, declaring that unborn
fetuses are equivalent to enslaved African Americans. As of this writing, it is not clear whether the Colorado initiative
will succeed.
Now the same forces that have denied the country universal health care, publicly funded birth control and abortion, and
comprehensive sex education are using a different approach to attack abortion by manipulating the black community. A
ginned-up “conspiracy theory” that places black women as the “destroyers” of the black family through abortion has in
common with previous approaches like calling us “welfare queens” – a certainty of the same outcome: an increase in
disabling poverty and instability for black women and our children. Black women are the backbone and core caretakers
of the African American community and we will not stand silently by when opponents viciously attack our human
rights.
It became obvious that the opposition’s strategy was to present another state-initiated challenge to Roe v. Wade,
although this was not their only objective. It also portended a showdown between the far right, libertarian and
moderate wings of the Republican Party within Georgia. It called the question on whether the concept of “saving black
babies” would work to mobilize the disparate sectors of the Georgia anti-abortion movement, some of whom are not
only openly sexist, but racist. And finally, it would test whether overt religious appeals could divide African American
legislators and voters, such as had been done around the country on other cultural wedge issues, such as marriage
equality and immigration.
Only our organizing efforts would tell if they would succeed.

SisterSong’s Response
SisterSong could not afford to be silent. SisterSong surged into action in response to SB 529. We had to be active
on two fronts: to challenge the massive marketing campaign of the billboards, and mobilize to defeat the concomitant
legislation. While we did not anticipate this unexpected development in our own backyard, we also assessed that we
were providentially positioned to challenge this new front in the abortion wars. We only had from February until late
April to defeat the legislation. The Georgia Legislative session lasts only three and a half months, or more specifically,
only 40 days.
We had to make decisions quickly and we had to get them right.
SisterSong had worked with Generations Ahead and the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum in 2008
and 2009 to respond to Trent Franks’ national legislation. This collaboration, including the Reproductive Health
Technologies Project, evolved into the Race and Sex Selection Working Group in 2010, bringing
together dozens of groups concerned about the national legislation.
During the national debate over the Franks’ bill, the sex selection aspect of the legislation
appeared to have the most salience and offer the greatest threat, because the concept of black
women having abortions due to the race of the fetus was so implausible that even Franks’ staff
tried to de-emphasize that aspect of the bill. Unfortunately, the Radiance Foundation and Georgia
Right to Life did understand all too well the publicity value of accusations of racial genocide
that could soften the emotional ground for anti-abortion legislation, even if the allegations were
specious. In fact, there is no evidence at all that African American women have abortions because
of the race of the fetus.
In addition to our previous national work on the Trent Franks’ legislation, SisterSong also has a
long history of investigating the black anti-abortion movement, and had written about it many
times in our newsletter, Collective Voices. In fact, because we frequently wrote about African
Americans and abortion politics over the years, reporters found us through their research. Our
partnership with Generations Ahead in the Race and Sex Selection Working Group addressed the
sex-selection aspects of the campaign, but the race-selection aspects had to be addressed by
African American women because the black community was specifically targeted in this campaign.
SisterSong’s core strength is our large membership base built through our convenings, trainings, and leadership
development work. We have a base of 80 organizations and thousands of supporters we can quickly mobilize. We are

6
 the leading national provider of reproductive justice trainings and a major originator, developer and thought-leader
on the reproductive justice framework. We also organize the largest gatherings and conferences of women of color
working on reproductive justice in the country. We are very comfortable in using our reproductive justice framework
intersectionally to examine issues of race, gender, and class in reproductive politics. Perhaps the largest miscalculation
our opponents made was overlooking SisterSong’s presence in Atlanta when they decided to launch
the national campaign here.
SisterSong is an inclusive women of color organization. In our 13-year history, we had never before
devoted such resources to the needs of only one group of women of color: African American women.
Moreover, members of SisterSong are pro-choice AND pro-life. While America generally sees
differences on abortion as divisive, for SisterSong, our diversity is empowering. We are unique in that
we bring women of color together to work on reproductive justice issues crossing boundaries of race,
class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, etc.
We had to carefully assess the threat this Georgia campaign presented to all women of color, with
African American and Asian American women on the initial front lines for the assault, although
we expect other race- and ethnically-based appeals to other communities of color to appear in the
future. For example, it would not surprise us if Latinos are advised to resist abortions to increase
their numbers to fight the anti-immigrant movement, or Native Americans to desist from abortions to
wage the struggle for Indigenous sovereignty. Our opponents are nimble and manipulative, and our
communities are vulnerable and unfortunately sexist.
At SisterSong’s national office, we were not certain that we had the authority and the capacity to wage this struggle.
We had to ensure that our multi-racial, multi-generational Management Circle (Board of Directors) agreed to revise
our three-year strategic plan to accommodate this unexpected demand on our slender resources. This meant
postponing other scheduled projects until later on in the year because of our limited capacity. Fortunately, they agreed
that this work was urgent and consistent with the public policy priorities of our strategic plan. We divided up the
primary campaign responsibilities with Loretta Ross, our national coordinator, organizing our national mobilization
strategy; Heidi Williamson, our national advocacy coordinator, directing the legislative strategy; and Serena Garcia,
our communications coordinator, organizing our communications strategy. This combination of seasoned and newer
activists proved that a small organization could win a major policy victory by working strategically with allies from
around the country.
It was clear that taking on this struggle would strain our limited capacity and risk our long-term survival. We also
correctly suspected that we would not immediately receive a surge of funding from many pro-choice funders for this
emergency policy work -- unlike more mainstream groups -- because of the historic disparities in funding provided
to women of color organizations. According to research conducted by the Tides Foundation in 2007, the combined
budgets of the four largest white-led national reproductive rights organizations was nearly $100 million in 2005. The
combined budgets of the four largest women of color-led national organizations the same year was under $3 million.
At the state level, the picture was not much better. Even in the states where women of color-led work on reproductive
issues is better supported, there was a disparity. In California, the median budget of women of color-led organizations
in this sector was approximately 9.7 percent that of white-led organizations, in New York the figure is 4.5 percent, in
Georgia 4.6 percent, in New Mexico 11 percent. This resource disparity plays out as women of color groups attempt to
have an equal seat at the table in coalition campaigns in each of these states. In 2006, of the $67 million that Funders
Network members granted in the U.S., only 9 percent went to organizations “serving” women of color.1
We are accustomed to doing more with less, but this unexpected challenge was daunting because of the millions of
dollars to which our opponents had access, while we did not even have the time to enter the funding cycles of many
pro-choice foundations in time to make a difference in the short-term. Seeking new funding to expand our capacity
would have to wait until after the legislative session ended.
We received grants from the Mary Wohlford Foundation, the Anderson Rogers Foundation, the Catalyst Fund, and the
Irving Harris Foundation to fund our community educational efforts, and their support was invaluable. While many
funders vocally supported our efforts, others were nervous about the policy work in which we were engaging and
wondered whether their foundations could support activities designed to directly defeat legislation. Others knew they
could not respond quickly enough to be of immediate assistance. We did receive a small surge of unsolicited individual
donations sparked by media appearances. We also had to carefully comply with 501(c)3 lobbying restrictions and our
grant agreements, and use only non-foundation revenues for our legislative work.

1. The Funders Network on Population, Reproductive Health and Rights is the largest affinity group of foundations who support reproductive
health, rights and justice.

