Open Letter re: Abortion Rights

Written by Jessica Engelking

An Open Letter to Iowa Representatives,

In light of the recently leaked Supreme Court document, it is vitally important that our legislators act now to codify the right to abortion. As an Indigenous, community-driven organization, we are compelled to speak out on this issue, as Indigenous people will be disproportionately harmed by the repeal of Roe vs. Wade. Furthermore, we reject any and all efforts by the White-Christian settler-colonial heteropatriarchy to impose authority over our Indigenous bodies.

Indigenous people have been fighting the colonization of our bodies and our families for as long as we’ve been fighting colonization. Our history includes periods of time when we were denied our humanity and our right to bodily autonomy. Our children were taken, our babies were stolen, we were sterilized without consent. Still today, our children are removed from homes and are disturbingly overrepresented in the foster care system. This is a fight we’ve been fighting for centuries. While we’re not about to give up, we need everyone to come together to ensure that all people have the right to control over their own body.

We are coming at the need for guaranteed legal abortion rights from an Indigenous standpoint. We hope that people across Iowa reach out and express the need for abortion rights from their own perspective. Everyone knows someone who has had an abortion, or will need an abortion. Moreover, everyone has a body. We know what it’s like to make decisions about our body, or what it feels like to have things happen to our bodies that we didn’t choose. We know what it’s like to have to make difficult decisions about our bodies. And we know that those decisions are ours to make, and that our right to make decisions about our body is not something that anyone should be able to take from us.

It is so important that we act now to legally guarantee the right to abortion. Representatives need to take action to see that abortion rights are written into law. Given the state of our legislature, it’s sadly likely that laws preserving the legal right to abortion will be passed. We need to try though. We need to make it clear that this is a right we will not stop fighting for.

Great Plains Action Society