Abstract
Over the last 30 years, conservative power in the United States, financed and organized by Christian fundamentalist sects, the Catholic Church, and conservative corporate and political leadership, has become more threatening and potentially destabilizing of progressive democratic principles and practices. Powerful interlocking political, financial and social forces are arrayed against women in many Southern and Western states. They are having destructive effects on women's ability to control their fertility and maintain bodily integrity and health. Poor women and women of color are disproportionately affected by restrictions on abortion services. Strategically developed interventions must be initiated and managed at every level in these localities. It is urgent to coordinate and empower individuals, multiple organizations and communities to engender effective changes in attitudes, norms, behavior and policies that will enable women to obtain reproductive health services, including abortion care. This paper describes contextual factors that continue to decimate U.S. women's right to health and, then, describes a community organizing-social action project in a number of US' states aimed at reversing the erosion of women's right to have or not to have children.
Highlights
Over the past 30 years, intensifying in the last decade, Christian fundamentalists and the Catholic Church in some United States’ Southern and Western states have mobilized congregants, funds, political campaigns, and legislative and judicial support to effectively transform private religious norms and morality about sex and family structure into public law
Organizers offered financial and practical assistance to agencies to develop new ways to meet these needs. Such supports provided to diverse organizations that serve women and their families enabled them to initiate or strengthen reproductive health referrals and services for their clients
Concluding statement In environments where powerful, wealthy conservatives use religion to influence political decision-making and shape and maintain social norms, it is necessary to develop a critical mass of individuals and diverse organizations that together can and will: (1) offer reproductive health services or referrals to providers and, eventually, (2) support advocates at the sate level
Summary
Over the past 30 years, intensifying in the last decade, Christian fundamentalists and the Catholic Church in some United States’ Southern and Western states have mobilized congregants, funds, political campaigns, and legislative and judicial support to effectively transform private religious norms and morality about sex and family structure into public law. Organizers offered financial and practical assistance to agencies to develop new ways to meet these needs Such supports provided to diverse organizations that serve women and their families enabled them to initiate or strengthen reproductive health referrals and services for their clients. Without a critical mass of engaged communities and organizations, legislation will remain under the control of powerful state conservatives and their fundamentalist enablers They will continue to disregard the reproductive health care needs of women, trample on constitutional rights, and demolish the separation between private, individual religious beliefs and government’s public health responsibility. Concluding statement In environments where powerful, wealthy conservatives use religion to influence political decision-making and shape and maintain social norms, it is necessary to develop a critical mass of individuals and diverse organizations that together can and will: (1) offer reproductive health services or referrals to providers and, eventually, (2) support advocates at the sate level. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests
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