Organizing
Organizing
Pregnancy Justice uses all of our legal cases and advocacy efforts as opportunities to empower local activists and people who are directly affected; to support grassroots and state-based organizations; and to mobilize grasstops advocates. Pregnancy Justice does not drop in or fly over a state. We don't litigate and leave, we litigate and build. As a result of our organizing efforts, even when we lose a case, we gain ground by strengthening our base of support and building strength for the next fight.
Grassroots and Grasstops
Pregnancy Justice also knows that litigation and legal advocacy alone will not secure pregnant people's civil and human rights. Such fundamental legal and cultural change requires building and supporting a connected, intersectional and empowered base of grassroots activists and grasstops advocates.
Pregnancy Justice does this by:
- Organizing conferences, rallies, protests, petitions, open letters, and amicus briefs (friend of the court) to demonstrate support not only for the 33% of people who will have an abortion over the course of their lifetimes but also the 84% of people with the capacity for pregnancy who will get pregnant and give birth.
- Recognizing, respecting, and supporting local and state-based grassroots activists, leaders and organizations and working to link them to national medical, public health, and social justice resources.
- Nurturing new leadership, empowering people directly affected by punitive policies, and engaging new activists through internships, writing contests, and support to participate in base building and activist events.
Examples of Pregnancy Justice organizing efforts include the rally featured in the documentary Bei Bei, that helped to win freedom for Bei Bei Shuai, a woman who attempted suicide while pregnant and was then arrested and charged with feticide and manslaughter. Pregnancy Justice’s Executive Director was a featured speaker at the massive March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C. and in 2017, Pregnancy Justice supporters at Marches for Women in Washington D.C. , New York City; Buffalo, NY; Indianapolis, IN; and Lexington, KY carried our "Knocked Up — Fight Back" signs and our message that nothing about being pregnant or the outcome of pregnancy should make anyone targets for punishment of any kind. Pregnancy Justice’s organizing efforts helped to get a statue honoring the “father of gynecology” removed from East Harlem because this marker failed to acknowledge that the discoveries made were the result of surgery on enslaved Black women.
Take Root Conference
As part of our commitment to respecting and supporting activists everywhere, Pregnancy Justice helped create and sustain the Take Root: Red State Perspectives on Reproductive Justice conference held annually from 2012-2018 in Norman, Oklahoma. Hundreds of people from Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and other red states have gone to this event proving that there are reproductive health, rights, and justice activists everywhere in this country.
As a result of our ever growing network of local and national activists, we have won cases, defeated dangerous policies, and expanded participation in reproductive and social justice movements.