tbt to when they invited me to talk about personhood but I had to make it blackity black black 🧡
Hello,
My name is Kay Keaux, the Social Justice Heaux. I use any and all pronouns. I would like to start this conversation by contextualizing personhood using my identities as a Black, queer, woman, living in the South. I’m a movement lawyer which means I take direction from directly impacted communities and from organizers, as opposed to imposing my leadership or expertise as a law and policy advocate. It is impossible to talk about Reproductive Justice without discussing intersectionality. Also it is important to note that as a Reproductive Justice advocate that I support a person’s human right to have a child, to not have a child, to parent the children that we do have in safe and sustainable communities and I support the human rights principles of bodily autonomy, integrity, dignity and in a person’s ability to be self-determining. As these are the tenets of Reproductive Justice.
When I first learned of personhood laws I was working in Georgia on the ground with a number of amazing activists. The first thing I thought about personhood laws and other bans that were happening across the South was that they were often convoluted, riddled with ambiguities, using a lot of jargon and legalese. As law students and lawyers we may be able to understand the gist. However, we all know another leg of this fight has begun, there is still jurisprudence to be made, statutes that need to be clarified. We have not experienced the full brunt of the fall of Roe. As an everyday person whose autonomy is already under attack, they serve as just another set of laws to oppress and revoke my agency and my autonomy. The depths to which personhood laws can be used against marginalized folx remains unseen.
During my time in law school there was special emphasis on the meaning of words. It is why I’d like to take the time to talk about the pursuit of reproductive rights, which focuses largely on attaining reproductive liberty through the legal system. But what if I told you, the legal system has rarely benefited people like me? What if I told you that Roe was the floor? The same goes for choice, Choice denotes privilege–the availability of options–and fails to adequately address what actually stands in between a person’s choice to have an abortion and receiving the actual abortion. Things like cost of the procedure, child care if a person has other children, time off work for the mandatory ultrasounds, the day off for the procedure and not to mention the travel fees for those who have the resources to travel. There are a number of hurdles that a person could be faced with even when abortion was codified in law. Access is, and always will be, the key. Rather than trying to make additional laws that will significantly impact marginalized folx, we must broaden our focus to include an array of factors that are barriers to access and pose a threat to our ability to truly be self-determining. The emphasis on words and their associated meanings means that we must use words like forced pregnancy to share the severity of folx who are now being forced to carry children they didn’t intend to have. When we think we are being allies by proclaiming how “Pro-Choice” one is, remember that choice is predicated on an elitist capitalist framework that only benefits folx with the resources to access it, and fails to account for community members who may not have the same level of access that I do. To be pro-choice is to acknowledge the privilege in having choices.
Anti-abortion laws don’t eliminate abortions but in states like Texas and Mississippi it has led to increased penalties that disproportionately impact Black, brown and low income folx. Anti-abortion politics are undergirded with racial and gendered reproductive implications not different from that on which this country was built. It seems as if there has not been significant thought into the consequences of bestowing rights through personhood, and how much it removes a person’s autonomy and ability to govern their own bodies. It is why it is especially troubling to hear that rights could be granted to cells. Personhood status also means that if I remain pregnant, it might just kill me. Again, as a Black woman, living in the South, I am 3 times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause. Although my death could be entirely preventable, I may still die. Most of the closures of abortion clinics and the strictest bans are happening in the South, where more than half of Black Americans live. Abortion bans mean that more birthing folx will die. To assign personhood to a clump of cells is about the powers that be continuing to police the autonomy and agency of those that they feel are inferior, and who they know are in positions less situated for fighting back. It is to undermine the ability of us as autonomous, and self-determining people. It allows the state to have control and regulate the lives of people who can get pregnant even if that means killing us. By forcing people to give birth, abortion bans render their lives as disposable.
The vagueness of personhood laws could have far-reaching consequences that filter into in vitro fertilization and family planning of couples who truly wish to have a family but may not be able to have them any other way. It opens the door for continued attacks on contraception whether plan B or IUDs, controlling a person’s ability to protect themselves further from unplanned or unintended pregnancies. However, a real concern for me as a Black birthing person in the South, is the possibility that I could be subject to murder charges. Black people are already disproportionately impacted by policing and criminalization. When we look back on history, pre-Roe, we know that doctors and nurses sometimes functioned as an arm of the police for people who sought care for their miscarriages, instead of receiving care they were treated as criminals. "In this new post-Roe, personhood America, will we see a revitalization of healthcare providers who ONLY provide miscarriage treatment in exchange for 'intel?' 'Tell us where you got these abortion pills, or we won't help you!'" Personhood laws have the potential for criminalizing pregnant people, increasing the surveillance and policing of pregnant folx conduct.
Current efforts to establish personhood for fertilized eggs, i.e. embryos are merely a distraction from the fact that many people in this country are still fighting to live the full embodiment of their human rights, to be seen as human beings with full legal rights. Historically, enslaved Black birthing folx had their ability to get pregnant exploited through rape, fueled by capitalism and the need to keep replenishing a laboring class. One of the questions I was asked when preparing for this symposium was when does personhood begin, as a Black person, it seems like we’re still trying to find the starting line.
This story, while conveniently tidy, obscures more complicated truths. Survivors of gender violence—particularly those who are Black, queer, trans, Indigenous, poor, or nonbinary—are often also victims of state violence. Most women and girls in prisons are survivors of sexual abuse; thousands now face compounding forms of violence behind bars. Police often dismiss or criminalize people who report sexual violence, which is one of the reasons why less than 31 percent of sexual assaults are reported to police. Those who do report receive scant justice. Only 5 percent of sexual assaults lead to an arrest and only 1.3 percent are ever referred to a prosecutor. Worse yet, sexual violence is the second most frequently reported form of police misconduct after excessive force. Police households are more likely to experience domestic violence than the general population.
