One of the most powerful ways of standing up for important policy issues, like reproductive health care, is getting political on social media. When you just can't find the words to accurately express your rage/anxiety/gratitude, why not share quotes about reproductive rights by people who can explain it even better?
You'd think that reproductive justice is something everyone would agree on, but as we've seen recently (as well as for, well, an awful of history), it's not. It seems as though every day, Donald Trump's administration takes another step toward stripping the rights away from people to obtain reproductive health care — whether that's low-cost abortions, emergency contraception, or family planning services.
Besides working toward repealing the Affordable Care Act, Trump recently signed an executive order reinstating the "Global Gag Rule," which forbids foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from using funding from the United States to help pay for abortions and counseling on abortions (or anything to do with abortions, for that matter). There's also talk of overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that anchored down abortion rights, something that many people thought would never happen again.
If we're being honest, though, reproductive rights has always been a contentious issue even before Donald Trump was elected as president of the United States. Fighting for reproductive justice is a centuries-long struggle, and it's not going away today, tomorrow, or even next year.
Here are 17 quotes that you, as a social justice activist, can share with people about why reproductive rights matter:
1"For most women, including women who want to have children, contraception is not an option; it is a basic health care necessity."
2"Reproductive freedom is not just the ability not to have a child through birth control. It's the ability to have one if and when you want."
3"Listen to the pregnant woman. Value her. She values the life growing inside her. Listen to the pregnant woman, and you cannot help but defend her right to abortion."
4"The truth is women use contraception not only as a way to prevent unintended pregnancies, but also to improve their health and the health of their families. Increased access to contraception is directly linked to declines in maternal and infant mortality."
5"Women are not an interest group. They are mothers and daughters, and sisters and wives. They are half of this country and they are perfectly capable of making their own choices about their health."
6"Reproductive freedom is critical to a whole range of issues. If we can’t take charge of this most personal aspect of our lives, we can’t take care of anything. It should not be seen as a privilege or as a benefit, but a fundamental human right."
7"At Planned Parenthood, we see the impact of abortion stigma firsthand, in the women who delay getting reproductive health care because they fear they’ll be labeled and judged. We see the effect of stigma on doctors, health center staffers, and others who help provide abortion services. And we see the impact in laws that regulate and restrict abortion in ways that would never happen with any other medical procedure."
8"We cannot confront the massive challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental destruction unless we address issues of population and reproductive health."
9"No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body."
10"If we lived in a culture that valued women’s autonomy and in which men and women practiced cooperative birth control, the abortion issue would be moot."
11"The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control."
12"As a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women are a crucial part of that. It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society."
13"To be clear, reproductive justice is not a label —it’s a mission. It describes our collective vision: a world where all people have the social, political, and economic power and resources to make healthy decisions about gender, bodies, sexuality, reproduction, and families for themselves and their communities."
14"We want far better reasons for having children than not knowing how to prevent them."
15"Defending women’s health means defending access to abortion — not just in theory, but in reality. We know that restricting access doesn’t make women less likely to end a pregnancy. It just makes abortion less safe. And that then threatens women’s lives."
