REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE IS...

To our community,

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Team ICAH is here. We’ve been ebbing and flowing, expanding and contracting, and showing up to life in different capacities than we are used to. You probably have, too.

During the past few months my priorities as an executive director have been to center and support staff wellness and care, including my own, and work collaboratively with staff to reflect on what to hold on to and what to let go of in this time. It is a challenge. It is a constant practice. 

This current crisis has continued to expose overwhelming inequities that our communities have long been impacted by, and that we have long fought to transform. Today, we are clear in our mission to ensure that all youth are safe, affirmed, and healthy. As we root ourselves in our identity as a reproductive justice organization, our values are our guide.

We wanted to share those values and possible actions with you. Because in this time of great uncertainty, we know a lot.



We know that Reproductive Justice means centering the needs and the genius of young people.



We know that Reproductive Justice means our communities have the economic resources not just to survive, but to thrive.

  • We want to uplift community calls that invite folks who have capacity to redistribute their financial resources, including government stimulus checks, directly to communities impacted economically by COVID. Read more at #ShareMyCheck.

  • Our communities are doing for ourselves with mutual aid efforts of all shapes. Southside Weekly’s guide is a good place to start to find or give resources, as well as specific funds that go to Black, Latinx, and/or undocumented families, like in Little Village and Gage Park, among others.



We know that Reproductive Justice means centering transgender and gender nonconforming people. 

  • We invite folks to uplift and contribute to Brave Space Alliance and their consistent, crucial mutual aid work done by and for trans, non-binary, and intersex individuals. Their crisis food pantry will run the duration of COVID, and their support groups and Trans Relief Fund provide essential emotional and financial care. 

  • Grassroots organizations in Chicago also doing (and inviting folks to contribute funds to) incredible mutual aid work led by and for Black and Brown queer community, like Molasses and Dyke March Chicago. 



We know that Reproductive Justice means abortion access, where access means support plus resources.

  • Abortion funding is mutual aid, the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF) reminds us. In Illinois, abortion care was named as essential health care, even (and perhaps especially) under COVID-19, but access remains an obstacle. CAF is providing necessary support and financial services to our communities in Chicago and the Midwest, and they need our financial and public support!

  • While our state parental notification law must be repealed, our friends at Judicial Bypass Coordination Project are available as always to support young folks seeking to navigate the law in order access abortion care.



We know that Reproductive Justice means we must abolish jails and prisons.

  • We join Prison Culture and countless others in demanding that, in the midst of the current global pandemic, Governor Pritzker release folks who are incarcerated: for their safety and for our community’s safety. Watch ICAH organizers’ video of Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, “To Prisoners,” as we say #FreeThemAll4PublicHealth.

  • For more context, read the open letter from (and contribute to) the Chicago Community Bond Fund. We also invite you to find other resources and ways to support decarceration efforts, including the #FreeThemAll call to sign in solidarity to release young people currently in the local Juvenile “Temporary” Detention Center.

 

We know that Reproductive Justice means centering people with disabilities.

  • We invite folks to uplift and contribute to groups and organizations led by and for folks with disabilities, like Crip & Ally Care Exchange, providing masks and community in Chicago, and Sins Invalid, continuing to share opportunities to care, learn, and gather in pleasure. We must also continue to social distance as much as we individually can, for the health of our communities.

  • Listen to the Irresistible podcast episode “Organizing in a Pandemic: Disability Justice Wisdom,” because folks who are immunocompromised or live their lives at home have been here before. (And as always, pay folks for their wisdom.)

 

We know that Reproductive Justice means support for pregnant and parenting people, including youth.

  • Our folks need support in delivery rooms, even - perhaps especially - under COVID. Sign in solidarity with PPIL’s work to improve Black maternal health and ensure access to doulas in Illinois, and check out our resource guide for birth policies and resources you or someone you know may need.

  • We send such love to the parents who have become homeschool teachers in the last months! Check out Parenting in the Future We Want: a parent and caretaker visioning and support space held by Chicago Childcare Collective.

 

We know that Reproductive Justice means that we are able to care for our families in safe and sustainable environments.

  • We recognize that home is not a safe place for everyone, and that “Shelter-in-Place” orders assume a lot about not only class status but freedom from violence where we live. We send love to folks navigating and surviving violence in this time, and hope that our resource guide offers a place to begin to find the support you or your loved ones may need.

  • We invite folks to uplift and contribute to Little Village Environmental Justice Organization’s ongoing organizing for the safety of their community. Amplify and demonstrate in solidarity with their campaign to say #HellNoHilco / #FueraHilco after a reckless smokestack demolition, carried out by big business and sanctioned by Mayor Lightfoot, enveloped Little Village in smoke for hours during this respiratory pandemic.



We know that Reproductive Justice means rest.

  • ICAH has reduced staff work hours and with full pay. We are practicing responding to the needs and desires of our minds and bodies, as individuals and increasingly, as an organization. As we slow down our pace to support staff in meeting the needs of their own and their families' mental and physical health, we are developing a deep awareness that many of these practices can and should be a part of our “new normal.”

  • We wish you -- yes, YOU -- rest.

 

We will continue to adapt. We will continue to breathe. And we will continue to do what we can for the wellbeing and liberation of our communities.

 

With love,

Sona 

with #TeamICAH

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