Indigenous communities navigate abortion after Roe

States with some of the largest Indigenous populations also have some of the strictest restrictions

By Noel Lyn Smith and Maddy Keyes, News21
Tuesday, Aug 29, 2023

ALBUQUERQUE – Rachael Lorenzo calls it their “auntie laugh,” a powerful chuckle that lasts long and fills any space. Aunties are prominent figures in Indigenous culture who offer comfort when one needs help.

Aunties answer the phone when no one else does.

That’s what Lorenzo, who is Mescalero Apache, Laguna and Xicana, does as founder of Indigenous Women Rising, a national fund that covers the costs of abortions – and the traditional ceremonies that follow – for Indigenous people.

Continued: https://www.the-journal.com/articles/indigenous-communities-navigate-abortion-after-roe/

Post-Roe, Native Americans face even more abortion hurdles

By LAURA UNGAR and HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
Feb 13, 2023

A few months after South Dakota banned abortion last year, April Matson drove more than nine hours to take a friend to a Colorado clinic to get the procedure.

The trip brought back difficult memories of Matson’s own abortion at the same clinic in 2016. The former grocery store worker and parent of two couldn’t afford a hotel and slept in a tent near a horse pasture — bleeding and in pain.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-oklahoma-sd-state-wire-south-dakota-24541ed0e66b5e1e1cd8b84e7e2e3159

Inside the Nation’s Only Abortion Fund For Native Americans

Founded by reproductive rights activist Rae Lorenzo, Indigenous Women Rising is a safe space for Indigenous people to tell their own stories—on their terms.

BY KATE NELSON
SEP 1, 2022

At 13 weeks pregnant, Rae Lorenzo ended up in the emergency room with contractions, extreme pain, and excessive bleeding. “I didn’t fully understand my rights as a patient or the protocols of hospitals—what they’re legally obligated to do or how they can restrict care based on personal beliefs,” says Lorenzo, a 32-year-old queer New Mexico reproductive rights activist (Mescalero Apache/Laguna Pueblo/Xicana) who uses the pronouns they/them.

As the pain become more and more unbearable, it became clear to them that an abortion was necessary. But the white male ER doctor refused, telling Lorenzo: “I know what you need right now, but I can’t help you.” They were left alone to wait it out, bleeding through the hospital bed sheets and suffering without proper pain management. It took 90 minutes for a female obstetrician to step in and provide the necessary abortion care. Lorenzo calls the experience, which happened back in 2013, “dehumanizing.”

Continued: https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a41032856/indigenous-women-rising-abortion/

01.09.2022

Commentary

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Hyde Amendment

Indian Health Service

Indigenous women and abortion

Indigenous Women Rising

Canada – Improving Indigenous communities’ access to reproductive health services

May 30, 2022
Richard Dal Monte, University of Victoria News

Many Canadians take contraception and reproductive rights for granted. Contraceptives are widely available at drug stores and supermarkets, and abortion has been legal since 1988.

But are reproductive services and medical procedures equally accessible to all residents of Canada?

A team of University of Victoria researchers reports that while the issue is complicated, Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately subject to inequitable access.

Continued: https://www.uvic.ca/news/topics/2022+knowledge-equal-access+news

30.05.2022

Featured

Research

Abortion Support Services Atlantic

Access to abortion services for Indigenous peoples in Canada

Astrid Pérez Piñán

Indigenous right to abortion

Indigenous women and abortion

Renée Monchalin

Health

Human Rights

Tribal Land Is Suddenly at the Center of the Fight for Abortion Access

Oklahoma's governor is warning tribes about "setting up abortion clinics" on their sovereign land.

By Kylie Cheung
May 17, 2022

Across the country, Republican governors are champing at the bit to end abortion rights in their states once Roe v. Wade falls. And in Oklahoma, the state with the second highest population of Indigenous people, Gov. Kevin Stitt is taking this crusade a step further—threatening tribes that continue to offer abortion care on their sovereign land.

“Oklahomans will not think very well of that if tribes try to set up abortion clinics,” Stitt said in a Fox News interview on Sunday. “They think that you can be 1/1,000th tribal member and not have to follow the state law.”

