Yesterday, a midwife in Texas and her team member were arrested for allegedly providing abortion care in their communities. Lupe M. Rodríguez, Executive Director of National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, Jamarah Amani, Executive Director of Southern Birth Justice Network, and Dr. Jamila Perritt, President & CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health respond:
“As we navigate the ongoing threats from an anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, anti-autonomy Trump Administration and the leadership of states restrictive to accessing health care, we know that our communities stay safe and healthy when they can rely on holistic models of care. This will always include the expert and compassionate support of caregivers like midwives, doulas, nurses, and doctors.
Generations of midwives have been trained to be an integral part of providing sexual and reproductive health care…
“Generations of midwives have been trained to be an integral part of providing sexual and reproductive health care including prenatal care, birth support, miscarriage management, and abortion care. We know that because of midwives’ critical work in providing support to people who face the most oppression from capitalism and the medical industrial complex, they are historically the first care workers to be targeted by authoritarian and coercive agents of the state.
“Abortion care is integral to our communities’ wellbeing. People can access abortion care with medical safety in their communities, at home, or in clinics, with or without the support of caregivers like midwives, nurses, doctors, and doulas. Laws like Texas’s abortion bans are what unequivocally make the lives of people who need abortion less safe.
This is clearly an attack on immigrant communities, who already have a hard time accessing the care they need…
“As the Trump Administration perpetuates devastating and harmful anti-immigrant sentiment with every decision they make, we know it was a calculated and intentional decision that Texas’s Attorney General Ken Paxton targeted a Latina midwife committed to working in a primarily Spanish-speaking community, many of whom are immigrants. This is clearly an attack on immigrant communities, who already have a hard time accessing the care they need because of harmful abortion bans and the increased risk of criminalization they face based on their immigration status. For many immigrants in Texas, traveling to another state for abortion care means risking family separation, detention, and deportation. We are all worthy of access to safe, supportive, culturally responsive health care in our communities without threat, barrier, or delay, no matter our immigration status.
“No one should ever have to fear being surveilled, punished, or criminalized for their health care needs. We are committed to creating a world where no one is targeted for seeking or providing basic health care and where everyone has access to everything they need to be healthy.”
