End of Roe will have dire consequences in Louisiana, particularly for Black, brown and poor people
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling will result in the death, impoverishment and incarceration of women and birthing people here in Louisiana. It will disproportionately rob Black and brown people of control over their bodies, medical decisions and of that life-changing, personal decision of if and when to become a parent.
The parallels to laws restricting bodily autonomy under slavery, Jim Crow, and the War on Drugs are no accident, nor are the parallels to the current push to control the bodies of trans people. Patriarchy and white supremacy function in part by criminalizing already oppressed communities in order to maintain the dominance of white, cisgender men. The Supreme Court’s decision provides another lever in this system of domination by subjugating birthing people to the whims, racism and medical ignorance of state legislators.
Foundation for Louisiana condemns this cruel decision and calls on our elected leaders, at every level of government, to take action to protect the fundamental rights of all people to privacy and bodily autonomy. The coming days will be particularly hard in Louisiana, where the court’s decision meant an immediate stop to abortion care. Furthermore, the years-long effort to hollow out our social safety net has left Black birthing people more likely to die from childbirth in Louisiana than in nearly any other state and four times more likely than their white neighbors. In the face of these injustices, we look to the leadership of partners like the Louisiana Coalition for Reproductive Freedom who have been working on the frontlines of reproductive justice. The people that will be the most impacted by this decision have the most experience caring for one another in the face of criminalization, and we will stand with and support our partners until the right to bodily autonomy is restored for all Louisianans.