Spotlight on Spectrum: The Other Clinic

Let’s Celebrate a Victory!

Healthcare for Trans Persons and Repro Justice

This month we are highlighting a positive development in the reproductive justice landscape in Mississippi:

We have a new gender affirming hormone therapy practice, Spectrum: The Other Clinic, based in Hattiesburg!

RJ means giving repro healthcare, rights, and justice for EVERYONE. Access to this essential medical care means a new level of freedom and life for Trans and Nonbinary people in our state.

Stacie Pace’s Story 

A few years ago, Stacie Pace, ACNP/AGNP, and her husband knew it was time for a change. They are both Nurse Practitioners in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Stacie works as a hospitalist at Forrest General and was wondering what she could do to go out on her own and work for herself as a practitioner. 

She did not want to work in family practice, and the urgent care market is saturated. One day she was talking with her best friend, who happens to be a gay man, and they came up with the idea of some kind of medical practice that serves LGBTQ+ community members. 

Healthcare that addresses specific healthcare needs for LGBTQ+ people in Mississippi is sparse. Stacie got in touch with The Spectrum Center in Hattiesburg and began inquiring how her and her husband’s skills as Nurse Practitioners could fit in with the structure and needs of the community. 

One summer evening in 2019, Stacie met with a transgender support group and LISTENED. As she asked about healthcare needs for trans people, they responded with stories of being completely rejected as patients, experiencing a lack of access to hormone therapy, and other essential healthcare needs. Regarding access to those life-saving hormones, Stacie responded with incredulity, “You can’t just go get it???”

No. No, trans people cannot easily access healthcare in general, especially gender affirming hormone therapy. 

Stacie wondered if the medical training for providing hormone therapy was particularly difficult or complicated. Is that why it isn’t available for people?

Nope. The medicine itself is not exceptionally challenging. 

Stacie got the extra education indicated. She began to network and connect with potential patients. In a matter of months Spectrum Clinic was born.

Along with learning the specifics of hormone therapy, Stacie says that learning how to run a business as a medical provider has been a challenge. She is continuously expanding her practice and hopes to bring her husband on as another provider. The need for medical care and support for trans people in Mississippi is great.

Ashley, our Faith in Women director, and I had the privilege to have a video chat with Stacie and see her passion first hand. Here are a couple of things she had to say about her work and clinic. 

“Best job I could ever imagine.”

“Being nice matters…makes the huge-est difference.”

“Kindness is easy.”

 

How Spectrum Clinic Operates

Stacie and the Spectrum Clinic have continually built relationships with The Spectrum Center and Planned Parenthood of Hattiesburg. A trans person in need of care hears about Spectrum Clinic through this network of organizations and also through individual personal relationships. 

Check out the SPECTRUM: The Other Clinic. Their online presence there is direct and clear and shows exactly how one accesses care through the clinic. Their Facebook page is another very convenient way for someone to initiate care at Spectrum Clinic. 

The Spectrum Clinic offers an affordable and flexible pricing structure to ensure that everyone who needs care can access it. Most of Spectrum Clinic’s patients don’t have health insurance.

Stacie and her husband own the clinic together, meaning they have control and flexibility in their work that they would not have working in another setting. They can decide how much to charge and how much money they need/want to make out of their business. Spectrum Clinic rates are significantly lower than other comparable providers, of which there are few. 

The key to success in Stacie’s practice has been building relationships and trust. She does most of her visits through telehealth but still manages to respond to patients with trust and compassion and love. Text messaging is an effective and personal way she communicates with patients. 

One way they have built relationships is naming their practice “Spectrum: The Other Clinic” to signal acceptance and support like the Spectrum Center gives. 

Listening to the stories and needs of the people who come to her for medical care is the priority. 

In respect to safety concerns, visits through telehealth limit in-person vulnerabilities. Stacie takes common-sense safety precautions if meeting in person. 

She notes that the negative feedback she receives is mostly online, especially on Spectrum Clinic’s Facebook page. She does not feel especially threatened by the “keyboard warriors.” She notes that “95% of the trash” comments and reactions are from self-identified Christians. 

 

Life and Death Reality for Trans People

What patients of The Spectrum Clinic are facing: 

Many patients need hormones after transitioning but have lost their previous access for various reasons like financial problems or moving to another state. 

Stacie says that a significant number of her patients are deciding between ending their own lives and living life without hormone therapy. She says that her screening for depression is very simple: almost all of her patients tell her they are depressed. 

According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, “40% of respondents have attempted suicide in their lifetime—nearly nine times the attempted suicide rate in the U.S. population (4.6%).” This survey, produced by the National Center for Transgender Equality, goes on to report (updated 2017) on the reality of healthcare for transgender people. The section “Harmful Effects on Physical and Mental Health” goes on to note:

 

Respondents also encountered high levels of mistreatment when seeking health care. In

the year prior to completing the survey, one-third (33%) of those who saw a health care

provider had at least one negative experience related to being transgender, such as being

verbally harassed or refused treatment because of their gender identity. Additionally,

nearly one-quarter (23%) of respondents reported that they did not seek the health care

they needed in the year prior to completing the survey due to fear of being mistreated as a

transgender person, and 33% did not go to a health care provider when needed because

they could not afford it.

