We took this week to talk about how this pandemic has taken its toll on all of us and having 4 generations of people on a pod is a good opportunity to share how we are all experiencing and processing fear and injustice as this virus spreads.

PLUS: Anqa Khan joins us to talk about how our system of incarceration is punishing those who are in the system, how it is even worse in the time of covid and how prison abolition must happen now. Good news is, Anqa fills you in on how YOU can take action, because all of this, every bit, ties into reproductive justice! 

Listen up!!! 

Gathered in the Sleeper Cell

Lizz Winstead @lizzwinstead

Moji Alawode-El @mojilocks

Anqa Khan @anqakhan

Marie Khan @mkhanj

Reality Check- How Are Folks Doing?

Meaty Story

Reproductive Justice and the Prison Abolition Movement

SisterSong defines Reproductive Justice as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.

• https://www.sistersong.net/reproductive-justice
• Meanwhile, reproductive rights are the legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health that vary amongst communities

Rikers Island Prison and COVID19 

• https://www.gq.com/story/rikers-island-mass-grave
• https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/rikers-inmates-on-life-as-prisoners-of-the-coronavirus.html

Bodily Autonomy and Personhood

• Both prisons and legislative barriers to reproductive healthcare serve to rip people of their agency and bodily autonomy 
• Who gets to be a human? For how long? In what ways? 
• Who is personhood reserved for and when? 
• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/legal-sex-workers-denied-coronavirus-aid_n_5e86287ac5b6d302366ca912?fbclid=IwAR3UNxoFR6BcJFFazDoUXhCBH1O4qUzUXUCmncsqIUtF1S7gC1GAtQPzu98

Reproductive Health Behind Bars – a report by the ACLU

• https://www.aclunc.org/sites/default/files/Reproductive%20Health%20Behind%20Bars%20in%20California.pdf
  • Lack of access to abortions
  • Lack of access to menstrual products
  • Shackling during birth continues (federal law passed in 2018 to end it, but hasn’t been implemented fully)
  • Sexual violence

Forced Sterilization

• In 2013, the Center for Investigative Reporting found that at least 148 female inmates in California received tubal ligations without their consent between 2006 and 2010: https://talkpoverty.org/2017/08/23/u-s-still-forcibly-sterilizing-prisoners/
• https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/07/26/our-long-troubling-history-of-sterilizing-the-incarcerated 

Gender-Based Violence

• All of what we have discussed contributed to the criminalization of survivors — folks who experience gender-based violence are denied rights to their own body and well-being, just like folks who are experiencing barriers to accessing abortion. 
• Survived and Punished: https://survivedandpunished.org/
• Apr 5-11: #FreeThemAll National Virtual Week of Action: Defend Survivors, End Carceral Feminism
• Follow the AMAZING K @sheabutterfemme (the Twitters and the Insta)

Free Liyah Campaign in CA

• www.freeliyah.org 
• Petition: https://www.change.org/p/gavin-newsom-freeliyah
• Ethiopian immigrant woman who married a white man based in NC
• After enduring racist and gendered abuse, she shot in self defense and was sentenced to 6 years, after which she will be deported

Great Orgs to Follow and Support

• No New Jails NYC: https://www.nonewjails.nyc/
• Black and Pink: https://www.blackandpink.org/
• Critical Resistance: http://criticalresistance.org/
• Mariame Kaba (@prisonculture on Twitter)
• INCITE!: https://incite-national.org/
• Assata’s Daughters: https://www.assatasdaughters.org/
• The Bail Project: https://bailproject.org/ 

Required Reading

• All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence, by Emily L. Thuma
• Playing the Whore, by Melissa Gira Grant
• Are Prisons Obsolete?, by Angela Y. Davis
• Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, by Dorothy Roberts 
• Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century, by Brianna Theobald 

Announcements

Sign the Free Liyah Petition

• https://www.change.org/p/gavin-newsom-freeliyah

Phylis Schaflly Mini Series Coming Soon

• Special Abortion Acess Force Friday Night Recaps- watch for details on our social media!

Six Degrees of Abortion 

Self-managed face masks (https://www.instagram.com/p/B-gApbyAnY9/?igshid=u72l0v7vmmuv) > Lizz HAS AN ABORTION AF BRANDED HOMEMADE MASK (https://www.facebook.com/lizzwinstead) and you can peep the mask-maker’s other creations at http://www.theliberalartist.com/

All the housekeeping

• Write a review/ give us 5 stars
• Follow us on social @accessforce on Twitter/Instagram
• Email us at podcast@aaforce.org! 
• Edited by Brad Pearson, theme song by Cory Eischen, The Purple Xperience

DONATE TO Abortion Access Force/Feminist Sleeper Cell pod!!!!

MAY THE ABORTION ACCESS FORCE BE WITH YOU!

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