Principle #8: Stop supporting prosecution in cases against people who manage their own care or offer community-based care, fail to seek care, refuse care, or fail to disclose their private medical information
SUBSECTIONS
Why
Invitation / Action
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Reflection Questions
Reflect
Research
Practice
Imagine
Return to 13 Principles
Why
When people seek reproductive health care or other care outside of medical systems, it is usually because they didn’t have access to or trust in health care inside those systems
Criminalizing people who provide or receive care outside the system doesn’t help anything – it drives them into more limited options
People deserve safe and accessible abortion care, gender affirming care and other procedures driven into the informal economy by high prices and criminalization
Invitation / Action
Do not support prosecution of self-managed care cases
Support colleagues who are penalized for not participating in prosecution
Change laws around self-managed care and make legal care more safe, affordable, and accessible
Read More
Abortion Decriminalization is Part of the Larger Struggle Against Policing and Criminalization - Interrupting Criminalization
Resisting Criminalization of Reproductive Autonomy Policy Dos and Don’ts - Interrupting Criminalization
We Must Fight in Solidarity with Trans Youth - Interrupting Criminalization
Read about the work of TLDEF, Transgender Law Center, If/When/How
Reflection Questions
Reflect
Reflect on the reasons that someone might choose to manage their own care or seek community-based care. Is it safe for all community members to access care in formal medical care systems? Why or why not?
Research
Read up on the history of formal vs. informal care, professionalization and licensing and the factors driving this, through the lens of the history of US midwifery: Constructing the Modern American Midwife: White Supremacy and White Feminism Collide
Make a list of the kinds of care are not available to people in your community (i.e. abortion care, trans health care, care for migrants, care for pregnant drug users, mental health care for uninsured people, etc.) How might people in these situations seek to manage their own care? How might that lead to criminalization?
Read ‘We Testify Abortion Comics’
What ways have people self-managed abortions historically and currently?
How does criminalization impact self-managed care?
Practice
Think through how you might support a friend or a family member navigating a self-managed abortion.
If you are a clinician, review these clinical recommendations from the Society of Family Planning regarding self-managed abortions, and how to provide non-judgmental, compassionate care
Imagine
What might it look like for everyone to access the care they need in the way they want to access it, where they want to access it? Paint a picture with words or images of a community where care is available in all forms at all times to all people in ways that honor agency, self-determination, consent, and the right to accessible and high quality care? What is needed to make this vision real? What is one step you can take today toward that vision?