Statements from Endorsing Organizations

Patient Forward

The Beyond Do No Harm Principles are important to us because they center dignity and autonomy for all people, no matter their race, gender, class or pregnancy status. When someone decides to end their own pregnancy, they should be able to. They should have access to abortion care as soon as they need it. It should be safe and affordable. And no one should be punished for having an abortion or surveilled simply because they are pregnant. A state can do almost anything to a pregnant person to protect its interest in their pregnancy. Pregnant people are routinely screened for prenatal drug use in medical settings and reported to law enforcement. Agents of the family regulation system use behavior during pregnancy as evidence of neglect or abuse. This can result in child separation and termination of parental rights. States have arrested, prosecuted, and detained people because of their pregnancy status or pregnancy outcomes. We do not have to live like this. We should all be able to seek and obtain safe healthcare without fear of criminalization and punishment. And we cannot rest until that is true for Everyone.

Pregnancy Justice

These principles provide essential guidance for both broad values and specific actions that medical providers and public health advocates can take to protect and support the health and well being of our communities. They present a clear alternative to our current system, which often undermines health by permitting or inviting state intervention, especially for those most likely to be targeted for arrest, detention, and blame — low income people, people of color, and people who use drugs. We hope these principles are a starting point to push the conversation and build the community committed to the mandate to support health, well-being, and autonomy.

Elephant Circle

At Elephant Circle we are inspired by how elephants give birth, with the whole herd circling around to provide support and protection/defense. This is what all humans need during the perinatal period too, but sadly due to the intersection of criminalization and healthcare, too many pregnant people or people whose pregnancy has ended, are being drug tested without consent, reported via mandatory reporters, and threatened with policing, in a way that breaks trust and pushes them away from healthcare and toward further isolation and harm. These principles are a starting point for realigning health care with care so that people can truly experience a circle of support and protection when they most need it.

White Coats for Black Lives

WC4BL was formed in 2014 in response to multiple murders of Black people by the police, with the aim of bringing the fight against racism into the hospital. As medical trainees we have seen countless times how policing in healthcare can have severely negative or even fatal effects on our patients, particularly patients of color: whether it is inappropriate drug testing, opening child abuse cases, collaboration with ICE, or assault of patients by security forces. Ending racism in healthcare cannot be done without ending criminalization. We're proud to be part this effort.

Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work

The Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work (NAASW) works to grow and amplify a practice of social work that seeks to dismantle the prison industrial complex while building life affirming relations and practices. Through political education, research and organizing we work to bring a more abolitionist approach to social work. The current practice of social work is often complicit in sustaining our carceral society. Through practices like mandated reporting, collaborating with the police, and working as partners in the criminal legal system, social work often works to subjugate and control poor families, drug users, formerly and currently incarcerated folks and many others at the margins. For far too long social workers have served to buffer some of the harms of oppressive systems rather than organize for the society we need. Abolitionist social work calls into question the role of social workers and asks us to not only do no harm, but actively work to create the conditions for people to thrive. To create the world we need, we must work with and build upon the strengths of people and their communities. We must work towards a world where our people and communities are no longer the targets of surveillance, policing and imprisonment, but instead have the investments and resources needed to thrive. The Beyond Do No Harm Principles articulate and operationalize the practices of an abolitionist social work that social workers should be organizing for. We strongly endorse these principles and will work to make these principles a part of our own practice.

Abortion Access Front

Everyone deserves not only the right to bodily autonomy, but to privacy, dignity, and freedom from criminalization and investigation. People need to be able to trust their health care providers in order to receive quality care.

Abortion Access Front believes in a pregnant person's right to choose if, when, and how to end a pregnancy free from state interference and violence. Every person should be safe to access healthcare without fear of stigma, shame, or criminalization. Without these guarantees, no community will be safe from state-sanctioned violence and harm, and we must hold those who act as enforcers of criminalization to higher standards.

Resilience Coach, LLC

I am an Abolitionist Social Worker against Carceral Programs. I am also a Survivor of ACES, CPTSD, Suicide, Mental Illness, Substance Use and a victim of illegal Licensure Board oversite that violated State, Federal and UN Human Rights Laws.

Do No Harm Coalition

Do No Harm is a coalition of healers accompanying grassroots movements against poverty, homelessness, policing, and incarceration in San Francisco. We cannot heal others unless we work towards divesting from oppressive systems including those of criminalization. The Beyond Do No Harm Principles offer us a blueprint towards divesting from the carceral state and practicing abolition medicine.

