Reproductive Justice

Investing in compassionate communities of care towards safe and thriving communities, includes abortion rights and reproductive justice overall. Reproductive justice is centered around basic human dignity and rights, including one’s right to privately (in consultation with people we choose to trust) make decisions over their own body, health, and life. It includes freedom from abortion criminalization imposed by any government, as well as freedom from sexual and reproductive harm as well as other violations of bodily autonomy: be it at the interpersonal, community, institutional, and/or systems levels. 

 

Reproductive justice also centers the most impacted, such as Muslims, BIPOC, queer, lower-income people, and our bodies. Connected to principles of abolition, it acknowledges that our bodies and bodily autonomy are constantly politically undermined and attacked: through an array of infringements on our privacy - including surveillance, entrapment, and criminalization - all based on our existing as who we are.

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While reproductive justice is about more than just legal access to abortion, we are seeing an increase in policy measures that seek to limit and/or criminalize abortion - including in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent overturning of Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, abortion may be a necessary form of health care depending on how people choose to manage individual circumstances, such as: health and safety, financial hardship, access to and availability of contraception, educational mobility and financial security, and other factors. Whether or not this care is legal, people will continue to have abortions. Deterring and criminalizing abortion exacerbates ongoing attacks on the most impacted: their health, safety, and basic human right to bodily autonomy.

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This election, various ballot measures are open to voters to help determine the course of abortion rights in their state. Several other states - including Florida and Maryland - are not represented in the information that follows because pertinent measures did not make it onto the ballot this year.
 

Our position is that abortion is a basic human right and integral to reproductive justice and abolition, which uplift bodily autonomy as non-negotiable.

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Tip: You can also use this information to guide your research of various candidates running for office at the municipal, county, state and federal levels.

 

Also see: 

• One in four women in the US will have an abortion by age 45

• Fifty six percent of Muslims in the US believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases

• Kansas voters, in the August 2022 primary election, defended the right to an abortion within their state Bill of Rights.

 

 

California Prop 1 (Right to Reproductive Freedom)

 

Measure summary: Not only does this measure seek to uphold reproductive rights, it uplifts the right to privacy - a right that is frequently undermined for Muslims.

 

Citing existing privacy and individual decision-making rights through the Reproductive Privacy Act: this measure would amend the state constitution by prohibiting any state interference in individual reproductive decision-making such as the choice to have an abortion or use or refuse contraception. It recognizes reproductive freedom as a fundamental right.

 

A "yes" vote supports amending the state constitution to prohibit the state from interfering with or denying an individual's reproductive freedom.

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A "no" vote opposes this amendment providing a right to reproductive freedom in the state constitution.

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Our recommendation: Vote YES

Kentucky Constitutional Amendment 2 (No Right to Abortion in Constitution Amendment) 

Measure summary: This measure misleadingly states that it seeks to protect human life, whilst completely denying abortion rights even in cases of pregnant people facing life-threatening conditions.

 

It would - in order to “protect human life” - amend the Kentucky Constitution to state that it does not provide nor protect the right to an abortion nor public abortion funding.

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A “yes" vote supports amending the Kentucky Constitution to state that nothing in the state constitution creates a right to abortion or requires government funding for abortion

 

A "no" vote opposes amending the Kentucky Constitution to state that nothing in the state constitution creates a right to abortion or requires government funding for abortion.

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Our recommendation: Vote NO

Michigan Proposal 3 (Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment)

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Measure summary: This measure would establish a right to reproductive freedom within the Michigan Constitution, defining this right in terms of different examples of sexual and reproductive health care like abortion, miscarriage, contraception and infertility.
 

It underscores that this right will not be violated, unless in the case of a compelling state interest: which almost never happens as that requires the highest level of legal scrutiny, and - in this case - would specifically be in order to protect the person’s health while maintaining their individual decision-making. 
 

It further exemplifies that even regardless of fetal viability (likelihood of survival outside of the uterus): abortion will not be denied to anyone nor will their provider be prohibited from giving them care for the pregnant person’s life and or physical or mental health.
 

The measure also states that the state will not penalize, prosecute or otherwise punish someone for any pregnancy-related care that they obtain - or that they help someone else obtain: including abortion.

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A “yes” vote would support providing state constitutional protection against criminalization for pregnancy-related care, and centering individuals’ health and autonomous decision-making towards their reproductive health.

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A “no” vote would oppose providing state constitutional protection against criminalization for pregnancy-related care, and centering individuals’ health and autonomous decision-making towards their reproductive health.

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Our recommendation: Vote YES

Montana LR-131 (Medical Care Requirements for Born-Alive Infants Measure)

Measure summary: This measure would deprive pregnant people of their right to abortion by granting legal personhood, and right to medical care, to fetuses that are alive after an abortion. It defines life, and subsequent personhood, as when a fetus “breathes, has a beating heart, or has definite movement of voluntary muscles.”

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The measure also - under the threat of criminal penalties including up to 20 years’ imprisonment - requires health care providers to preserve the life of the fetus.

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A “yes" vote supports this ballot measure to

state that fetuses born alive at any stage of development are legally people; 
require medical care to be provided to fetuses born alive after an induced labor, cesarean section, attempted abortion, or another method; and
establish a $50,000 fine and/or 20 years in prison as the maximum penalty for violating the law

 

A "no" vote opposes this law that makes fetuses born alive at any stage of development a legal person and that requires medical care to be provided to fetuses born alive.

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Our recommendation: Vote NO

 

Vermont Proposal 5 (Right to Personal Reproductive Autonomy Amendment)

Measure summary: This measure asserts that reproductive decision-making through “personal reproductive autonomy” is a right that all individuals should be able to access without state interference. 

It would uplift principles of equality and liberty through protecting reproductive liberty and personal autonomy; and through ensuring that the government “does not create or perpetuate the legal, social or economic inferiority of any class of people.”

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A “yes” vote supports amending the Vermont Constitution to add language protecting the right to personal reproductive autonomy and prohibiting government infringement unless justified by a compelling state interest (which almost never happens).

 

A "no" vote opposes amending the Vermont Constitution to add language protecting the right to personal reproductive

autonomy and prohibiting government infringement unless justified by a compelling state interest.
 

Our recommendation: Vote YES