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Mobilizing the Reproductive Justice Movement
Despite these challenges, we knew we had to respond quickly. We started by organizing a coalition of Atlanta-based
organizations to expand our capacity and bring partners together who could rapidly work to develop our strategy and
tactics. In addition to SisterSong, the coalition included:
SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!
Feminist Women’s Health Center (Atlanta)
Planned Parenthood of the Southeast Region
SisterLove, Inc. (a women’s HIV/AIDS organization)
Raksha (an Asian-American women’s domestic violence organization)
Each coalition partner played a unique role in the work. For example, SPARK did a great deal of work mobilizing young
voices, organizing protests, and generating community conversations about eugenics, the role of abortion within the
community, as well as how black women see themselves as providers. Paris Hatcher, SPARK’s executive director,
led the campaign against CBS, challenging them to discontinue the billboards, and brought pressure to bear on this
corporate giant through a national petition campaign.
One of the main reasons why women of color were successful in defeating this bill is because we built a strong
collaboration of organizations nationwide that have diverse capabilities. Local organizations in our coalition played
different roles based on their strengths in various areas. Some of their contributions and strengths include:
Feminist Women’s Health Center
• Provided a paid lobbyist to discuss our concerns with legislators through her long-standing relationships with
legislators
• Provided background information on Democrats and Republicans in the legislature
• Helped organize a network of doctors willing to work with the coalition who testified against the bill
• Located legal scholars to contest the constitutionality of the legislation
Planned Parenthood of Southeast Region
• Has a large database, with 88 governed affiliates and 840 centers nationwide
• Having been in operation for 90 years, Planned Parenthood offered a range of research that proved extremely
helpful in providing citizens and legislators with the facts, such as the locations of clinics around the state
• Planned Parenthood Federation of America also provided the expert testimony of Dr. Vanessa Cullins, their
Medical Director
• Provided media coaching for younger spokespersons
SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!
• SPARK is agile and able to mobilize hundreds of young activists quickly for legislative advocacy through its
Legislate This! annual campaign. This enabled them to organize people in the community, especially LGBTQ
activists.
• Mapped the billboard placements in Atlanta
• Wrote press releases and talking points
• Protested at the billboards to raise community awareness
• Put pressure on CBS through calls to CBS Outdoor Vice President Jodi Senese to urge them not to renew the
contract with the Radiance Foundation
• Helped with research and testimony preparation, ensuring a wide diversity of voices who testified
• Did national and local media interviews
• Provided 30 activists to make legislative visits
• Principal organizer for the “Trust Black Women” rally and protest against the Pro-Life Freedom Bus at the MLK
King Center in July
• Recruited anti-racist organizations such as the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

8
 SisterSong
• SisterSong managed the local coalition
• Activated our large national base of women of color for letter writing, phone calls, and statements of support
• Provided knowledge and expertise on African Americans and abortion, which proved invaluable when constructing
fact sheets, helping with testimonies, and organizing community members
• Used our knowledge of and contacts with legislators, civil rights leaders, women’s rights leaders, and religious
leaders to gain their support, especially assisted by Heidi Williamson of SisterSong and Nikema Williams of
Planned Parenthood of the Southeast
• Used our communications capacity to issue weekly updates to our base, write statements and fact sheets, and
organize the press conference and media interviews
• Helped women of color prepare testimonies and made sure that community members were speaking to the media
to affirm that the public face of this campaign was women of color speaking for ourselves
Raksha
• Because Raksha is an Asian American organization, they provided a unique perspective on how the legislation
would affect their communities through the sex-selection aspects of the bill.
• Raksha provided testimony on the intersection of violence against women and reproductive oppression
• Monitored and testified at committee hearings
SisterLove
• Primarily an HIV/AIDS prevention and
awareness organization, SisterLove has a
strong relationship with medical professionals.
As a result, they offered a wide network of
doctors, including the Rebecca Lee Society of
black female doctors, who provided knowledge
about how this bill would inevitably affect their
practices
• Ensured that four HIV+ women testified, spoke at
the press conference, and made legislative visits
• Helped prepare testimony for HIV+ women on
the intersection between sexual rights, HIV/AIDS
and abortion rights
• Participated in protests of the Pro-Life
Freedom Bus
• Broadcast interviews on their radio show
on WRFG

9
 Developing Our Strategies
We had to define the overall strategic steps we needed to take in this struggle and wage a successful
coalition effort in less than four months. We had to consider many moving parts to this campaign in
order to:
1. Reframe the debate to focus on women not abortion
2. Research the opposition to expose their distortions and hidden agendas
3. Develop a communications plan to work with the media and inform our base of reproductive
justice activists
4. Provide data and facts to challenge the opponents’ distortions
5. Recruit Civil Rights organizations and leaders to alert the African American community
6. Engage communities of faith as allies in religious institutions
7. Organize a legislative strategy to defeat the bill
8. Mobilize the medical and legal communities for expert testimony
9. Utilize our allies to strengthen our capacity

● ➤
STRATEGIES

●
●

10
 Reframing the Debate
First, we had to fight the rhetorical impact of the billboards themselves, by reframing the discourse as an attack on
the autonomy of black women, shifting the focus away from the sad, beautiful black boy in the advertisements. It was
not accidental that they chose a black male child to feature in their messaging, exacerbating gender tensions in the
African American community. We decided that the best approach was to emphasize our opponents’ negative subliminal
messages about black women. Either we were dupes of abortion providers, or we were evil women intent on having
abortions – especially of black male children – for selfish reasons. In their first narrative, we were victims without
agency unable to make our own decisions, pawns of racist, profit-driven abortion providers. In their second narrative,
we were the uncaring enemies of our own children, and architects of black genocide. Their strategy was to silence and
shame black women.
We decided on affirming messages that refuted both narratives. We had to manage both positive and negative
emotions about abortion. To control the messages, we repetitively asserted our own agency as black women who are
trustworthy, informed and politically savvy. We insisted that whether black women were pro-choice or pro-life, we
were united in believing that black women could reasonably decide for ourselves whether to become parents. Freedom
is inherent in black women and we would let no one justify limiting our liberty. This message emphasized our self-
determination and autonomy to pivot away from the paralysis of the pro-choice/pro-life dichotomy.
We also aggressively linked women’s rights to civil and human rights to make a message that mattered in the larger
social justice context, to thwart the divide-and-conquer, blame-and-shame narratives of our opponents. Strategically
using civil and human rights language from our reproductive justice framework demonstrated that we were
authentically embedded in both movements, not our opponents. This also provided messages for our allies in the civil
and human rights movements to echo.
We had to be visual and specific to consolidate our base of black women and affirm our power. We decided to have
abortions. We invited Margaret Sanger to place clinics in black neighborhoods. We are part of the civil and human
rights movement. We protected the future of black children, not our opponents. We helped
women. They judged them.
This messaging worked surprisingly well, given that we had not yet coordinated our
communications strategies nationally as black women. Black women bristled at the messages
from our opponents. Black women were understandably outraged at the disrespect implicit in
the campaign. In every interview we either gave or read about, black women around the country
echoed the affirming message of self-determination and agency. Of the dozens of newspaper
stories and television and radio interviews, we could only find one alleged interview reported by
our opponents of a young college student claiming that she would not have an abortion if she
became pregnant because of the opponents’ messages.
It was breathtakingly wonderful that we instinctively found a resonating message on autonomy
and self-determination about trusting black women that was widely embraced by African
American women. Our un-rehearsed collective resistance eventually forced our opponents to
change their messages, eventually defensively declaring that they “do trust black women!” Most
communications experts agreed that we were winning the rhetorical battle when our opponents
had to repeat our framing to defend their positions.

