Name: Imogen Notaro
Social Justice Group: 2020-2021, Poverty & Abortion Access
Date of Fieldwork: February 24, 2021
Person (people) with whom you met and their title(s) & Name of Organization: Raegan McDonald Mosley, MD, MPH, CEO of Power to Decide
Type of Fieldwork: Interview
What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:
Lawmakers are often out of touch with the reality that abortion is a common part of the reproductive life course of many people. 1 in 4 people will have an abortion. Access to abortion care should be normalized. There is also a lot of misogyny and paternalistic culture that pervades US society (thinking young people and women are incapable of making informed decisions about their lives). There is a desire to control people to some extent. In the places that have a lot of restrictions against abortion, they also don’t have great outcomes when people continue their pregnancies. Maternal mortality is rising in this country (one of the few places in the world), particularly for Black women. Not only are we creating barriers for people to get abortion care, but we’re also not providing them with high-quality maternal care.
