In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda and nearly 80 organizations in a broad and diverse coalition released a proactive policy agenda to advance sexual and reproductive health in the U.S. and around the world Monday for a fully supportive Congress and administration.
The blueprint is significant, and unprecedented, because it marks the first time the wide range of reproductive health, justice and rights organizations have come together to develop a detailed and intersectional policy agenda.
“The Blueprint for Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice” is centered on five principles: Ensuring sexual and reproductive health care is accessible to all people; ensuring discriminatory barriers in health care are eliminated; ensuring research and innovation advance sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice now and in the future; ensuring health, rights, justice and wellness for all communities; and ensuring judges and executive officials advance sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice.
The Blueprint is a vision for the future that includes forward thinking ideas to transform sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice policy domestically and globally, as well as basic and fundamental measures to correct the backtracking that has taken place in recent years.
Guided by the five key principles, it also lays out many critical policy goals: Coverage of and access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care services and qualified providers at no or low cost and without exception for all people, including immigrants, incarcerated individuals and young people under the age of 18; full access to abortion that is best for an individual and their circumstances and comprehensive insurance coverage for care; comprehensive pregnancy and maternal health care strategies that prioritize the health care needs of pregnant and birthing individuals; strong non-discrimination protections for patients, including protections that ensure providers’ religious or personal beliefs do not dictate patient care; health care system transformation that prioritizes sexual and reproductive health care, including research and development in the field of reproductive health and scientific integrity and transparency in sexual and reproductive health care; foreign policy that prioritizes sexual and reproductive health and rights; robust response to the global HIV/AIDS crisis; economic opportunity, freedom from violence and healthy and safe environments for all individuals, families and communities; and selection and confirmation of administrative and judicial nominees who will advance sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice.
The Blueprint stems from the palpable urgency, in light of increasingly hostile attacks on reproductive autonomy and rights, for a proactive and transformative agenda. In many parts of the United States and around the world, restrictive laws and policies have made it virtually impossible to access the information, services and providers people need to care for their health and wellbeing.
The Blueprint, which can be downloaded at reproblueprint.org, has been endorsed by Abortion Care Network; Advocates for Youth; AIDS Alliance for Women, Infants, Children, Youth & Families; All-Options; All* Above All; American Atheists; American Jewish World Service; American Medical Student Association; American Sexual Health Association; AVAC; Black Mamas Matter Alliance; Black Women for Wellness; Black Women’s Health Imperative; Catholics for Choice; Center for Health and Gender Equity; Center for Reproductive Rights; Civil Liberties & Public Policy Program; Equity Forward; Gender Justice; Global Justice Center; Guttmacher Institute; Harambee Village Doulas; Healthy Teen Network; Ibis Reproductive Health; If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice; In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda; International Women’s Health Coalition; Ipas; Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health; Jewish Women International; Maroon Calabash; NARAL Pro-Choice America; National Abortion Federation; National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum; National Black Women’s HIV/AIDS Network; National Center for Lesbian Rights; National Council of Jewish Women; National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association; National Health Law Program; National Institute for Reproductive Health; National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health; National LGBTQ Task Force; National Network of Abortion Funds; National Organization for Women; National Partnership for Women & Families; National Women’s Health Network; National Women’s Law Center; New Voices for Reproductive Justice; Not Without Black Women; PAI; People For the American Way; Physicians for Reproductive Health; Planned Parenthood Federation of America; Population Connection Action Fund; Population Council; Population Institute; Positive Women’s Network-USA; Power to Decide; Reproductive Health Access Project; Secular Coalition for America; Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States; Sierra Club; SisterLove, Inc.; SisterReach; Social Workers for Reproductive Justice; SPARK Reproductive Justice Now!; Surge Reproductive Justice; The Afiya Center; The American Civil Liberties Union; The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health; UltraViolet; URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity; #VOTEPROCHOICE; Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health; Women With a Vision; and the Woodhull Freedom Foundation.
“We hold true that in order for people to be free and equal they must be able to exercise complete autonomy over their bodies,” the Blueprint declares. “That’s why we, a coalition of nearly 80 organizations, have come together to set forth a policy agenda to advance sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice for people in the U.S. and around the world.”
