Reproductive justice advocate A.J. Haynes said that as long as she has worked in the abortion-rights movement, marginalized people’s voices have not been prioritized.
“It was typically a lot of wealthy white women who were dominating the narratives,” said Haynes, who has been advocating for greater access to abortion for about 15 years. Haynes said that the voices of people who aren’t white, wealthy or cisgender have not been centered in the abortion-rights movement and that it is exacerbating what she calls an abortion access crisis.
And it’s not just Hayes thinking this. Journalists and reproductive justice advocates and organizations have written in recent years about how the abortion-rights movement tends to put white women at the forefront.
Hayes is trying to counteract that tendency with the podcast she co-hosts, “The South Has the Answers,” where she aims to connect the dots between different Black-led reproductive justice organizations across the South. The podcast, which was started by the Louisiana Abortion Fund (LAAF) is produced with help from the content creating organization The Joy Channel, premiered in June 2023. At the time, local organizations were still figuring out how to help people access abortion care in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson, the Supreme Court decision in June 2022 that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.
The show centers voices of Black people from the South, a group that experiences some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the U.S. In each episode, the hosts and guests talk about reproductive justice, which is defined as “the human right to control our sexuality, our gender, our work, and our reproduction” by the National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda.
Louisiana in particular has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the U.S. The Louisiana Department of Health released a report in 2018 that found that Black women are four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. Haynes and her co-host, Eric Fleming, along with their guests, are creating a space to bear witness to reproductive inequities Black Southerners face and the ways they are fighting to make things more equitable.
Now in its second season, which debuted on Sept. 26, the show aims to focus on the impact of the Dobbs decision on the South nearly two and a half years since it was handed down.
Haynes said that because of the decision, the majority of Black people in the South have limited to no access to abortion care.
“Our humanity is being compromised, is being tested,” Haynes said.
Fleming, her co-host, said the show is in part fueled by anger at the lack of access to abortion and maternal care.
“I think this podcast came from a place of rage,” Fleming said.
He said he hopes the show can connect Black, femme and queer people from around the South with each other and people outside of the region.
“I think [they] deserve and need a platform to connect with other folks, perhaps in other regions, to say, like, ‘Hey, yeah, we hear this. We see this too. You’re not alone, let’s build together,’” he said.
Ancestral technologies
The first season of the show focused mostly on interviews with people who work with the Louisiana Abortion Fund — Haynes is a former chair of the fund’s board. The newest season branches out to interview reproductive justice advocates and activists from other parts of the South.
Some of the topics discussed on the latest season include what keeps Black Southern reproductive rights activists grounded, reproductive justice around the world and building solidarity with other marginalized communities.
“We understand that this reproductive justice movement is deeply connected to the oppression of all other marginalized folks and the rise of fascism,” Fleming said. “So if we can see it, we can name it, then we can begin to talk about how these ancestral technologies and this wisdom can start to counteract [fascism] and how we can start to really build each other up in the process.”
Haynes said that she sees the podcast as a continuation of the oral history tradition that has been present within the African diaspora for generations. Oral history is part of what she and Fleming call “ancestral technologies.”
Haynes and Fleming said it’s important to have a podcast that talks about reproductive health and justice affecting Black people in the South.
“It’s really critical that we hear from Southern Black voices, because we’re in the battleground states, we’re the epicenter of abortion bans. They try things out, and then they take them elsewhere,” Haynes said.
A worsening outlook
Chasity Wilson, executive director of LAAF, has been on a few episodes of the podcast and told Verite News that lack of abortion access since Roe v. Wade was overturned is driving people to leave the state for abortions. And she said that because so many of the states surrounding Louisiana also have restrictive abortion laws, the fund has to use more resources to connect people with reproductive care.
“It’s also meaning that we are having to spend much more money than previous years to help people travel even further to seek basic reproductive health care,” Wilson said.
Tyler Barbarin, LAAF’s director of grants and development, said that prior to the Supreme Court decision access to abortion was already difficult for people in Louisiana.
She pointed to the fact that in recent years before the Dobbs decision, the state only had three abortion clinics.
Barbarin said that things have gotten worse because of a new law that went into effect Oct. 1, classifying the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol, which are also used for other health conditions, as dangerous controlled substances.
“Even if people are ultimately not found guilty of having these substances or not found guilty of whatever charges are brought, we know that oftentimes it’s Black people, it’s poor people, it’s rural communities that are targeted by the application of these laws,” Barbarin said.
Barbarin said that she and LAAF are fighting for reproductive justice, rather than just reproductive access. Reproductive justice centers Black and other marginalized people and approaches reproductive health from an equity lens, she said.
“We can have abortion access come back, and that would be reproductive health. But if that’s not accessible to a poor Black mother of five that lives in rural Louisiana, then that’s not reproductive justice. That’s not like the true realization of those things,” Barbarin said.
Culture of community care
Barbarin said that people outside of the South may view a lot of the repression that occurs in the region and wonder why people may not just leave, and that way of thinking should be changed.
“Instead, we need to flip that narrative on its head and actually say there are people that are helping one another, that are coming up with creative solutions, that are existing and thriving in the face of some really awful things,” Barbarin said.
Fleming said he thinks that the culture of the South can provide a natural cure to the repression seen when it comes to reproductive access.
“I think the culture of community care is so entrenched in being Southern, that the culture is naturally the antidote to these oppressions and I think that’s what we’re trying to highlight, too, and that’s why the South has the answers, because this is how folks down there live,” Fleming said.
Corrections: An earlier version of this story spelled the executive director of the Louisiana Abortion Fund’s first name Chastity and said Haynes is the fund’s board chair. The executive director’s first name is spelled Chasity and Haynes is the former chair of the board.