Researching the Opposition

It was insufficient to state who we were and what we stood for. That was only a partial message. It was equally
important to not let our opponents define themselves. We had to debunk their powerful emotional appeal that they
were defending black children and women. We described their tactics and behaviors with words like “judgmental,”
“irrational,” “manipulative,” “controlling,” and “dictating” to define the emotional difference between our messages and
theirs. We created doubts about them by challenging their motives, hidden agendas, and credibility. We researched our
opponents and prepared dossiers that provided biographical background data that disputed their sincerity. We had to
undermine their capacity to resonate with voters and legislators.
At the same time, we had to deal with our opponents with integrity. We had to resist the temptation to indulge in ad
hominem attacks, however we were provoked. We knew we could not uphold human rights by violating the human
rights of our opponents without undermining the transformative power of the reproductive justice framework. Thus,
private information discovered in our research about our opponents remained private.

11
We enlisted the support of allies like Pam Chamberlain at Political Research Associates and Leonard Zeskind of the
Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights to help with investigative research on the connections and
funding of the black anti-abortion movement. We searched tax records, websites and other public documents to build a
base of data on our opponents. We documented their ambivalent histories, connections, contradictory statements, and
supporters.
Newspaper reporters were particularly helpful because we kept asking the question, “Where do they get their money to
finance their movement?” Reporters provided a considerable amount of background information about our opponents,
including details of the meetings between Republicans and anti-abortionists.
The Radiance Foundation that designed the Endangered Species billboard was incorporated in Georgia in 2009,
according to the Secretary of State. It is the brainchild of an advertising executive, Ryan Bomberger and his wife,
Bethany. Bomberger claims that he is the son of a white mother raped by a black man; his mother gave him up for
adoption because she did not believe in abortion. Because his mother allegedly was in the Philippines in which abortion
was and still is illegal, it is impossible to tell if this story is true. Bomberger says that his mission in life is to save black
babies, even if it means allowing rapists to choose the mothers of their children. Tracking the finances of the Radiance
Foundation in Georgia (not to be confused with another Radiance Foundation whose tax forms are available from the
IRS), is tricky, but it is not hard to imagine that some wealthy conservatives are financing their efforts because there is
no evidence that they enjoy significant financial support from the African American community.
It was clear that our opponents were prepared to use a multi-level, multi-media approach in this struggle. The
billboards were accompanied by a pseudo-documentary film, Maafa 21, that purported to document
the history of the eugenics movement in promoting genocide against African Americans. It was
created by a white Texan, Mark Crutcher, who has made a career attacking Planned Parenthood
through unethical “sting” operations. This two-hour film claims that abortion was legalized as
part of a eugenics campaign to eliminate African Americans. More than 20,000 free copies have
been distributed to churches, college campuses, and civil rights conventions, with a special focus
on historically black colleges and universities. They hope to appeal to young people who may be
vulnerable to their cynical manipulation of historical evidence and distortions of facts.
It was helpful that their lead organizer, Catherine Davis, was a Republican, not known for working on
behalf of African American children once they were born. Her only record was consistently seeking
platforms with which to bolster her political ambition to twice run for Congress.
Daily monitoring of their websites, blogs, and literature helped us develop histories of the key leaders and the cross-
pollination between the anti-abortion movement and conservative figures from other arenas. For example, Alveda King,
niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and employed by Priests for Life, revealed a close relationship with talk show host,
Glenn Beck, and supported the Tea Party movement. She spoke at Beck’s August 2010 rally that attempted to hijack
the symbolic legacy of Dr. King’s historic 1963 March on Washington. Although she was probably the most famous of
their supporters, this lent nothing to her credibility in the African American community. She actually did us a favor by
foolishly denouncing the NAACP during one of her appearances on Glenn Beck’s show on Fox News.
We examined the legislative voting records of the proponents of the anti-abortion legislation, pointing out the
contradictions when they voted against health care reform, funding for education, or support for child care. Careful
documentation we shared with our allies informed our strategies and provided opportunities in our messaging to
challenge their standing and credibility.

Developing a Communications Plan

SisterSong was deluged with media requests even before the billboards were erected (see following chart). Along
with our allies, we provided twenty-eight interviews in national mainstream media, including ABC, MSNBC, The New
York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, among others. In addition, we did forty interviews with
alternative media, including bloggers, campus newspapers, and radio shows. Twenty-seven interviews were for local
and regional media.
Each media interview generated even more requests, and we quickly deployed our members around the country
to fulfill them, as many local reporters wanted a local angle for their coverage of the controversy. For example,
one television station in Memphis wanted a local SisterSong member to speak about the billboards popping up in
Tennessee. Through our network, we were able to quickly locate a sister who did the interview with minimal coaching,
proving the efficacy of having a broad national base and strong, easily remembered messages with which to respond
when national stories of this magnitude erupt.

12
 We did not have the time or money to do public opinion research, focus groups, cognitive linguistics analysis, or polls
to develop and test our messages. We started by collecting all the available opinion research on attitudes towards
abortion in the African American community. Our allies at the Opportunity Agenda and the Reproductive Health
Technologies Project were very generous in sharing what limited data was available.
When creating a communications strategy for mainstream and alternative media interest in the story, women of color
had to develop a narrative and prepare talking points for our responses that emphasized our solidarity and message
discipline. We had to make sure our spokespeople were trained, including building the capacity of new leaders to be
well-versed on the topic of African Americans and abortion and able to handle debate-style interviews on mainstream
shows.
We also had to make decisions about friendly and hostile media, and how to deal appropriately with each. We decided
to engage both progressive and right-wing media opportunities, to get our messages out, so our opponents did not
have these airwaves to themselves. Although not every hostile media interview was successful (most notably the
Laura Ingraham radio show during which she hung up on us!), we often succeeded in putting our opponents on the
defensive, as they had to often repeat that they were not attacking black women, and that the billboards were not
inherently racist. When Sarah Palin endorsed the “Endangered Species” billboards, we tied the campaign to other
conservative figures distrusted by the African American community. The hostile media interviews did generate quite
a bit of hate mail, but some listeners actually supported our views and challenged the dismissive and unfair tactics of
some interviewers.
Moreover, we had to use positive media attention as much as possible, even as we recognized that the coverage in
the mainstream media was rarely balanced or fair. Editorial decisions were not made by reporters, and our opponents
often received more attention than we did. We held a press conference to tell our side to the media. With such a large
network of people, we sent weekly updates with clear-cut instructions for our volunteers to activate our base at critical
moments. They wrote letters and made phone calls, sometimes overwhelming our opposition. More than once, white
conservatives complained about being called racist for supporting the billboards.
We also enlisted the support of allies who helped with quick training for media interviews. Planned Parenthood of
the Southeast Region provided one such training. Using a diversity of representatives in the media was also helpful,
providing opportunities for younger women to appear in national and local interviews. SisterSong’s Communications
Coordinator, Serena Garcia, managed the interview traffic and preparation, and carefully documented each media hit,
enabling us to analyze the coverage and prepare monthly reports we could share with our partners. By collecting media
stories from allies around the country, we could gauge our oppositions’ progress as well as our own.
To become more proactive with the media, we assembled several key communications tools. First, we created CDs of
background information on African American women and abortion, including research by the Guttmacher Institute, the
Georgia Department of Human Resources, the Centers for Disease Control, and articles by experts to provide research
information to reporters, allies and our supporters to save them the trouble of duplicating research already available.

