Indian Country Women Respond to the Overthrow of Roe c. wade
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By Native News Online Staff
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Women across India are reacting to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Here are some of their public statements on the matter.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo: Today’s ruling is a shameful step backwards that seeks to disempower women by micromanaging our bodies. The women of this country deserve better. Congress must act.
Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota Peggy Flanagan, White Earth Band of Ojibwe: Our administration will continue to do everything in its power to protect the right of people to make their own decisions about reproductive health. In Minnesota, your reproductive rights will remain protected.
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U.S. Representative Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk: This is no longer hyperbole or assumption. For 50 years we have been protected from the most extreme attempts to control people’s decisions about their bodies, but now that protection is gone and Kansas is at a major decision point. Are we going to sit idly by as Kansas joins a wave of states with extreme bans with no exceptions? Or are we going to let it be known that in Kansas we support women and access to health care – and we believe that politicians have no right to take away a person’s right to choose? I urge people to carefully consider what is at stake. I will always work to protect the Kansans’ right to choose, beginning by voting no on the amendment to remove existing protections from our state constitution in August.
Marie Peltola, Yup’ik, congressional candidate, Alaska (D): It is with great concern that I rise to the floor and express my grief at today’s Supreme Court ruling reversing Roe v. Wade. Those who try to take away our rights always underestimate our strength. Alaska legalized abortion before Roe became the law of the land. You have to protect it afterwards.
Sarah Cerf, a lawyer for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Kansas: If you’re suggesting that tribal nations will be your savior for abortions and you don’t know what what is the Hyde Amendment, so stop tweeting about it. this. Your ignorance is astounding.
Stacy Leeds, ᏣᎳᎩ, professor of law at Arizona State University: At the heart of their success, the colonizers seized bodily autonomy. I know deep in my heart/soul that Cherokee men do not control Cherokee women’s bodies by government force. Tribal sovereignty + bodily sovereignty are intertwined. When one leaves, so does the other. Like me, a woman can conclude by her faith, her values and her intellect that life is sacred at the beginning and at the end. If my sisters come to a different conclusion based on their situation and their truth, I will love them, support them, and fight for them.
Arlyssa D. BecentiDiné Reporter and Native Affairs Reporter at Arizona Central: If we lived in a matrilineal society like the Navajo, we wouldn’t have any of these problems.
Abigail Echo-HawkPawnee director of the Urban Indian Health Institute: Native people have always chosen and will always choose despite colonial hands trying to control our bodies #choice
Holly Guise Atiġa Miowak/Mayuġiak Iñupiaq historian: This quote about what the ‘founding fathers’ ‘wanted’ highlights how patriarchy continues to operate in government from its inception until today and also how colonialism is based on the vagueness of a story of state origin.
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