Netroots Nation 2022 — Day One — Featured Panel: Abortion access is both a disability issue and a queer issue

Per­haps no top­ic has hung heav­ier over pro­gres­sives’ minds dur­ing this year’s Net­roots Nation than access to abortion. 

I chose to spend some time on Thurs­day at a pan­el titled Dobbs and Roe: Queer, Gen­der-Expan­sive Visions for Abor­tion Care, fea­tur­ing an all LGBTQAI+ pan­el, where they dis­cussed the broad­er impacts of abor­tion access through the lens of queer­ness and disability. 

Jes­si­ca Sem­ler, activist, for­mer Pub­lic Defense Direc­tor at Planned Par­ent­hood of West­ern Penn­syl­va­nia, and first open­ly LGBTQ mem­ber of the Etna Bor­ough Coun­cil in 2020, mod­er­at­ed the pan­el. The pan­el also fea­tured Cori Fras­er, a dis­abled, non­bi­na­ry social work­er and co-founder of the Pitts­burgh Cen­ter for Autis­tic Advo­ca­cy, and La’Tasha D. Mayes, for­mer pres­i­dent and CEO of New Voic­es for Repro­duc­tive Jus­tice, an orga­ni­za­tion cen­ter­ing on women, femmes, and gen­der-expan­sive folks, and cur­rent Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee for the Penn­syl­va­nia House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dis­trict 24. 

The pan­el was quick to name the per­ils posed by the Dobbs deci­sion, and not­ed that these per­ils exist­ed long before Roe or Casey. 

Mayes point­ed out that mar­gin­al­ized folks have long had to rely on sys­tems “that were nev­er meant to pro­tect Black or gen­der-expan­sive peo­ple.” This, she says, has led to an over-reliance on con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and laws to save us, when we need to be putting our focus on human rights. And the “right to repro­duc­tive jus­tice, the right to con­trol bod­ies, gen­der, and the right to form fam­i­lies” are very much some of the human rights Mayes’ orga­ni­za­tion centers. 

“We saw Roe was com­ing to an end,” she said, speak­ing of those who work in human rights-root­ed repro­duc­tive jus­tice work. “But none of us were pre­pared for that moment. It sent shock­waves through the nation.” 

She also brought atten­tion to the ways lan­guage uplifts and dam­ages the move­ment. In the light of con­ser­v­a­tive furor over using ter­mi­nol­o­gy such as “peo­ple who can become preg­nant” as opposed to “women,” her points are time­ly and welcome. 

“When we say ‘a woman’s right to choose,’” she says, “not every woman is an abor­tion seek­er, and not every woman has a choice.” 

Fras­er drew the con­nec­tion between abor­tion access and queer health­care. In Penn­syl­va­nia, they said, many of the abor­tion care providers are also trans­gen­der care providers.

“Lots of trans folks are not able to access hor­mones since there’s an increased demand from folks in less abor­tion-friend­ly states com­ing [to Penn­syl­va­nia] need­ing care,” they said. 

They went on to talk about those “attack­ing abor­tion rights through the lens of dis­abil­i­ty.” An exam­ple they used was the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing a patient’s deci­sion to ter­mi­nate a preg­nan­cy if the fetus was iden­ti­fied to have Down’s syndrome.

“And what I say to that,” they said, “is that we have to pro­tect the abor­tion rights of women with Down’s syn­drome. If we lim­it abor­tion there, we are lim­it­ing the rights of those with dis­abil­i­ties who can become pregnant.”

They also iden­ti­fied the ways in which abor­tion care is inex­tri­ca­ble from queer rights, par­tic­u­lar­ly for trans people. 

Abor­tion access, they said, “is part of a larg­er puz­zle, of an attack on bod­i­ly autonomy.”

“This is com­ing at the same time as attacks on trans rights,” they con­tin­ued, cit­ing the recent flur­ry of Repub­li­can-spon­sored bills lim­it­ing access to puber­ty sup­pres­sors and gen­der-affirm­ing care. 

“There’s abor­tion and there’s trans care, and there’s LGBTQ mar­i­tal rights, and rights to cho­sen fam­i­ly. All are part of a big­ger strat­e­gy to cre­ate a very con­trolled, carcer­al world,” they said. “We don’t live sin­gle-issue lives. We have to address them all simultaneously.” 

