Good news has become exceedingly rare in the past few months, and so I’m especially happy to share this positive news for racial and reproductive justice worldwide.

Today, Rep. Jan Schakowsky introduced an historic bill to repeal the Helms Amendment—a racist policy that has denied access to abortion to Black and brown women around the world for nearly 50 years. The Abortion is Health Care Everywhere Act would save lives and help ensure that women and girls can make their own reproductive health decisions.

In case you weren’t aware, the Helms Amendment limits the use of U.S. foreign assistance funds for abortion, which has been interpreted and implemented as a total ban on abortion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen that harmful U.S. policies like this only accentuate health inequities and deny marginalized people—including women of color and young people—access to essential health-care services.

The bottom line is that racial justice and reproductive justice are intertwined. Historically and globally, Black and brown communities have been denied both, due to colonialism, white supremacy and ideological policies like the Helms Amendment. And we cannot
hope to achieve health equity and reproductive justice if U.S. policies like Helms continue.

I invite you to learn more about the Abortion is Health Care Everywhere Act and see how you can help make it a reality.