Tobin-Tyler on "Abortion Rights and the Child Welfare System: How Dobbs Exacerbates Existing Racial Inequities and Further Traumatizes Black Families"

Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler has published Abortion Rights and the Child Welfare System: How Dobbs Exacerbates Existing Racial Inequities and Further Traumatizes Black Families in volume 51 of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. Here is an excerpt on how to advocate for Black families post-Dobbs:

Abortion rights organizations are now working to support women living in states with bans or restrictions to obtain abortions in states where abortion is still legal and to access self-managed medication abortion. But many women will be unable to obtain an abortion when they want or need one. Given this fact, an advocacy agenda must be built around supporting mothers and children, defending them from unjust CPS intervention, and promoting access to reproductive healthcare. This agenda should be grounded in reproductive justice which accounts for and calls out racism and other forms of oppression that trample human rights and affirms that women not only have the right to decide if and when to have children, but also “to parent the children they have in safe and sustainable communities.” This includes freedom from state removal of their children due to structural racism and poverty.

Now that anti-abortion policymakers have achieved their wish, they must be held accountable for the effects of abortion bans on women, children and communities. Reproductive justice requires an intersectional approach to the myriad ways in which policy choices affect marginalized people. The voices of affected women who can speak to the reality of what abortion bans mean--including the impact of forced birth, parenting an unwanted child in poverty, experiencing CPS involvement and child removal--should be prioritized and promoted by advocates. Building coalitions with those seeking economic justice and child welfare system reform will broaden the constituency base and call attention to the ramifications of failing to enact policies that invest in families. Academic researchers and policy analysts should support community-based advocates by tracking the evidence linking abortion bans to increases in poverty and CPS caseloads.

* * * Ultimately, reform will only be possible through acknowledgement of the structural racism inherent in multiple systems, most profoundly, the child welfare system. * * * Post-Dobbs, the call to action to replace the current child welfare system with one framed by reproductive justice--which encompasses racial justice, gender justice, economic justice, and human rights--is more important than ever.