Healthcare

Today, we face a dangerous future where politicians are dictating the right to health care, including abortion care, based on their ideological agendas. This harmful road we are on only makes it more difficult for Black women, girls, and gender-expansive people to live their lives fully and without fear. Access to quality, comprehensive health care is a major determinant of quality of life for Black women, girls, and gender-expansive people, and failure to act to guarantee this as a right will only serve to continue to build systemic roadblocks to care.

Comprehensive Sexual Health Education

Reproductive Justice can only be achieved when Black women, girls, and gender-expansive people have the “economic, social and political power, and resources” to make important personal decisions about whether, and when, to have children. Achieving this goal requires the provision of comprehensive sexual health education so people can make positive and informed decisions about their lives and activities.

Comprehensive sexual health education is a cornerstone in empowering people to navigate if, when, and how to engage in safe and consensual sexual activity—and how to find pleasure in safe and consensual sexual activity. Sexual health education and resources that are comprehensive; medically accurate; culturally sensitive; and inclusive of all gender identities can reduce racial disparities in reproductive and sexual health and enable Black people to use the tools and information available to them to make the best decisions about their own bodies and relationships.

We believe that sexual health education must include strategies that address social pressures; foster self-esteem; build skills to hold conversations with potential partners; and address the stigma that impacts decision-making processes on the part of Black women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals. Evidence-based programs can promote individual agency, reduce rates of unintended pregnancies and STIs, and increase the use of more effective forms of contraception.

Behavioral and Mental Health

Black women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals must be able to safeguard their behavioral and mental health in order to achieve true reproductive justice. This includes, but is not limited to, the ability to get the help they need for emotional distress, including distress caused by anxiety, depression, or trauma.

Studies show that Black people experience mental health issues at the same rate as other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. Still, their experiences are often uniquely and directly linked to racial oppression and,—for Black women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals— to the intersection of “racial and gender oppression. This cannot stand.

There are also significant barriers to accessing culturally competent mental health services including personal and community stigma against help-seeking behaviors, negative experiences with health care providers, lack of access to mental health resources, and inadequate health care coverage. As a result, only about 30 percent of Black people who need mental health care receive it, compared to almost half of white Americans.

Additionally, historically, mental health research has been grounded around Western, white, middle-class males. Women in general, and women of color specifically, have not been engaged in participatory research creating serious and meaningful gaps in evidence-based diagnosis and care. This failure contributes to the risk that Black women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals may be misdiagnosed, mistreated, criminalized, and/or labeled as inferior.

Health Care for Incarcerated Black People

Reproductive Justice includes the right to access high-quality health care, including maternal health care for pregnant people who are incarcerated. Although the U.S. spends more on health care than any other country, our maternal health outcomes are among the worst on the planet. But not all women in America face the same risks: Black women face greater dangers. For incarcerated Black women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals, the dangers are even more dire.

The combination of structural racism and exposure to the toxic stress of mass incarceration exacerbates the risks to maternal and reproductive health in general, and to safe and healthy pregnancies, specifically. These experiences all increase stress and trauma that are extremely dangerous to pregnant people. For this reason, pregnant Black women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals who are incarcerated are among the most vulnerable in the “justice” system. And, although prisons are constitutionally required to provide medical care, the environment is far from one that promotes wellness, and can actively harm pregnant people.

We know the criminal justice system was not designed to adequately support individual health needs, especially access to maternal health care and the federal government continues to fall short in setting and enforcing comprehensive, trauma-informed standards of care and treatment for incarcerated people, including pregnant people. We demand changes be implemented and coordinated at all levels of criminal justice systems that impact the lives of Black women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals, and must take seriously the urgent need to protect the full spectrum of reproductive health care for those within the carceral system

The stereotype of the “strong Black woman” has historically described Black women’s reaction to the sheer need to persevere and be resilient in the face of staggering levels of misogyny and racism—and resulting widespread economic and health disparities. This label, however, places a burden on Black women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals that often carries a significant cost to their mental and emotional well-being. Now is the time to bring an end to the harmful tropes and neglect Black women face in health care settings and bring Black women into the fold with access to quality, comprehensive health care.