rePROs Fight Back

Abortion funds are grassroots organizations that are locally rooted and predominately volunteer-powered. They aid in removing financial and logistical barriers that people face when trying to access abortion care, while simultaneously advocating against the political and cultural barriers that make their work necessary. Abortion funds pay for abortions, pay for and organize transportation to appoi...

Often when we have conversations that feature both reproductive health and rights and faith, it seems the two subjects are diametrically opposed. But thanks to the large amount of diversity in the faith community, many individuals, communities, and organizations are supportive of bridging the gap between faith and reproductive health and rights! Reverend Katey Zeh , Executive Director for the Reli...

In Malawi, 2 in 5 sexually active unmarried women have an unmet need for contraception. In Zimbabwe, fewer than half of adolescents have comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS. And each year, one million Tanzanian women have an unintended pregnancy. Thandie Msukuma from Malawi, Dr. Lilian Benjamin Mwakyosi from Tanzania, and Hilda Zenda from Zimbabwe, advocates from the Center for Health and Gende...

Over the past couple of weeks, state legislatures around the U.S. have been passing six week bans, otherwise known as “heartbeat bans”. These extreme and unconstitutional abortion laws seek to ban the legal procedure once a fetal heart tone in an embryo is detected, which can be as early as six weeks in pregnancy. Jessica Pieklo , Vice President of Law and Courts at Rewire.news and co-host of the...

The language and the words we use to describe essential sexual and reproductive health services and issues is extremely important. For women of color, the ability to realize and control their reproductive health and autonomy is often impacted by other factors like race, poverty, sexism, and more. Jessica Pinckney , Vice President of Government Affairs at In Our Own Voice: the National Black Women’...

The law in Nigeria only allows abortion in the case of a woman’s life being in danger. Studies in Nigeria have shown that this restrictive law actually increases rates of abortion rather than lowering them. Hauwa Shekarau , the country director with Ipas Nigeria, talks to us about the current and major task of working to reduce maternal deaths due to unsafe abortions, reduce complications from uns...

Everybody who is of voting age has the right to register to vote, vote in an election, and have their votes accurately tallied. It might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about it, but voting rights are an important part of reproductive health, rights, and justice. Marcela Howell , President and CEO of In Our Own Voice: the National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda,...

Criminalization drives stigma, harms public health, and violates human rights. The imposition of criminal penalties exist across the U.S. and around the world, and it creates barriers to adequate and comprehensive health care for many populations . Beirne Roose-Snyder from the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) and Preston Mitchum from Advocates for Youth sit down with us to discuss how...

We have previously talked about how the Trump administration is working to reshape the federal judiciary by implementing anti-choice and anti-science judges throughout the judiciary system in the U.S. Today, Brigitte Amiri with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) talks to us about important abortion-related cases that are currently working their way through the court system, and how these ca...

Last year, the Trump-Pence administration removed information on reproductive health and rights from the State Department’s annual Human Rights Reports, effectively communicating that reproductive rights are not human rights. Stephanie Schmid with the Center for Reproductive Rights talks to us about the removal of reproductive health and rights information from the annual Human Rights Reports and...

It’s no secret that abortion access and reproductive healthcare have been under attack in the U.S. recently. Some states, like New York, are currently counteracting these attacks on healthcare, while some states are leaning in and using anti-abortion legislation to their advantage. Elizabeth Nash and Megan Donovan from the Guttmacher Institute sit down with us to discuss what abortion access curre...

Sexual and reproductive health and rights discussions, especially in today’s world, can often be depressing, bleak, or just a bit of a downer. But on January 22nd, the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, New York recently passed proactive legislation called the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), which modernizes a state law that previously limited when people could access legal abortion care. Laura McQua...

Any conversation we have about reproductive health, reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy, or abortion should include detailed discussions of all of the available options on how abortion care can be accessed-- and that includes self-managed abortion. Self-managed abortion is not a new concept, but it has been historically accessed in unsafe and secretive ways. With the current administration’s con...

It is critical that young people around the world are engaged and informed on sexual and reproductive health and rights. Uganda has one of the youngest populations in the world, with over 75 percent of the population under the age of 35. Maureen Andinda with Reach a Hand Uganda chats with us about the importance of young people’s knowledge of sexual and reproductive health and young people’s role...

Over the past year, sexual and reproductive health and rights have endured unending attacks from the administration, Congress, and state legislatures. This year, women and girls around the country have watched as access to vital reproductive health services, and funding have hung in the balance. Jacqueline Ayers with Planned Parenthood reviews 2018 with us, and talks through the ups and downs of S...

The Trump administration is reshaping our judicial landscape. During his time in office, Trump has sent 157 judicial nominees to the Senate, which is bad news for reproductive and sexual health and rights. To help explain the sometimes daunting task of understanding the federal judiciary system under Trump, we're excited to have Kate Ryan from NARAL Pro-Choice America sit down with us!  Suppo...

Betsy DeVos, the United States Secretary of Education, has proposed changes to Title IX, a federal civil rights law which is meant to protect students from sex discrimination within education programs. These changes would severely undermine the rights of sexual assault survivors. Shiwali Patel with National Women’s Law Center helps us understand the dangers these changes to Title IX may bring.  Th...

For clarity, these show notes and this podcast episode will be inclusive of undocumented immigrants and immigrants with legal status.  In the United States today, there are more than 8 million citizens who live with at least one family member who may be undocumented. Yesenia Chavez with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH) and Jaclyn Dean with the National Asian Pacific Am...

This week we are doing something a little different. We talked to a number of amazing SRHR heroes to hear their story of how they got into working in the reproductive justice or sexual and reproductive health and rights space.  We talked with:  Bergen Cooper, Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) Jennie Wetter, rePROs Fight Back and Population Institute Jonathan Rucks, PAI Yesenia Chavez, N...

SRHR isn’t just about domestic and international policies on gender-based violence, unintended pregnancy and STI’s. While that’s very important, pleasure is also a critical part of sexual and reproductive health and rights! Bergen Cooper from the Center for Health and Gender Equity sits down to talk to us about why pleasure matters when discussing reproductive health. Support the show Follow Us on...

September 30, 2018, marked the 42nd anniversary of the Hyde Amendment. It’s no secret that abortion care can be a costly expense for women around the country. As a result of the Hyde Amendment, about 7.4 million women ages 15-49 who have health insurance through Medicaid cannot use their insurance to cover abortion in most circumstances. Kelsey Ryland with All* Above All sits down with us to discu...

So we say this a podcast about all things repro, but it's actually about all things sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). SRHR is the sum of rights and health issues that are related to human reproduction. Sexual health, sexual rights, reproductive health and reproductive rights are a complex and intersecting set of issues that address full control over individual’s sexual and rep...

Comprehensive sexuality education refers to sequential learning between grades K-12, where young people are building education and skills related to medically-accurate and scientific topics that are age, developmentally, and culturally appropriate and related to a host of sexual health issues. These issues include human development, healthy relationships, communication, pregnancy and reproduction,...

Crisis Pregnancy Centers are centers that exist to deter pregnant women from receiving abortions. They provide pregnancy tests, anti-abortion counseling and material resources for pregnant women. There are an estimated 2,750 Crisis Pregnancy Centers serving 2.3 million people in the United States today. This number might seem high, but it is actually a low and out of date estimate from 2010. In th...

Title X is the national family planning and reproductive health program for low income women and men enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970. The bipartisan program was intended to combat the war on poverty; low income women were having more children than higher income women, due to poor access to contraception and its high costs. Title X was created to equalize...