 

Stacie sees positive mental health changes in her patients after treatment. This clinical outcome is essential. She notes that some of her patients have gotten in touch with her and let her know how meaningful and life-saving the care they received truly was. In our video call, Stacie was visibly moved when she talked about this kind of work. She especially emphasizes how, from her perspective, simply being kind is so powerful, and it is something that the transgender people she knows often do not experience. 

 

What makes you brave? 

We asked Stacie what makes her brave. She says that she is “just doing her job, basically,” doing “what makes sense.” She sees a need and meets it. Stacie gives credit to her way of being in the world to her parents, both her dad and mom, who taught her to be open and loving. Also, having a best friend who is gay and connected to the LGBTQ+ community has given her opportunities she would not have otherwise. 

Stacie’s disposition is open, direct, and without pretense. She has a sensible joy about her. I appreciate that she emphasized her own antiracist work inside herself. She recently read White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, PhD, and recommends reading it with self-awareness as an opportunity to grow as a person seeking justice for all people. 

 

Reflections from the Editor: 

Loretta Ross spoke this year at the Sister Song Reproductive Justice Summit about white allyship. “Don’t be an ally!” she said. “Do your own thing!” And the “thing” can work in tandem with RJ and Black Lives Matter. She indicated that each person has their own work to do for human liberation and that “allyship” isn’t the goal in and of itself. That comment stuck with me because I think being an ally is GREAT, but it is not an active word. What does an ally do? Whatever the person to whom one is allied needs, right? But if I find my own place in the work of social justice and healing our world, then I have my own agenda and can align my work with the work of others. Then I personally will not co-opt the Repro Justice movement, which is specifically led by Black, Indigenous, and other women and people of color. As a white woman I can hear my own call, so to speak, and do the work which is mine, and let myself be led by the womanists of Sister Song. 

Ashley and I both love that Stacie and her husband’s personal needs and career path lined up with the needs of a particular community, in this case transgender people seeking healthcare in the Deep South. The synthesis is a growing health clinic operating in the brave new world of Pandemic 2020–and just in time. 

 

Links to Check Out

SPECTRUM: The Other Clinic

SPECTRUM: The Other Clinic Facebook Page

The Spectrum Center Facebook Page

The Spectrum Center Hattiesburg

Planned Parenthood Hattiesburg

http://www.ustranssurvey.org/reports

http://www.ustranssurvey.org/

Usts reported updated 2017

The Language of “Repro”

What’s the difference between reproductive health and reproductive rights? And what is reproductive justice? We hear these questions off and on, and maybe you’ve wondered yourself!

Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice

Organizations and individuals in the “repro” movement work within one or more of these frameworks. We thought we’d share a few basic definitions and resources to help clarify these closely aligned, yet slightly different approaches:

Reproductive Health

This refers to the direct provision of healthcare services related to people’s reproductive needs, like contraception, STI testing and treatment, mammograms and other cancer diagnostic tests, and ob-gyn care. Abortion care is considered reproductive health care. Planned Parenthood is an example of an organization that provides reproductive health care, along with many local public and private health clinics and physicians. Some, but not all, providers of reproductive health care also advocate for reproductive rights.

Reproductive Rights

Reproductive Rights are simply the rights and freedoms related to reproduction and reproductive health, which are controlled explicitly by laws that vary by country or state. Examples of reproductive rights include the right to legal and safe abortion, the right to birth control, freedom from coerced sterilization, access to reproductive healthcare, and the right to sex education. NARAL Pro-Choice America, founded in 1969, champions the idea that “Freedom is for every body.” They work “from the state house to the White House” advocating for legislatures and any other government body to support the autonomy and dignity of the individual human life and body. One’s body is one’s own. Others, especially a government, should not control a person and their body.

Reproductive Justice

Historically, U.S. movements for reproductive health and rights have centered the needs of white, mostly middle-class women, especially in the fight for abortion access. Even though Black women and women of color have solidly supported these efforts, their contributions and needs are often sidelined, minimized, or erased from the narrative altogether.

SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective defines Reproductive Justice as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” SisterSong formed in 1997 in the early days of the Reproductive Justice Movement.

Reproductive justice (RJ) is a movement created by, led by, and centering women of color. Developed in 1994 and grounded in the human rights framework, RJ elevates the needs and voices and experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, over and against the prevalence of historically white-led women’s rights movements.

RJ encompasses reproductive health and reproductive rights, while also addressing the social, political, and economic systemic inequalities that affect women’s reproductive health and their ability to control their reproductive lives.


