Celebrating Collective Power through the Decades
Virtual Reunion
March 27, 2022 | 6:00-7:30 p.m. EDT
Join fellow Collective Power alums, activists, staff, and students for a virtual reunion! We will have facilitated breakout discussions about reproductive justice and exploring your connection to Collective Power while celebrating together virtually!
Police Violence as a Reproductive Justice Issue
April 6, 2022 | 4:30 p.m. EDT (online)
When George Floyd called out for his mother during his dying moments, he made concrete what reproductive justice advocates have long argued—that police violence is a reproductive justice issue. The state murder of Black men, women, trans and non-binary people, and children interferes with one of the key tenets of reproductive justice – the right to parent children in safe and healthy environments. There is an epidemic of police violence and brutality in the United States—Black people are killed by police at a rate two and a half times that of whites. And despite the ongoing movement against police violence, police fatally shot more people in 2021 than any previous year. Black parents, and especially Black mothers, should not have to bury any more of their children. Please join us for a conversation about understanding police violence as a reproductive justice issue and how reproductive justice advocates can work to end this violence. Panelists include:
- Collette Flanagan, founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality, whose unarmed son, Clinton Allen, was shot to death by a Dallas police officer in March 2013. These experiences in the aftermath of this official homicide – the indifference of Dallas City Hall, the lack of any assistance to the surviving family, the vilification of her son in the media, and finally the impunity enjoyed by the killer – turned her grief into anger and then into action.
- Jallicia Jolly, Amherst College, a Five College Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Program faculty member and scholar-activist who teaches about Black women’s health, grassroots activism, and reproductive justice; the transnational politics of gender, structural racism, sexuality, class, and health; and Black motherhood and birth justice.
- Loretta Ross, Smith College, a Five College Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Program faculty member and longtime reproductive justice scholar, public intellectual, and activist who teaches courses on White Supremacy, Human Rights, and Calling In the Calling Out Culture.
Register here, a link and passcode will be provided after you register.
Reproductive Justice Confronts Fascism
April 10, 2022 | 10:00-11:30 a.m. EDT
Hampshire College, Amherst, MA
Reproductive justice is central to the fight against white supremacy, fascism, nativism, and anti-immigrant xenophobia. A panel of reproductive justice scholars and activists will share updates from Collective Power’s April conference and discuss possibilities for how we build a broad coalition to work against these threats to our communities.
Roe v. Wade and the Future of Abortion in the US
April 14, 2022 | 4:00-5:30 p.m. EDT (online)
- Leslie Reagan, Univ. of Illiniois Urbana-Champaign
- Leila Abolfazli, National Women’s Law Center
- Renee Bracey Sherman, We Testify
- Lindsay Rodriguez, National Network of Abortion Funds
Almost fifty years after the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, the right to abortion continues to be under attack. In 2021 alone, more than 500 abortion restrictions were introduced in 44 state legislatures, many with the aim of providing a vehicle for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe. This panel will consider how likely the new 6-3 conservative majority Supreme Court is to overturn this long-standing precedent, and what impact this would have on the United States and the role of cis women and gender-expansive people in society. Panelists will consider what a post-Roe US might look like for clinics, abortion seekers, and funds, drawing on the history of abortion access pre-Roe, and reviewing federal legislative and administration strategies currently being employed.