Statement on the Overturning of Roe v.Wade From the Core Faculty of Gender Studies
June 28, 2022.
As scholars of Gender Studies we are deeply disturbed by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. When people are stripped of their right to control their own bodies, a ruling that will inevitably harm the most marginalized first, we cannot stay silent. Gender Studies strongly endorses the statement on reproductive justice of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW) https://csw.ucla.edu/2022/06/24/statement-on-reproductive-justice/.
The Department of Gender Studies pledges to ensure that our students have an opportunity to explore and understand the root consequences of denying access to abortion and become familiar with the centuries of resistance by women and minoritized peoples against legal efforts to deny bodily and reproductive autonomy.
This statement represents the views of the core faculty in the Department of Gender Studies, UCLA.
CSW Statement:
Statement on Reproductive Justice
June 24, 2022/News
The UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW) affirms reproductive justice as foundational to our core values and mission, and we pledge our recommitment to protecting and advancing reproductive justice principles. We follow the lead of SisterSong, a Black women-led organization that 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.” In the wake of decades of assaults on reproductive autonomy, the most recent of which is today’s devastating Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn federal abortion rights, we join organizations like SisterSong in recognizing that communities already rendered vulnerable by poverty, racialized and carceral violence, and settler colonialism are most affected by the lack of access to safe, affordable abortion. This decision cements the control, criminalization, and abandonment of reproductive capacities that have already exacerbated premature death, constrained life chances, and devastated our most precarious communities. In response, we reaffirm our commitment to a broad and ambitious vision to protect and transform all the structural conditions required to ensure reproductive justice.
The statements on this page represent the views of the Director, Associate Director, Executive Board, and staff of the Center for the Study of Women and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of California, UCLA, or its Chancellor.