In a country that is far too expensive, we have offered vigilante bounties on our neighbor’s heads. We have told them to turn on one another for capitalist gain. Deputizing citizens to act on the personhood of another. Instead of criminalizing and creating bounties, why not put those funds into giving families the rights and resources they need to survive?
One of the most difficult things in this world to escape is poverty, and actually that’s an improper assessment. One of the most difficult things in this country is to escape our commitment to capitalism. We know that birthing folx who live in poverty have inconsistent or no access to healthcare. The commitment to capitalism and privatization of needed services is a detriment to our society. However, as a person born into capitalism, I understand the talking points needed here. The amount of wage labor that a person can put in is directly linked to that person’s access to the full range of reproductive options. The Supreme Court even said “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives”. According to studies the average cost of a full year’s worth of birth control pills is the equivalent of 51 hours of wage labor at the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Many folx can’t access birth control because their state outright refuses to expand Medicaid. In fact this country’s disdain for poor folx is no more evident than the implementation of the Hyde Amendment which prohibited the use of public funds on abortions. Disproportionately impacting Black folx, Indigenous folx Restrictions on the use of federal funds to provide abortions have limited the access to abortion services for Native American women receiving care at Indian Health Service facilities.
In Nebraska, Steve Erdman, a Senator, revealed his real intention in implementing abortion bans. In his justification of abortion bans he uses talking points from a white supremacist theory by the name of the Great Replacement Theory that falsely asserts that there is an active threat to replace white folx in countries where white folx are presently the majority. Erdman shares his sentiments, or fear of being replaced, pointing to migrants as the cause for this displacement and seems to suggest that forced pregnancy is the solution to that fear. This is important because, The Great Replacement Theory has been connected to several acts of violence, The riots in Charlottesville, the murders at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, The massacre at the grocery store in Buffalo. Which is yet another reason why it is impossible to ignore the implications of these laws and how they serve as a green light to the violence that marginalized folx face. The rights of birthing folx, poor folx, folx of color, Black folx and other marginalized folx have always been seen as a threat to white - cis - hetero - patriarchy.
All folx are worthy of comprehensive healthcare. Those who hold their religion dear and those who may not have one. The decision of whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is fundamentally the decision of the pregnant person. As a pregnancy has the ability to upend their whole life. The increasing inaccessibility of abortion and the rise of support in personhood laws constitutes gender-based violence. It targets those that can get pregnant, stripping their safe and legal options, forcing them between a potentially unsafe abortion procedure or a forced pregnancy. As a person who can potentially get pregnant, my basic freedoms that I enjoy in my life hinge on my ability to control my reproductive health.
Separation between church and state, which is the principle that ensures everyone can practice their chosen religion. Stop using God to justify bigotry. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was passed in 1993. The intention was to restore protections when laws interfered with a person’s exercise of religion, notably it was usually used by those in religious minorities. However, like laws cloaked as protection often are, it has since been weaponized against historically marginalized folx. This opened the door for Hobby Lobby, a landmark case that cemented the ability for our employers to impose their religious beliefs on us, as employees and not provide coverage for essential healthcare.
I have no problem with religion, God is one. God is love and abortions are self-care. I’ll take this time to uplift the work of Repro leaders working at the intersection of Reproductive justice and faith, including one of the founding mothers of the movement, Dr. Toni M Bond. Her work helped with my reckoning at the intersection of my faith and the running list of identities that I mentioned at the outset. The issue is when religion is exploited and weaponized to deny or restrict access.
People are routinely denied reproductive healthcare because the hospitals, religious in nature, refuse to provide the care that patients need whether it be fertility treatments or abortion. Additionally, there are a number of folx who are un and underinsured, or work for employers that will not cover the cost of the above in their insurance plans. Religion has long been a tool of oppression used to shame, blame and control the autonomy of folx. The persistent efforts to portray zygotes as babies is an intentional device to shame those who have had abortions, and dissuade those who are considering abortions. The rights bestowed upon us, are bestowed at birth. The entire movement based on restricting access to terminating pregnancy is a significant regression for people’s autonomy, and ability to have agency over their own lives and bodies. As a religious person, my God respects my autonomy, respects my ability to be self-determining. People are entitled to their beliefs, but a democratic State cannot have laws that are based on the beliefs that are not shared by all folx, all cultures, all backgrounds.
I’d like to finish by issuing a call of action, formally requesting that we remove the shackles of living within rigid binaries, and that we embrace a movement that is built upon how intersectional and expansive we are. The reproductive justice framework requires one to acknowledge and analyze the ways that a person’s gender, sexuality, class, race, shape their ability to truly access healthcare services and thusly should be considered when implementing policy. You cannot grant rights to cells, fertilized eggs, embryos, and/or fetuses without subjugating the rights of all who can become pregnant. An approach that centers the needs of poor folx, young people and especially queer and non-binary or gender-expansive folx of color is necessary for true Reproductive Justice. In our quest for true reproductive freedom we have to be cognizant of the intimate, systemic and nuanced ways in which the existing systems fail marginalized folx. Disabled folx, migrants, BIPOC, queer, justice impacted. How will these laws be weaponized to harm our most vulnerable community members? Reproductive Justice is a framework designed for our collective liberation, my freedom is inextricably tied to yours. We will not be free until each and every one of us is free.