56 People of Color Who Have Had Abortions Send Letter to Congress Denouncing Racist and Sexist Anti-Abortion Ban
WASHINGTON, DC: In a letter sent to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, 56 people of color who had abortions expressed their ‘vehement opposition’ to H.R. 4924, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) of 2016. The signatories indicated the location and year of their abortion(s).
The letter was submitted as collective testimony in response to the April 14, 2016 subcommittee hearing in which only one witness, Miriam Yeung, Executive Director of National Asian Pacific Women’s Forum, was allowed to testify in support of abortion and was spoken over as she attempted to make final remarks. The voices of people of color who have had abortions were ignored while misogynist, racist remarks about people of color were repeated, unchecked.
H.R. 4924 is broad in scope and seeks to ban abortions based on sex and/or racial preference, and would criminalize abortion providers who offer abortion care to someone who chooses an abortion for any of those reasons. The bill is based on racist and sexist cultural stereotypes about communities of color, and has no basis in fact. In reality, H.R. 4924 would force abortion providers to interrogate a patient’s reasons for having an abortion, rather than supporting them in accessing safe health care.
“We are people of color who have had abortions,” the letter reads. “We made the best decisions for us and our circumstances We should be trusted to make decisions for ourselves, free from political interference, stigma, paternalism, and racism. Racial profiling is not an American value, and this bill would legitimize and set a dangerous standard in the practice in health care.”
“As Black people, Latinas, and Asian American and Pacific Islanders, we testify that we are autonomous and we decided to have abortions of our own volition. There was no wool pulled over our eyes by abortion providers — we are capable of making our own choices and any questioning of that fact demeans our humanity as people of color. We will not sit silently while we are being exploited for the passage of yet another abortion restriction. We testify we will not stand for the continued Congressional attacks on access to abortion care. We testify in support of the abortion providers who care for us, and denounce any attempts to criminalize their work. We testify that we deserve respect and dignity.”
The letter seeks to counter the narrative that people of color do not choose abortion of their own volition, lift up the voices of people of color who don’t regret their abortions (95 percent of women still feel abortion was right for them, both immediately and 3 years after the procedure), and highlight factual errors and misrepresentations by the hearing witnesses, including:
* Dispelling myths surrounding the prevalence of race- and sex-selective abortions in communities of color.
* Submitting polling demonstrating the overwhelming support for access to abortion care by communities of color.
* Correcting the witness’ misrepresentation of Civil Rights leaders’ views on abortion, such as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and U.S. Representative John Lewis, co-sponsor of Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH Woman) Act (H.R. 2972) and the Women’s Health Protection Act (S.R. 217, H.R. 448)
* Reminding the subcommittee of the witness’ misrepresentation of research by Aruna Papp MA, ADR and her letter correcting the witness testimony to this fact.
The letter can be found on the National Network of Abortion Funds website, and on Medium.
Renee Bracey Sherman, Kristine A. Kippins, and Shivana Jorawar, co-authors of the letter, are available for interviews.