Media Tracking
SisterSong
February - July 2010
National Media Coverage
UNITS

on Black Abortion

MEDIA CATEGORIES (PUBLISHED/BROADCAST)

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13
t
Second, we published and promoted a Statement of Solidarity with African American Women which our allies could
publicly endorse. This statement, signed by a wide diversity of supporters, indicated strong cross-cultural and religious
support for our efforts. National figures like Gloria Steinem, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Julian Bond, Marcia Gillespie,
Byllye Avery, Belle Taylor-McGhee, Dorothy Roberts, Faye Wattleton, Barbara Smith, Jewell Jackson McCabe, and
many others signed the statement. This demonstrated the breadth of support our campaign received. We particularly
focused on getting people of faith from many denominations to sign this statement, to counter the perception that all
religious leaders opposed abortion. The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice particularly helped by reaching out
to its base of people of faith.
Our third strategy was to engage our national base through social networking. Constant updates through Facebook,
Twitter, blogs like RH Reality Check and the Huffington Post, and on our website provided our supporters with
accurate, up-to-date account of activities and progress, and offered opportunities for them to get involved and support
us. We also sent frequent updates to our followers as well as posting our own blogs, creating an impact via the
Internet. Social networking quickly reached a large number of people at once. Young people were very energized and
a team of SisterSong interns provided valuable research and outreach. More blogs, newspaper and magazine articles
were spontaneously written by supporters who heard about the campaign through social networking. For example,
Ipas and Political Research Associates wrote feature articles in their publications about the controversy, helping us
tremendously. Generations Ahead established a OneHub website for posting and sharing relevant articles and news.
Social media was particularly useful when favorable newspaper articles were written by African American women in
mainstream publications. A number of black women in the mainstream media heard about the controversy and con-
tacted us for interviews for their newspapers or magazines. We encouraged our supporters to write favorable com-
ments about their subsequent articles because we were concerned that a very few anti-abortionists were dominating
the comments sections after published articles by black women, often spewing very racist and hate-filled rants.
Fourth, we accepted the generous offer of a filmmaking team, Charles and Hunter Stuart of Stuart
Productions, to produce a YouTube video from the perspectives of black women to refute our
opponents’ messages. This short video was produced within one month, was funded by the Mary
Wohlford Foundation, and included interviews with reproductive justice activists, faith leaders
and elected officials. The video provided a very useful 3-minute overview of the campaign, and
links to the video were echoed in our blogs and on our website. The video, along with a blog by
Heidi Williamson, is available at http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/03/29/black-abortion-
battleground-georgia. A longer, 5-segment film was broadcast on Laura Flanders’ GritTV,
beginning on October 14, 2010. A link to the first segment of the film is at http://www.grittv.
org/2010/10/14/grittv-digs-conspiracy-tactics-part-one/
As part of the our strategy, we decided to sponsor a press conference entitled “Trust Black
Women” on the steps of the Georgia State Capitol on February 16, only 11 days after the billboards
first appeared. Approximately 50 people attended the press conference including many legislators, and this generated
local coverage in the nightly news shows to ensure that our communities knew about the controversy. Articles in the
Atlanta Journal Constitution also kept the story alive during the entire legislative session. The story was syndicated
through Associated Press, so newspapers from smaller towns and rural communities across the state covered the
campaign.
We reached out to the African American media through newspapers, radio shows and blogs. Coverage of the story
was, interestingly, more ambivalent in this media than in the mainstream media. Some reporters were far more inclined
to believe the narrative of “black genocide through abortion” that our opponents told, while others were more skeptical
about the motives of the conservative movement and tended to support the reproductive justice perspective. This
indicates, at the very least, that there is considerably more work to be done in the black press to ensure that black
women’s views are more widely known in African American communities.
We encountered another problem in sometimes persuading the mainstream media that black women could equally
speak against racism and about the Civil Rights movement as well as black men. In one instance, CNN booked
Catherine Davis of Georgia Right to Life to debate a black civil rights leader about the billboards. When challenged
and urged to select a black pro-choice woman instead to provide comparable experience and perspectives, the
network claimed that they wanted an “expert” on racism, and that a male leader was better qualified. While the brother
undoubtedly knew about civil rights, it was painfully obvious that he knew little about women’s rights in general, or
abortion politics in particular. He was nearly silenced and overwhelmed by Davis because he knew so little about the
campaign, and could not effectively represent the perspectives of black women. This type of sexism in the media in
unfortunately not rare, and must be challenged by black women.

14
 Providing Data and Facts
We prepared and distributed fact sheets on several topics to present our own data and research to challenge our
opponents. We gathered data from the Guttmacher Institute, the Centers for Disease Control, the Georgia Department
of Human Resources, the Census Bureau, and many research and academic sources for our legislative and
communications strategies.
Our opposition research revealed how data and facts were mis-used by anti-abortionists to posit a “conspiracy
theory” based on a historically racist past to claim that policymakers, black leaders, health officials, and
community activists who support reproductive justice are all part of a scheme to kill off the black race. The
cornerstone of their genocide theory is the fact that the black birth rate has declined over a number of years.
While birthrates for all races of women have also declined for decades because of educational and economic
opportunities, and increased reproductive health services, abortion opponents never mention the decision making
of black women and how our improving educational and economic status influenced our reproductive choices.
Black women have always controlled our fertility when we could, even during the horrific conditions of
enslavement. We brought knowledge from Africa as midwives that helped us practice birth control and have
abortions. After the end of slavery, we were more determined than ever to end the forced breeding of our bodies,
and we cut our birth rate in half in the first 40 years after the Civil War, 110 years before abortion or birth control
was legalized. We continued this intentional decline as part of our racial uplift strategy, to have fewer children to
provide more opportunities for the ones we did have. Ignorance of our history and lies about our agency malign the
memories of our ancestors.
Black women, however, do have three times more abortions than white women, a statistic anti-abortionists use
to demonize abortion providers. In fact, black women do have more unintended pregnancies, have less access to
contraception, stay single longer, often have sex earlier, are poorer, are more vulnerable to childhood sexual abuse,
and experience single motherhood much more than their white counterparts. Sixty-one percent of black women who
have abortions already have children. The higher rate of abortion is an understandable outcome of the social context in
which we find ourselves.
Higher unintended pregnancy rates are not a new phenomenon for black women. Before the legalization of abortion
in 1973, African American women were thirteen times more likely to die from illegal abortions than white women.
For reproductive justice activists, the solution to reduce the need for abortions is to help black women have fewer
unintended pregnancies and to eliminate the obstacles that interfere with personal decision making.
We emphasized the agency and decision making of black women to refute their “disappearing race” narrative. Using
historical data and current work by black women’s organizations, we projected the image of strong black women in
defense of our own bodies, not the puppets of either the medical industry or the anti-abortion movement.
Another anti-abortion tactic was to claim that abortion clinics are “always” located in African American communities,
especially by Planned Parenthood. In Georgia, we were able to easily refute this claim by presenting demographic data
that proved that of the 15 abortion clinics in our state, only 4 are in predominantly black neighborhoods. Abortion
opponents frequently use this “geographical” tactic against providers to bolster their conspiracy theories. While we
were in the middle of the fight in Georgia, we were contacted by a Planned Parenthood clinic in Nashville that had
recently relocated near an African American community for economic reasons that had nothing to do with race, but
they were also accused of selecting their location to “kill black babies.” An accusatory billboard was erected directly
across the street from the new clinic.
We retold the story of Margaret Sanger and her allegedly racist agenda. Left unchallenged, their narrative about
genocide would powerfully echo in the black community. We decided to do our own research on Sanger and
present the facts from the perspectives of black women.
We contacted Sanger’s biographer, Ellen Chesler, and asked Joyce Follet, an expert on Planned Parenthood’s
archives in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, to provide original source materials and information.
They provided a wealth of historical evidence that belied the allegations of our opponents. Most importantly, we
were able to prove that African American leaders, particularly women, had worked with Sanger in the 1930s to
ask for clinics to be opened in black communities. We challenged their historical revisionism by citing famous
leaders like Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. Dubois, Walter White, Mary Church Terrell, Rev. Adam Clayton
Powell, Sr., and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and organizations like the NAACP, the National Urban League, and
the National Council of Negro Women. We dared them to call these icons of the civil rights movement pawns of
a racist agenda. In the eyes of the black community, our opponents had an uphill climb to prove they knew more
about helping the African American community than the famous legends they were maligning.

