Abortion & Reproductive Justice
GENUINE Collective affirms the basic human right of all people to decide when and under what circumstance to pursue parenthood.
We recognize that no two individuals have the same lived experience, medical/financial/community resources, and personal and/or familial situation as they consider all facets of reproduction, including continuing a pregnancy to term and parenting.
GENUINE Collective is firmly pro-abortion, understanding that the ability to choose safe and legal abortion is a fundamental right to which all pregnant people should have access.
Above all, the Collective stands for informed and autonomous decision-making in human reproduction. The Collective is committed to ensuring a safe space for people making all types of reproductive decisions without fear of shame, judgment, coercion, or retribution.
In the United States, Medicaid is publicly-funded health coverage for eligible low-income adults, children, pregnant people, elderly adults, and people with disabilities. Medicaid is administered by individual states and jointly funded by the states and the federal government. As of 2021, Medicaid provides coverage for 1 in 5 Americans (70.6 million people).
The Hyde Amendment is a federal law passed in 1976 which blocks federal Medicaid funding for abortion care. In 1994, three exceptions are granted to the Hyde Amendment, so that federal Medicaid provisions are legally permitted for abortion care in the setting of 1) pregnancy by rape, 2) pregnancy by incest, or 3) pregnancy which will directly cause maternal endangerment.
The United States Congress re-authorizes the Hyde Amendment annually as an attachment to the Appropriations Bill for Health & Human Services. This restricts abortion funding the following groups:
People enrolled in state Medicaid programs
People enrolled in Medicare programs
People enrolled under Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
People enrolled under Indian Health Services
Similar language to that of the Hyde Amendment has been incorporated into other federal programs, restricting abortion funding for the following groups:
Active-duty members of the U.S. Military enrolled in Tricare, and their dependent family members
Veterans of the U.S. Military enrolled in Tricare, and their dependent family members
Volunteers in the U.S. Peace Corps
People enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program
Individuals in federal prisons and detention centers, including those detained for immigration purposes
People residing in the District of Columbia
Additionally, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) included a provision which applied similar abortion coverage limitations to ACA marketplace-sold plans for persons who receive federal income-based subsidies to purchase private health insurance.
Only 16* states provide funding through their Medicaid programs so that state Medicaid recipients may have access to abortion coverage.
*Alaska, California, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, & Washington
In many states, the protections afforded by Roe v. Wade never really existed.
Access vs. “choice”:
90% of counties in the U.S. do not have an abortion clinic.
7 U.S. states have only 1 abortion clinic in the entire state.
Affordability vs “choice”:
The average cost of a 10-week uncomplicated abortion is $400, while the average cost of a 20-week uncomplicated abortion in a non-hospital clinic is ~$1200.
40% of Americans do not have sufficient savings for a $400 emergency expense, according to the Federal Reserve Board
Personal fundraising for one’s abortion may be possible, but the time required to fundraise will increase the price of the procedure and impact the chance that the procedure may not longer be available (in-state or at all) due to gestational age restrictions.
Consider supporting the advocates below:
We Testify
We Testify is an organization dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who’ve had abortions, increasing the spectrum of abortion storytellers in the public sphere, and shifting the way the media understands the context and complexity of accessing abortion care. We Testify invests in abortion storytellers to elevate their voices and expertise, particularly those of color, those from rural and conservative communities, those who are queer-identified, those with varying abilities and citizenship statuses, and those who needed support when navigating barriers while accessing abortion care.
Abortion Conversation Projects
Abortion Conversation Projects is committed to eliminating the stigma of abortion by supporting individuals and small groups engaged in innovative community-based projects that create new ways and opportunities to talk about abortion honestly and publicly. ACP designs, contributes, participates, and collaborates on stigma busting projects. ACP forms Grant Partnerships, created to reduce the stigma surrounding abortion. Our work includes webinars, trainings, workshops, community-based seed grant funding and partnerships with our allies and grant partners.
Shout Your Abortion
Shout Your Abortion is a movement working to normalize abortion through art, media, and community events all over the country. Following the U.S. Congress’s attempts to defund Planned Parenthood in 2015, the hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion became a viral conduit for abortion storytelling, receiving extensive media coverage and positioning real human experiences at the center of America’s abortion debate for the very first time. SYA quickly evolved into a grassroots movement, which has inspired countless individuals to share their abortion stories through art, media, and community events all over the country.
Keep Our Clinics / Abortion Care Network
Founded in 2008, the Abortion Care Network is the national association for independent community-based, abortion care providers and their allies. Together we work to ensure the rights of all people to experience respectful, dignified abortion care. The #KeepOurClinics campaign is our latest effort to protect access to abortion care in our country.
Exhale
Exhale has offered nonjudgemental, supportive counseling to individuals with abortion experiences and their partners, friends and allies. We created a confidential space for speaking openly about our abortion experiences free from shame and stigma, outside the political and religious fight on our bodies. Through peer counseling listening approach we listened to thousands of callers over the years. We began to recognize that people who called us did not identify within the binary of pro-life or pro-choice. In fact, it was much more complicated than that. Our lives do not exist in boxes of right and wrong. We began to see what we had created was, in fact, revolutionary/transformative space where there is room for honesty, complexity and the possibility of building networks of strength across difference.
Thank God for Abortion
Our mission is to eliminate the criminalizing stigma around abortion one t-shirt at a time. We are occupying a light and apology free space in a conversation that even in the left is fraught with guilt and secrecy. We are committed to a repossessing of our own narratives and pull it back from the dominant extreme right wing "sin" perspective which continues to justify legislating the torture and death of abortion seeking people. We are broadening the spectrum of this conversation by inhabiting a joyful and authentic place in regards to our own experience with abortion, we hope to inspire others to do the same. We know access to reproductive services are a basic and normal human right.
The Abortion Project
The Abortion Project was born of two full spectrum doulas who recognized there was a lack of transparency surrounding medical abortions in the United States. By documenting people as they have their abortions and showing what the process can actually look like, they know that others will become more familiar and less fearful or ashamed of their own experiences. T.A.P. has been collecting a variety of experiences from a variety of locations, and has started a series of zines to depict the stories of their participants. These zines help to dispel the deep misconceptions Americans have about abortion that were created through pop culture, antiquated ideas of “back alley” care, and frightening graphics used by anti-abortion groups in communities across the country.
Abortion Access Front
Founded in 2015 under the name Lady Parts Justice League, Abortion Access Front is a team of comedians, writers, and producers that uses humor to destigmatize abortion and expose the extremist anti-choice forces working to destroy access to reproductive rights in all 50 states. We do the job that the media doesn’t, creating provocative and hilarious videos and social media content that educates people about the pervasive, discriminatory abortion laws that profoundly and disproportionately impact the poor and people of color. Another crucial part of AAF’s mission is to support and raise awareness about independent abortion providers. These clinics bear the brunt of anti-abortion legislation and harassment.