A Sex Educator's Reflections on Roe v Wade

On June 24th, 2022, I was at work, pouring a cup of chai, when my phone flashed with a New York Times headline: ‘Roe v. Wade Overturned by Supreme Court’. I had to read it over three times to make sure I read it right. I didn’t expect for everything we had fought so hard for to be gone in a matter of seconds. The first thing I did was go to the Planned Parenthood website. I needed to know what I could do and how I could help. Black, Indigenous, and Queer people had fought so hard to advance reproductive justice in the US. This could not happen. We could not regress so far back. 

I felt so angry, so shocked, so disappointed in this country. But what I did not feel was discouraged. No, this was not the time to lose hope or stop fighting for our rights. This meant it was time to double down and pool our collective efforts to advance reproductive justice. 

I didn’t know what reproductive justice was until a few years ago. Growing up in India, I received no sex education and had no awareness of reproductive health topics. However, after moving to the U.S., I started receiving some semblance of a sex education. By the time I entered high school, I was also really passionate about sexual violence advocacy. When I heard of Planned Parenthood's Teen Council and how they taught consent education in high school classrooms, I knew I had to get involved. And thus began my journey in sexual and reproductive justice advocacy. I started learning more about other aspects of sexual healthcare like birth control, sex positivity, queer sex-ed, and reproductive justice. This foundation with Planned Parenthood taught me how vast reproductive justice truly is. Reproductive justice isn't just about abortion. It's about comprehensive sex education, birth control accessibility, inclusivity, and so much more. It’s about Black, Latinx, Indigenous and Queer liberation, its about broader healthcare access. 

Working with Planned Parenthood’s Teen Council helped my interest in reproductive justice grow, and I found myself to be deeply passionate about this issue. So now, as the knowledge of our lost rights settles in, I think back to the days I gathered with my peers in the Planned Parenthood office. I think about the passion we felt for justice, for equity. I think about the community that empowered me and helped me become the advocate I am today. These memories are where I find my hope. Hope that this is far from the end. If anything, this is an opportunity to critically examine the oppressive systems in our society that suppress marginalized communities and seek to police their bodies.

This is not the end. This is just the beginning to a larger fight for reproductive justice and liberation.