15
Recruiting Civil Rights Organizations
The Georgia billboards quickly got the attention of the national media and black leaders, especially
in the ethnic press. Our opponents made psychological in-roads into a black community feeling
vulnerable economically and aware of its difficult past. “Race-selective abortions” were fuel for an
inflammatory public relations narrative to build African American support for their hidden agenda.
Engaging leaders of Civil Rights organizations was critical to our strategy of informing the African
American community about the true facts of black women’s lives. We first reached out to Julian
Bond, former chair of the NAACP, who had supported previous women’s rights campaigns. He had
endorsed the 2004 March for Women’s Lives, and could be counted on for his support as a legendary
leader. We were aided by the fact that anti-abortion activists chose to picket the 2010 NAACP National
Convention in Kansas City, trying to force them to retract their support for reproductive justice.
The support of the NAACP opened the door for other Civil Rights organizations to join us, such as Rainbow PUSH, and
helped persuade members of Congress to offer support. We also did an interview on Rev. Al Sharpton’s national radio
show that reached thousands of his supporters.
However, there was a small problem with the Georgia NAACP, initially. Catherine Davis of Georgia Right to Life met
with the state president and obtained his endorsement. When we met with him, we found that he had not read the bill,
consulted with any of his women members, or talked to the Legislative Black Caucus. He was told the bill was simply
about “saving black babies.” He felt he was tricked into supporting a conservative cause that, not so incidentally,
put him at odds with the national NAACP. Upon learning the facts from us, he wrote a public repudiation of the
endorsement that was published in a local newspaper, damaging the credibility of our opponents.
Our efforts demonstrate that it is possible to build stronger alliances between the Civil Rights and Reproductive Justice
movements if women of color lead the way in building bridges. It is equally clear that most male-led Civil Rights orga-
nizations will not take the lead on gender justice issues on behalf of women, especially on such a difficult issue such as
abortion. When their female base is activated, however, they will often support our efforts. This highlights future cross-
movement investments required by our movement. Civil Rights organizations have a huge and influential base vital to
our work. Moreover, they are vulnerable to manipulation by our opponents if we neglect these important allies.
The leadership of women of color is vital to help mobilize Civil Rights organizations for reproductive justice, and to
engage them permanently in defense of women’s human rights. This cannot be achieved by mainstream pro-choice
groups seeking to ally with Civil Rights organizations without women of color in general – and African American
women in particular – providing the trusted relationships, effective messages, and experienced voices needed to shift
their behaviors.

Engaging Faith Communities

Our opponents have the advantage of a base in socially conservative black churches, especially among male ministers
who can be persuaded to indulge in paranoid conspiracy theories that link white supremacy, rampant sexuality, and
“abortion as genocide” narratives that neatly fit with their sexist views that black women are “loose” and must be
“controlled.”
To counter this pervasive influence, we organized progressive black religious leaders, like Rev. Timothy MacDonald,
of First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, Rev. Carleton Veazey of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
(RCRC), and others. The Center for Reproductive Rights helped sponsor a lunch with 20 black ministers from around
the South to ensure that the progressive religious community was engaged, and their voices were brought to the table.
SisterSong’s Solidarity Statement brought together people of faith from various denominations to publicly support our
efforts, including Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Unitarians, the United Church of Christ, and progressive Rabbis.
Seventy-percent of the signers were people of faith from around the country. The statement is now on-line so that
others may continue to endorse our efforts.
It was in the faith work that the leadership of African American men really sparkled. This is important because our
opponents are adept at recruiting conservative black male ministers to oppose abortion. We needed a strong, public
showing by black men in the churches speaking out to support black women, rather than judging or condemning us.
The ministers working with us urged the African American community not to shy away from the language of fetuses or
babies, but to pivot to assert that everyone has the right to determine their own morality and values, according to their
own religious beliefs. Just as importantly from a human rights perspective, they affirmed that freedom of religion is
also freedom from religion.
16
 RCRC sponsored a press conference in Washington, DC at the National Press Club that also brought together national
figures like former Congressman Walter Fauntroy, civil rights activist and Pastor Emeritus of New Bethel Baptist
Church in Washington, DC; Rev. Dr. Alton B. Pollard III, Dean of Howard University’s School of Divinity; Dr. Willie
Parker, an abortion provider for Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC; Rev. Timothy McDonald (mentioned above
from Atlanta) who is also with People for the American Way; Jill Morrison, Senior Counsel in Health and Reproductive
Rights, National Women’s Law Center; and Reverend Dr. Carlton W. Veazey, President and CEO, Religious Coalition
for Reproductive Choice and Minister of the National Baptist Convention USA; along with Loretta Ross, SisterSong
National Coordinator. Reporters from national and local media attended the press conference, increasing coverage of
the story around the country.
We recognized that work must be invested to get the voices of women of faith more engaged in our movement. Efforts
to reach female clergy leaders are critical and have to be prioritized. While the support of male clergy was welcome, it
was unbalanced and ironic. In future efforts, women church leaders will be critical to successful campaigns.

