Name: Beckett
Social Justice Group: 2020-2021, Poverty & Abortion Access
Date of Fieldwork: January 29, 2021
Person (people) with whom you met and their title(s) & Name of Organization: Ushma Upadhyay
Type of Fieldwork: Interview
What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:
People in many states can’t use insurance to have an abortion. Therefore many have to pay out of pocoket. A woman under the poverty line doesn’t have immidate cash, so paying out of pocket requires selling of items such as a tv to pay for the cost. However, in the time it takes to recieve the money, the price for the abortion icreases beacuse it’s later in the trimester.
Manual abortions can be anywhere from 2,000-14,000 dollers.
Ushma Upadhaya’s mother grew up in a small one bed room hut in Africa, with 9 other siblings. Ushma’s enicial journey to becoming a reproductive rights activist/sceintist was inspired from her grandmothers story. Usham said,” I belive people should have children, when they wanted to have children.” “That wasn’t the case for my Grandma.”
The largest difficulties for women in poverty trying to access abortion would be the Hyde amendment.
“It bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortion” or in other words: It bans things like taxes from funing abortion. 50% of women who get abortions are lower income. Now that is horrible.
Abortion is not covered in health care.
Ushma said: “Abortion is healthcare, it is normal healthcare. It is so stigmatized. Our generation should know abortion is a normal part of healthcare. “
