Defunding Police Is Reproductive Justice
Police are a serious threat to reproductive justice – the right to maintain our bodily autonomy, to have or not have children, and to parent our children in safe and sustainable communities (SisterSong.net).
Police will enforce abortion bans.
26+ states will criminalize abortion now that the Supreme Court has struck down our constitutional right to abortion. This will also harm people who miscarry, as 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, and treatments for miscarriage and abortion often look identical. Some states may also ban birth control and assisted reproductive technology (like IVF). Police will enforce all of these bans.
Police already target pregnant people.
Since 1973, 1700+ pregnant women–primarily poor women & women of color–have been arrested, prosecuted, or imprisoned for allegedly harming their fetus. Once under police control, pregnant people are treated brutally and are at increased risk of dying and miscarrying.
Prisons enable forced sterilization.
From 1997-2014, 1000+ women, mostly Black women, were forcibly sterilized in California prisons. In 2021, a Georgia private prison was closed for forcibly sterilizing dozens of migrant women.
Policing is family separation.
Parents can’t raise their kids when they are incarcerated or killed by police. Children who are killed by police cannot grow up to create families of their own. Cops also work with Child Protective Services (CPS) to target poor, Black & Indigenous children for removal from their families.
Note: Black people are 3x more likely to be killed by police and 5x more likely to be incarcerated than white people. Black children are 6x more likely than white children to be shot to death by police. 1 in 2 Black children experience a CPS investigation.