Sem­ler turned the pan­el towards a dis­cus­sion about the com­mon call from Democ­rats in the wake of the Dobbs deci­sion, which have amount­ed to more calls to vote. She said that this mes­sag­ing has been dis­il­lu­sion­ing to young and mar­gin­al­ized vot­ers who have been vot­ing, often dili­gent­ly, yet are still not get­ting their needs met by state and fed­er­al lev­el officials. 

Mayes respond­ed by say­ing that vot­ing is nei­ther the first nor last step, but a strat­e­gy that must be “inte­grat­ed with com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing.” We can’t be ask­ing peo­ple to orga­nize or vol­un­teer, she con­tin­ued, if they “don’t have food to eat or a place to live.”

Fras­er con­curs, adding: “As we’re orga­niz­ing, we’re try­ing to get peo­ple in the cen­ter, we’re try­ing to get them to val­ue human lives and…they don’t.” 

Sem­ler then piv­ot­ed the pan­el to dis­cuss the pit­falls of the com­mon Demo­c­ra­t­ic response fol­low­ing the Dobbs deci­sion, which were increased calls to vote. This, she said, can be dis­il­lu­sion­ing to young, mar­gin­al­ized vot­ers who have been vot­ing, often in size­able num­bers, yet are still not hav­ing their needs met by state officials. 

Mayes said that vot­ing is nei­ther the first nor last step, but one strat­e­gy that must be “inte­grat­ed with com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing.” She goes on to say that we can’t ask peo­ple to orga­nize if they have noth­ing to eat and nowhere to live. 

She calls advo­cates to ask: “How are we sup­port­ing our abor­tion funds? How are we mak­ing sure we’re vol­un­teer­ing to get peo­ple where they need to be?”

Fras­er men­tioned that one of their areas of focus­es is mutu­al aid. There was a pop­u­lar meme going around social media of folks offer­ing to take their friends “camp­ing,”  but this, they said, isn’t enough. 

“We have to build sys­tems where we sup­port each oth­er out­side of the gov­ern­ment,” they said.

They offered an exam­ple of a recent work­shop in the greater Pitts­burgh area show­ing peo­ple how to do things such as access­ing plan B. 

“Hav­ing a plan that is not ‘the Dems are going to save us…’ if we could all just do that, things would be so much better.”

Mayes laid out sev­er­al points Democ­rats could be advo­cat­ing for in order to help bring abor­tion access to those who need it the most. 

“We need to be train­ing more health­care providers to pro­vide abor­tions,” she said. She called out Med­ic­aid for not cov­er­ing abor­tions, say­ing that there needs to be a way to get tax­pay­er dol­lars to sup­port abor­tion care, trans care, and health care in general.

And there needs to be more sup­port from white people.

“The face of the repro­duc­tive rights move­ment is white women. But it’s black women who have sup­port­ed your right to con­trol your body,” Mayes explained. She encour­aged white sol­i­dar­i­ty, so that “Black and brown folks can take a breath, take a rest. It would be nice to take a rest. But we don’t get that.”

The ses­sion wrapped up with a brief Q&A, where an audi­ence mem­ber asked the pan­elists how they respond dur­ing coali­tion-build­ing when it comes to those who allow abor­tion to be “pushed aside” as a nec­es­sary val­ue to come under “the big tent.”

“That’s why Roe was over­turned,” Mayes said. “We weren’t will­ing to fight for it as our core issue on all levels.

Fras­er agreed. “Good coali­tion-build­ing starts with val­ues,” they said. “If abor­tion isn’t on that list of val­ues, what are you doing?”

The ener­gy of the con­ver­sa­tion was focused, pas­sion­ate, and urgent. It is clear that the Repub­li­can par­ty is relent­less in their efforts to rob peo­ple of their inalien­able human rights. Abor­tion access isn’t an issue that can wait–people need help now. But it can­not move for­ward with­out cen­ter­ing those that need abor­tions the most. 

“I don’t know any­body talk­ing to dis­abled peo­ple,” Fras­er, at one point in the dis­cus­sion, said. “[There are] Autis­tic adults, many of whom need repro­duc­tive care, and they’re not get­ting care. Why?”

“Let’s find the peo­ple nobody thinks are white enough, straight enough, cis enough, because we’re here.”​