Organizing the Legislative Strategy

In addition to the excellently qualified advocacy team comprised of staff from all of the coalition
partners, one of our strongest assets in the legislative battle was the fact that SPARK Reproductive
Justice NOW! scheduled its Legislative This! activities to coincide with progress on the bill. They
provided dozens of activists to work with the policy team to make visits and educate elected officials.
Our coalition sponsored a press conference on February 16 on the Capitol steps entitled “Trust Black
Women” that featured Sen. Vincent Fort, Sen. Nan Orrock, Rep. Georgianna Sinkfield, Rep. Dee
Dawkins- Haigler, Rep. Pam Stephenson, Rep. Roberta Abdul-Salaam, Rep. Simone Bell, Rep. Sheila Jones, Rep. Billy
Mitchell, Rep. Rashad Taylor, Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benefield, and Rep. Pedro Marin. Rep. Rashad Taylor read aloud
our Statement of Solidarity that affirmed SisterSong’s core reproductive justice principles: our human right to have a
baby, not have a baby, and parent the children we already have.
The press conference was tactically important to not only oppose the PreNDA legislation, but to challenge the few
conservative black elected officials who were aligning themselves with our opponents. Not one black female legislator
joined the opposition. In particular, the highly visible support from black male legislators was as symbolically
significant as it was legislatively. It signified the difficulty our opponents faced in trying to divide the Legislative Black
Caucus to secure sufficient votes and confuse the issues.
Our legislative goal was to stall the House and Senate bills in committees that would prevent them from coming to the
full floors for votes. We knew that we would lose any vote that came to either floor. The first incarnation of PReNDA
was HB 1155, and was successfully stalled in the House Non-Civil Judiciary Committee. After passing out of that
committee once only to have the bill resent back to the chair “due to constitutional concerns,” the chair, Rep. Rich
Golick, let the bill die without further review from the committee. During both Committee and Sub-Committee meetings
in the House, SisterSong was the only voice of opposition that testified against the bill and confronted untruths
presented by Georgia Right to Life.
While we thought we may have time to breathe, the opposition quickly regrouped, creating a new bill for the Senate.
Chip Pearson, an anti-immigration, anti-labor, anti-woman crusader, introduced the second version, SB 529, in the
Special Judiciary Committee of the Senate. Our allies testified at these hearings. The Chair of the Committee obliged
his request to fast track the bill to the floor and began doing so by manipulating the Committee procedures to speed
up the bill. For example, the committee would not have had a quorum to vote on the bill if they had not misled one
legislator. She attended the committee meeting to support another issue, inadvertently enabling a quorum on SB 529
in which she was out-voted. The bill passed out of committee, then went to the Senate for a floor vote.
At this point in time, we prepared for a floor fight, lobbying the Chair of the Senate Rules committee and getting the
support of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, as the President is a Senator, Emmanuel Jones, from District 54. With
the help of Senators Jones, Orrock, Tate, and Fort, we launched effective filibusters and raised critical questions about
the hypocrisy of Republican leaders and their tactics.
It is important to note that the opposition utilized different narratives for the first time during this floor fight in the
Senate that shifted the debate because we were winning against the race-based tactics. These new arguments included:
• Keeping all discourse about race to a minimum, and discussing the issue of sex-selection in the context of
immigration in Georgia and United States as a whole. One representative cited an article from the Economist called
“Gendercide” that highlighted son preference practices in South Asian and Asian countries.
• Senator Renee Unterman linked the so-called “abortion coercion” to child sex trafficking, her signature issue as a
female legislator. Her mentions of pimps forcing child sex workers to have abortions was the only real mention of
17 race at this stage, as a majority of child sex slaves are children of color.
 • Finally, the untruthful claim that 80 percent of all abortions are coerced due to economic, social and cultural
factors was used again and again.
We knew that our supporters didn’t have enough votes to defeat the bill, so we took the opportunity to get our
message out about prevention, human rights, and the right of women to control their bodies. The bill passed the
Senate floor after more than three hours of debate.
It was at that time that we had to strategically work with moderate Republicans, Republican women, and Democrats
to stall the bill in committee. Though it would eventually pass both the House Judiciary Sub-Committee and the House
Judiciary Committee, moderate Republican leadership did its best to drag out the committee hearings in an effort to
stall the bill. This gave us time to shore up our support. We identified the members of each committee likely to be
our supporters for whom we prepared briefing documents, sponsored a breakfast briefing for the Legislative Black
Caucus, attended many political events to network with and solicit support from elected officials, and provided credible
evidence to legislators working on our behalf.
We also had to carefully analyze potential unexpected allies among Republicans. We worked with moderate Republican
women who were pro-choice, and Republican men who did not support the bills for various reasons, although they
were uniformly anti-choice. Aligning with them were the libertarians. For example, the Speaker of the Senate was
concerned about the constitutionality of the legislation and tried to work with the bill’s advocates to modify the
legislation enough to pass constitutional muster. They rebuffed his efforts, and their non-compromising stance lost
them his support, although he is anti-choice.
Another miscalculation on their part was under-estimating the racial implications of the bill. One rabid anti-abortion
legislator, Rep. Bobby Franklin, even prepared a YouTube video denouncing the bill because, in his opinion, why
should the legislation only save black babies when white babies were also threatened by legal abortion?
The bill passed out of House Judiciary Committee with three moderate Republicans being forced to vote for either the
original bill or the substitution that the Chair of the Committee offered as a compromise. After more than three hours
in negotiations, the original bill passed out of Judiciary. For nearly a month, we lobbied the Chairman of Rules and the
Speaker of the House to KEEP SB 529 in the Rules Committee. To bolster support from our base, we solicited phone
calls and emails from national Congressional leaders such as Congressmen Hank Johnson, John Lewis, and David
Scott. We also had the Georgia NAACP publicly rescind its mistaken support of the legislation and make calls to the
Speaker’s office.
The 40th and last day of session was by far the most contentious as we spent nearly half of the 16-hour day
negotiating with Georgia Right to Life. At 11:56 pm that evening, they told the Speaker of the House, “No deal. It’s
our original bill that goes to the floor or nothing at all.” So the Speaker killed the bill. Their non-compromising stance
made them appear unreasonable – even to their allies – while we demonstrated a willingness to work with all sides.
In essence, it was the struggle between the “Tea Party” faction and the moderate wing of the Republican Party that
doomed the bill.

Trusted Experts: The Medical and Legal Communities

Using experts at the right time was essential to the failure of this bill. We had a wide range of professionals discuss
the negative implications of this bill during committee meetings. Five doctors from various fields were allies and
some represented those outside the reproductive health fields including general practitioners from rural Georgia and
a cardiologist. An in-vitro fertilization doctor was also present. They attended committee meetings and discussed the
legal aspects of this bill and how they would be directly affected if this bill were to pass. They also expressed their
concerns in regards to liability and malpractice issues due to the overly-broad definition of “coercion” which was used
in the bill. It was obvious that the medical community was an important voice that mattered to the legislators. That not
all the doctors opposing the bill were abortion providers was important strategically.
In working with doctors, we learned about the disproportionate vulnerability faced by doctors of color who provide
abortions. Several doctors conveyed that they lacked the resources for the expensive, sophisticated security required
to keep themselves and their patients safe if they publicly joined the campaign. Although all abortion providers are
threatened by the violent vigilantes of the anti-abortion movement, future discussions are necessary about the risks
endured by providers of color in our communities. A few generations ago when abortion was illegal, the African
American community lauded them as heroes for saving women’s lives, and celebrated them in our newspapers and
magazines. Now, they largely suffer in silence while they provide the same services to women legally.
We also had several lawyers who analyzed the legislation from a legal and constitutional perspective. One, who was not
●
pro-choice, surprised our opponents by advising against the legislation.

18
 Mobilizing Our Allies
We received invaluable help from allies around the country. While SisterSong took action, the failure of this bill could
not have happened without the assistance of many individuals and organizations. They made a significant difference
in enhancing our capacity to wage this struggle. We were particularly moved by the breadth of organizations working
together from the women’s rights, civil rights, human rights, and anti-racist movements.
Hundreds of individuals helped as well, and each media interview generated a new flood of emails, calls and offers.
Most were positive, but not all. We cannot list all of the individuals who were particularly supportive, so please accept
our sincere thanks. The organizational allies who assisted through advice or support for our efforts included the
following. If we have inadvertently left any organization out, please accept our apologies in advance.

