In late October 2023, the Atlanta-based abortion fund Access Reproductive Care–Southeast (ARC–Southeast) published an open letter titled “Reproductive Justice Includes Palestinian Liberation.” Like many abortion funds—which channel money directly to abortion seekers who couldn’t otherwise afford the procedure—the organization views itself as engaged in a broader struggle for reproductive justice, a framework developed by Black feminists that emphasizes the right to “personal bodily autonomy,” including to “have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” The staff was consumed by the horror of Israel’s assault on Gaza, which, then in its third week, was killing or injuring more than 400 children every day and had stranded up to 84,000 pregnant women without access to basic supplies. “Israel’s apartheid regime represents the restricting of bodily autonomy at the highest level possible,” they concluded in the letter, drawing parallels to the obstacles to health care faced by their own callers. Musa Springer, a spokesperson for ARC–Southeast, told me that the fund’s leaders had felt a “moral duty” to provide a pathway for others in the reproductive justice movement to proclaim their solidarity. Within a month, more than 50 reproductive justice organizations, including at least 20 other abortion funds, had signed on. ….more