DPH Must Divest

DPH Must Divest is committed towards ending the San Francisco Department of Health security contracts with the Sheriff, decriminalizing hospital policies, and building strong communities to keep each other safe. We want to build an environment in the hospital where conflicts are avoided through compassionate care and meeting people's needs upfront. When conflicts do arise, we want them handled by people skilled in deescalation and trauma informed care. This can only occur if we completely abolish all forms of policing within our health systems and invest in new, visionary models of community safety. The Beyond Do No Harm Principles not only work to consolidate movements fighting against criminalization in healthcare, but help us imagine a way forward together.

Bronx Móvil

As a mutual aid collective and harm reduction organization mobilizing to save lives, the war on drugs is personal. We move in solidarity activating public health on the streets. Harm reduction must be 24/7, in community, led by those impacted by the war on drugs, and culturally- and linguistically-centered. The 'Beyond Do No Harm Principles' are comprehensive linking how personal and community processes are linked to social-historical-systemic processes. Our liberation happens in the heart and with each other.

Como colectivo de ayuda mutua y organización de reducción de daños que se moviliza para salvar vidas, la guerra contra las drogas es personal. Nos movemos en solidaridad activando la salud pública en las calles. La reducción de daños debe ser 24 horas al día, 7 días a la semana, en comunidad, dirigida por aquellxs afectadxs por la guerra contra las drogas y centrada cultural y lingüísticamente. Los 'Principios de Más Allá de No Hacer Daño' son integrales y relacionan cómo los procesos personales y comunitarios están vinculados a los procesos sociales, históricos y sistémicos. Nuestra liberación ocurre en el corazón y entre nosotrxs.

Spiderweb Somatics

As a clinical therapist and somatic practitioner, non-carceral values have been a vital part of my practice nearly since beginning my private practice work in March 2020. As a nonbinary trans person, as well as a practitioner who has experienced severe harm in the mental health industrial complex, it is vital for me to uphold non carceral principles as a method of preventing harm. Many of my clients, especially my Black, indigenous, Latinx, and clients who are people of color, have experienced -significant- harm at the hands of law enforcement and all of their arms, up to and including social services and the mental health industrial complex. Therefore I have found it vital to divest myself from these ways of interacting and to create systems that actually support my clients. I have had a commitment from the beginning to never involve law enforcement and criminal systems when working with clients. The 13 principles that Interrupt Crim and Beyond Do No Harm are espousing are principles I have been personally upholding for the past 2.5 years for my clients. I am thrilled to actually integrate into a community that holds these values strongly and is working towards further implementation.

Nurse Midwives of San Francisco General

These principles are important to us as a midwifery service for several reasons. Firstly, we believe in reproductive justice which requires us to advocate for and support what our patients and their families need to thrive, both inside and outside the healthcare system. And avoiding criminalization and exposure to state violence for our communities, particularly by our own hand, is a critical and necessary action. These principles provide a clear roadmap and are focused not just on the humanity of our patients but on our own as well. We acknowledge our complicitness in these systems of oppression, and we humbly step in to this space of action and accountability. Thank you.

The Bloom Collective

We believe that Abolition is a critical component of Reproductive Justice as a framework and way of being in right relationship to build a world anew. It challenges us to move beyond doing the harm we have been socialized and groomed into, and find on roads to to be the "Otherwise possibilities."

Trans Lifeline

We run a peer support and crisis hotline for trans people that has been divested from police, 911 and forced hospitalization since our inception. In a community that struggles with suicidality due to state violence, medical discrimination, and so much more, we understand that experiencing mental health crises are normal responses to structural violence. Carceral care is not a solution.

Abolition in Psychiatry

We are a collective of psychiatrists in training and practice, mental health workers, community activists, and people with lived experiences of mental illness who seek to collectively advance abolition and decarceration within mental health care through education and advocacy within medical institutions. We are grateful for the work that has been done to create these principles, as it allows us to build on and expand this work within our own community.

CAR Twin Cities

As members of the Twin Cities Chapter of the Campaign Against Racism, we collectively acknowledge George Floyd’s murder by the Minneapolis Police Department as another abhorrent outcome of over 400 years of racial capitalism and settler colonialism. As health workers and educators, we commit to personal and professional interrogation of our complicity in perpetuating systems of oppression that devalue black and indigenous life. We seek to build a culture with practices that hold us and our professions accountable to our complicity, expands our capacity to hold discomfort and deeply listen, and centers coalition-building with community partners. We recognize that this involves cognitive, bodily, relational, and organizational work that collectively strengthens us to support the struggle for police abolition, to participate in the care of black and other marginalized communities in partnership with other healers, and to support mutual aid networks in the Twin Cities.