Advocates for Youth

Avery Institute for Social Change
Black Women for Reproductive Justice
Black Women for Wellness
Black Women’s Health Imperative
Breast Cancer Action
California Black Women’s Health Project
Catholics for Choice
Center for American Progress
Center for Reproductive Rights
Communications Connection
Feminist Majority Foundation
Generations Ahead
Huffington Post
Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights
Ipas
Milwaukee Reproductive Justice Coalition
NAACP
NARAL Pro-Choice America
➤
●

National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum

National Coalition of 100 Black Women
National Organization for Women
National Women’s Health Network
National Women’s Law Center
●

Opportunity Agenda
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Political Research Associates
MOBILIZE
Rainbow PUSH
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
●

Reproductive Health Technologies Project

RH Reality Check
Smith College, Sophia Smith Collection
Spelman College Women’s Research Center
Women’s Media Center
●

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Creating a Lasting Impact: Lessons Learned for the Future
The primary lessons learned from this struggle included:
1. The leadership of women of color can achieve policy victories by mobilizing our base in
communities of color to influence decision makers.
2. The Reproductive Justice and Pro-Choice movements must work successfully together by sharing
leadership, capacity and resources.
3. African American women can be engaged nationally on the front lines of the abortion wars and we
need to prepare for future battles.

Leadership of Women of Color

When it comes to the intersection of race, gender and abortion, the voices of women of color are the most believable
and the most authentic within the pro-choice and reproductive justice movements. We have the most credibility
in fighting the appropriation of civil rights language and history. We can refute false charges of racism,
xenophobia and genocide in ways that are credible and passionate. We are the most trusted in telling the real
and nuanced story about birth control and Margaret Sanger. Women of color were engaged in every aspect of
the decision-making in this struggle, providing a context for our abortion decisions by telling our stories and
validating the trust of our communities.
This has long-term implications for the pro-choice movement. The victory in Georgia affirmed reproductive
justice as a guiding framework and as a winning strategy to mobilize the power of our communities for policy
victories. If our opponents continue to use an intersectional strategy to undermine abortion rights for all
women, our collective success in countering them depends on our willingness to use the reproductive justice
framework to work together strategically by sharing leadership, resources, and capacity.
For example, the Georgia legislative sessions were long, unpredictable, and consumed huge amounts of time to
monitor, prepare testimonies, and strategize with allies. Raksha, with the smallest staff of all the partnering agencies,
could not spend entire days at the state capitol. Asian American voices speaking to the sex-selection portion of the
bill were critical, and valuable assistance was provided by Generations Ahead on messaging. They were willing to be
more present, but simply lacked the capacity to do so. Having the will to work on policy but not the means sharply
highlighted the capacity differential between mainstream and women of color organizations.
The pro-choice movement must overcome its historical reluctance to confront accusations of racism and genocide,
and must help to build the capacity and leadership of women of color to work on this emerging front in the struggle.
This means that mainstream organizations have to step back, and examine power relations within the pro-choice
movement, and realize that women of color must be the ones to step up and speak out against this type of legislation
since we are the ones directly affected and most effective. It was difficult, at times, to change the habits of mainstream
organizations accustomed to not coping well with racial power dynamics and handling power imbalances respectfully.
The struggle in Georgia highlighted some of the tensions within the movement about the leadership of African American
women. African Americans recognize that we all live in a system of white supremacy that affects everyone in America.
No one is immune to anti-black racism both within and outside our movement. The failure to recognize this legacy
shared by every American jeopardizes our collective ability to defeat our mutual opponents. It is cynical to point out the
racism of our opponents while ignoring our own complicity. While the struggle against our opponents was challenging,
some allies believed they could circumvent black women and our organizations. They do not fully comprehend the
leadership African American women – and all women of color – must provide to bridge the intersections of race, gender
and abortion. Working honestly on our internal race and power relations is not only the right thing to do, but it is the
smart thing to do to defeat race- and gender-based attacks on abortion and women’s rights.
In the future, we must build effective multi-racial alliances within our movements. To successfully collaborate, we must:
1. Develop joint strategies, building on the strengths and understanding the capacities of each partner in the
coalition
2. Embed abortion in the language of human rights and reproductive justice to present an undivided, intersectional
united front against our opponents
3. Recognize that race- and gender-selection abortion attacks are distinct, yet entwined, aspects of the same
misogyny that decreases access for all women
4. Understand the differing impacts of racism, eugenics and xenophobia (anti-immigrant prejudice) on the
standpoints of partners in the coalition, recognizing that each partner has a unique and valuable role in
challenging bigotry
20
 5. Encourage women of color to step up, while white allies step back, to present the most trusted and effective
messengers to counter accusations of genocide and “gendercide”
6. Build the communications, policy, and advocacy capacity of each partner in the coalition so that we are stronger
together and can eliminate weaknesses that our opponents can exploit
7. Increase training opportunities and tools developed by women of color to assist our allies in countering charges
of racism as white women and men
8. Develop messages and communications strategies that are authentic, inclusive and credible
9. Re-allocate financial resources so that each partner has the capacity to fully participate in the coalition
10. Share information more evenly so that each partner is fully informed and engaged in appropriate levels of
decision making to increase transparency and trust.

Trust Black Women Partnership

While we defeated SB 529 this time around, this certainly won’t be the end of this negative type of legislation,
especially here in Georgia. We expect that our opponents will not retreat, but in fact, re-load as Sarah Palin would
say! For the future, we are building a firewall of resistance when this type of legislation and billboard campaign spread
across the country. Our opponents have already changed their tactics; now they claim to promote adoption for black
children as a more compassionate alternative to abortion, ignoring the fact that 4 out of 5 “hard to place” children in
the adoption system are African American.
After the Georgia legislative session ended, 30 black women leaders from 11 organizations gathered at SisterSong in
Atlanta in July of 2010 to discuss how to respond to similar campaigns in the future in other states. The women came
from all over the country, outraged that the campaign had recruited black men and women to give it an air of credibility
when the legislative work by our opponents was led by Georgia Right to Life, a long-established and predominantly-
white operation using black surrogates. After two days of strategic planning led by MaryKay Penn, our consultant, the
Trust Black Women Partnership was born.
For the first time since 1989 when we organized the “We Remember” campaign against the Supreme Court Webster
decision, a coalition of black women organizations and individuals came together to work specifically on defending
abortion rights, to generate deeper discussions about Black women’s autonomy and human rights, and to build long-
term relationships and networks. We selected our name through a professional branding process that built on the
phrase “Trust Women” Dr. George Tiller used before he was assassinated in 2009.
The nine reproductive justice organizations that founded the Trust Black Women Partnership (TBW) are led by African
American women who understand what is at stake in this campaign to cut black women off from the providers of
reproductive services – more unintended pregnancies, more poverty, less educational opportunities for young black
women, and an increasingly dangerous environment for black women to care for the children we already have.
The goals of our Trust Black Women Partnership (TBW) partnership focus on defending abortion
rights using the reproductive justice framework to challenge the publicity and legislative campaigns
of our opponents. TBW leaders have spent years fighting for our right to have equal access to
reproductive health care, comprehensive sex education, and financial access to birth control and
abortion. The barriers to these basic life enhancing services were always based on public policy,
such as the Hyde Amendment.
SisterSong is coordinating the eight organizations who are founding partners of Trust Black Women. SisterSong will
incubate the partnership for two years until 2012 when it is able to become autonomous and self-sustaining. The
founding organizations are geographically distributed across the country in order to have women who can locally
respond to events in their regions. This both expands the capacity of the member organizations but also develops
the leadership of a widening pool of experienced African American women strategically located to fight the black anti-
abortion movement all around the country. TBW has also established an Advisory Board of individual black women
who support the partnership and offer key resources and networks. The founding partners are:
Northeast Midwest
Black Women’s Health Imperative Black Women for Reproductive Justice
SisterSong NYC Milwaukee Reproductive Justice Coalition

