Black people deserve dignity and respect when choosing whether to have a child or not but they’re not getting it. Nearly 48 years later, lawmakers around the nation are still working to overturn Roe v. Wade and pass legislation with unconstitutional abortion bans and restrictions across the country, especially in the South and Midwest.

Consequently, pregnant people are forced to live in fear that an abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, or simply doing or not doing something during pregnancy could result in civil and/or criminal consequences that lead to arrest, prosecution, prison sentences, allegations of child abuse, neglect, loss of parental rights, death and more.  

At least 1,200 people, but likely many more, around the United States have been prosecuted and punished for actions or inactions that would not be considered crimes if they were not pregnant.

That’s why solutions grounded in Reproductive Justice are essential. We must demand an end to the systems that seek to oppress and restrict access to unbiased and equitable health care.

ADD YOUR NAME: Join us as we make our demands clear: Local prosecutors across the country have a responsibility to prioritize internal policies that are rooted in Reproductive Justice and resources that institute an anti-racist model of health care.

See the full letter here: https://liberatedbodies.org

Here is the Petition:

As a prosecutor, you have the power to enact policies and infrastructure that could discourage law enforcement from arresting pregnant people based on the circumstances of their births and alleviate the fear that an abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, or other possible variation of a pregnancy outcome could result in a prison sentence. To that end, we are calling on you to commit to the following: 

• Firm commitment to not prosecute abortion as well as other pregnancy outcomes and a public stance reaffirming this position. 
• A declination policy that ensures child-bearers will not be prosecuted for their pregnancy outcomes and that feticide laws will not be used as a proxy for punishing pregnancy loss, including but not limited to:
• Refusing to prosecute pregnant people related to miscarriages, stillbirths, or any form of pregnancy loss.
• Refusing to prosecute pregnant people related to actions during pregnancy, including medically-assisted or self-managed abortion, drug use/possession/distribution during pregnancy where the fetus, embryo, or fertilized egg is the alleged recipient, attempted suicide, fighting, or car accidents.
• Refusing to prosecute pregnant people for alleged inactions during pregnancy, for not obtaining or consenting to medical treatment, not reporting a pregnancy loss or outcome or actions or omissions of people who are often victims, characterized as a failure to protect their fetus, embryo, fertilized egg or child.
• A plan to train all staff in the district attorney office on a recurring basis and through publicly available training materials on the systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence regularly inflicted on Black child-bearers.
• Funding community-based and community birth organizations working to improve maternal health outcomes for Black, brown, and Indigenous women.