Our Why

Here is what’s happening

it is heartbreaking and not acceptable

Why is this happening /what we know about the issue

Why is this happening?

THE ROOT PROBLEM IS

Unjust, racist systems policies and practices built over centuries, that and are constantly being renewed.

This manifests as women unheard, unseen, untrusted, isolated, mistreated​, and undervalued.

Contributing to disparate birth outcomes for Black and Hispanic/Latine women, birthing persons and babies.

OUR ANALYSIS

How we understand the problem and solutions

  • Birth inequities are a systems, structural, sociopolitical issue​

  • Oppressions manifest as women unheard, unseen, untrusted, isolated, mistreated​

  • Better healthcare will not eliminate inequities​

  • Intentionally built, poor and disparate birth outcomes can also be prevented

  • They are the result of intersecting oppressions: patriarchy, misogyny, racism and many others

WE RECOGNIZE THAT:

  • Collective action across issues and identities, joined by what we share

  • ​Embodied values-based practice​

  • Power with not power over, always holding ourselves accountability to our community​

BASED ON THIS, WE SEEK CHANGE

IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS:

We ground our work in Reproductive Justice,

human rights, and intersectionality frameworks,

guided by the lived experiences

of Black and Latine birthing people.

Our work is rooted in the belief that birthing people hold the wisdom, power, and insight needed to transform not only their care but the systems that surround them. These frameworks help us understand how power works across race, gender, class, and place. 

They lift up the complexity and diverse realities of Black and Latiné birthing people, center lived experiences and community wisdom in co-creating solutions, reclaim radical and caring practices that are decolonized and non-extractive, and model ways of caring that operate outside of traditional systems to model alternatives that shift norms.

WE SEEK TO TRANSFORM AND DIRUPT

EXISTING SYSTEMS OF OPPRESSION

By Practicing:

An embodied values-based practice

Collective action across issues and identities

Liberatory economic and investing relationships