Pregnancy Options Wisconsin: Education, Resources, & Support, Inc.

POWERS believes in trusting pregnant people. We trust pregnant people as the authority over their lives and health. There is no place in health care for criminalization of pregnant people, their health practices or decisions, or their partnership with the practitioner of their choice. We oppose all criminalization of pregnant bodies in health care.

Healthy and Free Tennessee

As an organization steeped in abolition, reproductive justice, and southern liberation, we have seen first hand how policing in all forms has harmed Tennesseans, especially Black and brown Tennesseans. We need cops out of care; we need healing systems that don't uphold or feed existing carceral and family policing systems. We need everyone to interrogate their role in policing and make a concrete plan to end their involvement with carceral systems. All people should be able to live healthy and free lives without fear of surveillance, policing, and criminalization.

Positive Women's Network-USA

Criminalization is never a solution to health challenges. Positive Women’s Network is a national membership body led by and for women, trans and non-binary people living with HIV. We know that a public health response rooted in policing and criminalization not only undermines our health and human rights, but jeopardizes the long-term survival of our communities. For decades, we’ve had lived experiences of surveillance — how our bodies are tracked and counted, attempts to contain us — policing and criminalization — as in the case of HIV criminalization. We know these practices are neither neutral nor accountable in supporting the health and well-being of our communities.

Health Not Prisons Collective

These principles are so important because at the heart of each of these forms of criminalization that the principles call attention to, there lies an ideology and a desire to control the bodies, freedom, human rights and autonomy of people who are BIPOC, queer, trans and femme. This is about hatred for Blackness and brownness and indigeneity. This is about contempt for women. This is about feeling threatened by joy and liberation, truth and authenticity and Pride. This is about fear of our growing and collective power. As a Collective that is committed to decarcerating public health and building an intersectional, BIPOC-led response to HIV criminalization, we cannot call for end to HIV criminalization without calling for an end of these other intersecting forms of criminalization as well. People living with HIV deserve to lead healthy and dignified lives free from the fear of criminalization and these principles capture that vision perfectly.

QueerDoc

Gender affirming care is part of bodily autonomy and human rights. Criminalization of trans bodies violates human rights and our founding principles of equality for all. QueerDoc recognizes that our ethical obligations supersedes our legal in the case of unjust and unconstitutional laws as supported by the American Medical Association's Code of Ethics. We will continue to provide life-saving, medically-necessary, evidence-based care.

P.U.L.S.E.

The reality is, people have used drugs throughout human history. Some people use drugs frequently, some people use drugs infrequently, and no matter what they are all people. As a collective of people who use drugs, we advocate for effective systems of care and help that are based in reality, not in judgement, punishment and morality.

If/When/How

Criminalization as a practice does not belong in medical care. Medical providers should not be forced to surveil and police their patients while giving care. Pregnant people and ALL people deserve to seek health care privately and confidentially, without fear. Supporting, not reporting.

Harm Reduction Nurses Association

The Harm Reduction Nurses Association (HRNA) strongly endorses the Beyond Do No Harm Principles for several reasons. First, they align with the mission and values of the HRNA. Our mission is to promote the advancement of harm reduction nursing through practice, education, research, and advocacy. We strive to achieve our mission through the following actions:

Serving as a national voice for harm reduction and related nursing issues
Promoting education and continuous learning opportunities for nurses
Providing opportunities to share nursing knowledge, expertise and practices
Encouraging evidence-based harm reduction nursing practices
Creating a dynamic network to support and mentor nurses across the country
Advocating for the creation and implementation of harm reduction policies
Working collaboratively with partners to address structural conditions that create harms
Advocating for the rights and dignity of people who use drugs and their families

Moreover, we at the HRNA know the harms of criminalization inflicted on individuals and communities, and we have sounded the alarm on matters such as police violence, forced treatment, involuntary detention, and prohibition since our inception. We are nurses who work directly with individuals who are harmed daily by criminalization and its many forms. Advocating for the rights and dignity of people who use drugs and their families necessitates challenging laws and policies that cause harm. Our mandate focuses on supporting nurses, people who use drugs and their families, but we know the impacts of criminalization are far-reaching. We know the roots of the “War on Drugs” are colonialism, racism, white supremacy, neoliberalism, and misogyny. We must strengthen our advocacy by joining others in solidarity. That is why we are endorsing the Beyond Do No Harm Principles.

Beyond Do No Harm Organizational Endorsements

Endorsing Organizations