Southeast West
SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW! California Black Women’s Health Project
SisterLove, Inc. Black Women for Wellness

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Trust Black Women primary strategies focus on:

1. Communications and Messaging

• Opinion and polling research by Beldon, Russonello, and Stewart to delve more deeply into African American
attitudes towards abortion
• Cognitive linguistics analysis of race and abortion frames in the media
• Effective message development and testing
• A film documentary entitled “Abortion Conspiracy” for television broadcast and YouTube
• Website and social media portals for TBW

2. Opposition Research
• Monitoring and countering of anti-abortion activities in the African American community
• Engaging communities of faith in resisting sexist religious appeals attacking the autonomy of black women as
moral decision makers
• Building dossiers on black leaders in the anti-abortion movement

3. Advocacy, Law and Policy

• Developing tools and materials for legislative campaigns in states
• Defeating race- and sex-based abortion restrictions in the states
• Building the capacity of member organizations to provide trainings and messages for our pro-choice allies on
countering charges of racism and eugenics
• Working to defeat the Hyde Amendment and other abortion funding restrictions at the local and federal levels

4. Collaboration, Mobilization and Movement Building

• Trainings on African American women and abortion for our base of black women and our allies to counter our
opponents
• Partnership with the Race and Sex Selection Working Group on sex selection
• Developing relationships with Civil Rights and other social justice organizations
• Capacity building fund development for partnering organizations launched by simultaneous fundraisers in
Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC featuring advance screenings of Tyler Perry’s
“Colored Girls” film with celebrities in each market

TRUST BLACK WOMEN STRUCTURE - 2010

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 Trust Black Women Founding Partners
Deborah Arrindell, American Social Health Association, Washington, DC
Byllye Avery, The Avery Institute and Black Women’s Health Imperative, Boston
Asha Bandele, Writer, New York City
Jasmine Burnett, SisterSong New York City, Brooklyn
Folasade Campbell, Community Center for Family Preservation, Staten Island, NY
Crystal Crawford, California Black Women’s Health Project, Los Angeles
Dazon Dixon Diallo, SisterLove Women’s AIDS Project, Atlanta
Janette Robinson Flint, Black Women for Wellness, Los Angeles
Nourbese Flint, Black Women for Wellness, Los Angeles
Serena Garcia, SisterSong Communications Coordinator, Atlanta
Paris Hatcher, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!, Atlanta
Bani Hines-Hudson, Kentucky Health Justice Network, Louisville
Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, Black Women’s Health Imperative, Washington, DC
Laura Jimenez, SisterSong Deputy Coordinator, Atlanta
Toni Bond Leonard, Black Women for Reproductive Justice, Chicago
Pascale Leone, Black Women’s Health Imperative, Washington, DC
Pamela J. Merritt, Writer & Blogger, St. Louis
Sarah Noble, Milwaukee Reproductive Justice Coalition
Mary Kay Penn, Consultant, New York City
Shanebrae Price, SisterLove Women’s AIDS Project, Atlanta
Lynn Roberts, CUNY and SisterSong, New Jersey
Kelley Robinson, Choice USA, Washington, DC
Loretta Ross, SisterSong National Coordinator, Atlanta
Cherisse Scott, Black Women for Reproductive Justice, Chicago
Belle Taylor-McGhee, Consultant, San Francisco
Emily Tynes, ACLU (in individual capacity), New York City
Nikema Williams, Planned Parenthood of SE, Atlanta
Tonya Williams, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!
Heidi Williamson, SisterSong National Advocacy Coordinator, Atlanta

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 Statement of Solidarity
with African American Women

W
e who trust women stand in solidarity with and support of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive
Justice Collective, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!, SisterLove, Planned Parenthood of Georgia, and
Feminist Women’s Health Center to affirm our belief that every woman has the human right to decide
if and when she will have a baby, and the right to parent the children she already has with the social supports
necessary. In our struggle for reproductive justice, African American women have a unique history that we must
remember in order to ensure bodily sovereignty, dignity, and collective uplift of our community. The choices
that women of color make are based on their lived experiences in this country and reflect multiple oppressions,
including race, class, and gender, and their efforts to resist them. It is unacceptable to speak to the needs of any
woman, or her children without taking into consideration the realities that exist in her home and local community.
We affirm that an African American woman’s ability to determine if and when she will have children demands
that she control the conditions under which she will give birth and have the power to decide the spacing of her
children. These freedoms speak to the power and necessity of the preventive care of women before they become
pregnant and the importance of comprehensive sex education for all of our children to understand their human
right to sexuality in an empowering and responsible way. It means fully funding public education, protecting the
environment in all communities, and eliminating sexual violence for all women.
We affirm that an African American woman’s ability to determine if and when she does not have children
must include a full range of options including the right to have an abortion. For women of color the privilege
to exercise this right all too often hinges on other factors in her home and community. Abortion must be
approached in the context of the individual woman and the circumstances surrounding her, such as poverty,

➤
sexual abuse, or the lack of health care. To extract a woman from the context of her life dishonors her lived
experiences and the plight of a broader community of people.
We affirm that African American women have the human right to parent the children they already have. To
ensure the full enjoyment of this right, they must also have access to the social supports necessary to raise their
children in safe environments and healthy communities, without fear of violence from individuals or intervention
by the government. A continuum of care is essential to protect the lives of women and children. And we must
prioritize the needs of children after birth. This includes funding education, investing in health care reform for all,
ensuring food security and prioritizing the unification of our families through the provision of social supports to
protect the most vulnerable.
Protecting women and children requires a commitment to these principles. It is a matter of reproductive health,
reproductive rights, and ultimately Reproductive Justice.
February 2010
●
STATEMENT

●
●

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 SisterSong Staff
Loretta Ross National Coordinator
Laura Jimenez Deputy Coordinator
Heidi Williamson National Advocacy Coordinator
Serena Garcia Communications Coordinator
Monica Simpson Development Coordinator
Corean Elam Office Manager
Anna Holley Staff Associate (Summer 2010)
Muna Abdullahi Staff Associate (Summer 2010)
Farhiya Ahmed Staff Associate (Summer 2010)

SisterSong Management Circle

Toni Bond Leonard, President Black Women for Reproductive Justice,
Crystal Crawford California Black Women’s Health Project,
Dazon Dixon Diallo SisterLove, Inc.
Leslie Grant, Secretary Sistas on the Rise
Leila Hessini Ipas, Individual Member
La’Tasha Mayes New Voices Pittsburgh
Lynn Roberts Hunter College, Individual Member
Luz Rodriguez, Treasurer Individual Member
Merina Sapolu Kokua Kalihi Valley Comprehensive Family Services
Alice Skenadore Wise Women Gathering Place
Gabriela Valle California Latinas for Reproductive Justice
Juanita Williams HIV/AIDS Activist

25
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective
1237 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd., SW
Atlanta, GA 30310-1731
404-756-2680
Email: info@SisterSong.net
Website: www.SisterSong.net