Continued: https://jezebel.com/tribal-land-is-suddenly-at-the-center-of-the-fight-for-1848937428

USA – Recent abortion bans highlight the continued barriers to reproductive justice for Indigenous people

Mainstream reproductive justice and rights movements continuously leave out Indigenous perspectives and voices

by Luna Reyna
January 27th, 2022

As the attacks on reproductive health and the right to bodily autonomy for those who can get pregnant grow bolder, access to safe and affordable sexual and reproductive health services, especially for abortions, has worsened. In Texas, Senate Bill 8 bans abortion as early as six weeks and offers $10,000 to private citizens to sue anyone who performs abortions or aids those seeking that reproductive care. While the bill presents new barriers for many Americans, the restrictions it imposes on Indigenous people’s bodies and the penalties for breaking them are just another in a long line of oppressive government regulations that they have long endured.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2022/01/27/recent-abortion-bans-highlight-the-continued-barriers-to-reproductive-justice-for-indigenous-people/

Indigenous and immigrant communities stand to be disproportionately affected by Texas’s abortion ban

For these groups, access to abortion has long been entangled in other structural and historical issues

Frances Nguyen, The Lily
September 14, 2021

Long before Texas’s Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8) went into effect on Sept. 1, making it the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, abortion rights advocates, providers and funds have been trying to interpret what the measure could actually mean for them, especially its most unprecedented provision: Private citizens, even people who live outside the state, are empowered to sue anyone they think may have “aided or abetted” someone getting an abortion after six weeks — before most people know they’re pregnant.

Many believe that, for those trying to access abortion care, anyone within their support system — from the doctor who administers the procedure to the fund that pays for their fees, and even the person who drives them to the clinic — could be liable for a civil suit for $10,000 for each abortion.

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/indigenous-and-immigrant-communities-stand-to-be-disproportionately-affected-by-texass-abortion-ban/

Indigenous women explain what’s at stake in Argentina’s abortion debate

A bill to legalise abortion is now at the senate. These Indigenous women explain what the debates mean for lives on the ground. #12DaysofResistance

Luciana Mignoli
26 December 2020

“Talking about abortion is a huge challenge,” says Bashe Nuhem. She’s a feminist activist, radio presenter and video producer, and a member of the Qom indigenous community in Castelli, an area in north-east Argentina known as “the doorway to the Impenetrable”, an extensive and once dense forest.

“I work in an indigenous radio station and, with my colleagues, weave words together. We challenge men who don't want us to talk [about abortion]. It remains a taboo,” Nuhem explains. We spoke as the lower chamber debated a new bill to legalise the “voluntary interruption of pregnancy” up to the 14th week in Argentina. Having passed the lower body of parliament in early December, the bill is now before the senate.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/indigenous-women-explain-whats-at-stake-in-argentinas-abortion-debate/

Women being pushed to the margins of society in Guatemala

Women being pushed to the margins of society in Guatemala
Violence and discrimination are routine and many die in childbirth from largely preventable causes

Nov 18, 2019
Aisling Walsh, Naomi Elster, Guatemala City

Guatemala is marketed across the globe as the “Heart of the Mayan World”. Photographs of spectacular jungle pyramids and smiling indigenous women, carried on Piccadilly buses in London and splashed across screens in new York’s Times Square, promote a tourism industry worth almost $3.4 billion (€3 billion) a year.

On arriving in Guatemala, it is easy to recognise the vivid colours of Mayan traditional clothing and the dramatic scenery of imposing volcanoes, shimmering lakes and dense forests sliced into steep hills and sharp ravines.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/women-being-pushed-to-the-margins-of-society-in-guatemala-1.4087198

Canada – ‘Entire system’ needs to change: Indigenous women encounter unique issues regarding reproductive rights

‘Entire system’ needs to change: Indigenous women encounter unique issues regarding reproductive rights

Jun 26, 2019
Kayla Butler

CALGARY – Access to appropriate healthcare, specifically surrounding a woman’s reproductive choices, varies drastically between communities.

Indigenous women in Canada have faced unique problems throughout history when it comes to reproductive healthcare.

“When we go into a doctor’s office, we are not often asked the usual [pregnancy] questions, like, ‘What are you planning?’ It’s often questions like, ‘How are you raising your child? Are you working? Do you have an education? Where are you living? Are you a drug addict?'”

Continued: https://winnipeg.citynews.ca/2019/06/26/indigenous-women-reproductive-rights/amp/

26.06.2019