Reproductive Justice Resources

Sister Song’s website
Sister Song’s very active Facebook page
Sister Reach in Tennessee
Loretta Ross’ website
Loretta Ross’ Book Reproductive Justice: An Introduction


Reproductive Dignity

Reproductive Dignity is a term you’ll see us using a bit more often in Faith in Women communications, and we want to explain what we mean and why we use it.

At Faith in Women, we promote access to reproductive health care, we educate and organize faith voices in support of reproductive rights, and we believe whole-heartedly in doing our part to disrupt and dismantle white supremacist patriarchy in ourselves and our institutions. With gratitude and humility, we strive to align our work with the holy, world-changing vision of reproductive justice.

In the repro space, folks love a good acronym. You’ll often hear organizations use the catch-all “RHRJ” when talking about our work or our partners. The tent is big, and that’s a good thing!

None of these terms or acronyms has ever felt just right for what we do at Faith in Women, especially when we’re working in collaboration with others across the repro movement. For one thing, we bring a faith lens to the work of reproductive health and rights, which is rare in a movement where religion, especially fundamentalist Christianity, is rightly regarded as one of the main drivers of reproductive oppression. And as a white women-led organization, to call our work reproductive justice, however much we believe in the principles, would be to co-opt and water down an important framework meant to center Black and Indigenous people of color.

So last year, as part of the Leaders of Moral Courage Fellowship, the facilitators and fellows began looking for a term that describes our shared support of reproductive health, rights, and justice, while acknowledging the diverse perspectives, racial and gender experiences, and spiritual traditions embodied by the members of our group. One value we all held in common was the inherent worth and human dignity of all people; thus “reproductive dignity” was born. Try it out sometime and see how it fits into your ministry or faith community!

One thing to remember though: in justice work, we can often get caught up in the language, sometimes to the point of avoiding authentic relationships or even avoiding the work itself for fear of saying it wrong or causing harm. If our goal is to build a more just world, we should know the terms, understand our shared history, and respect and honor each other’s roles in the movement. And then we should get to work.

Reproductive Justice and Dignity in Pop Culture

Pop culture and media often shape how we think about the world. As we escape indoors from the summer heat and unrelenting pandemic, look for how issues related to reproductive freedom and dignity are portrayed in the media we consume. What are the stories being told? Who’s telling them? What questions are they asking? How can we be asking better questions, telling better stories? Below are a few things we’ve been watching and reading lately:

Ashley’s Picks

Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen
Released in June on Netflix, the must-watch documentary Disclosure “is an unprecedented, eye-opening look at transgender depictions in film and television, revealing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures our deepest anxieties about gender.”  Helmed by Laverne Cox of Orange is the New BlackDisclosure lays out the history of onscreen depictions of trans lives, both positive and negative, and explores how such media shapes society’s understanding of gender. This powerful documentary is a lesson in empathy and critical thinking.

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
What if Jesus had been married? Although modern Christians take for granted that Jesus never had a wife, the Bible doesn’t definitively say. That’s the central question of this latest work of fiction from Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees and Dance of the Dissident Daughter. The Book of Longings is a tale of the life of Ana, Jesus’s (fictional) wife. Ana longs to be a writer. Like women have done since the beginning of time, Ana (mild spoiler alert) uses herbs and tinctures, with the full approval of her husband Jesus, to prevent pregnancy so that she can fulfill her dream of studying and writing about the lives of women.

Anna’s Picks

The Magicians
Syfy network adapted Lev Grossman’s trilogy of novels into a five-season hit show. The show takes the books–a grown-up reflection on The Chronicles of Narnia, the Harry Potter series, and similar books–and adds on a deeper reflection on relationships and sexuality, including SPOILER ALERT a magical abortion.

Born Behind Bars
This docu-series shows the lives of women and their babies as they live together in the “Wee Ones” dormitory in a maximum security women’s prison in Indiana. The show is produced in a way that reminds me of TLC shows–plenty of dramatic music, replays of emotional moments–but the content lends to so much reflection on what it means to be able to have agency as a mother and as a person in our society. The women in the show by and large mention their drug addiction (often meth), generational abuse, and lack of health care and education. Watch with an eye toward repro justice and human dignity and wait for the questions to bubble up. Here are a few:

  • Why aren’t the women in drug rehab?

  • I imagine that it is rare for ANY woman to raise her baby from 0 to 12 months. How many mothers/parents get to do that?

  • Again, why isn’t there a rehabilitation and therapy program for everyone in this prison?

Here are a few more resources that look at repro dignity and contemporary media:

Childcare: Our Unspoken Crisis

The Childcare Situation is Dire. Let’s Talk About It.

Schools are closed, camps are canceled, and many daycares are closed as well. Working parents are expected to continue to work full-time and also become care-givers for their children.

Even though our society does not recognize care-giving as valid work that deserves fair pay, providing care is indeed work. People whose “Plan A” care situation has been canceled now find themselves working an extra job- caring for children.

In Mississippi there are no state-wide closures of childcare centers. This stance by the state government means that either:

  • parents must evaluate the risk and make the decision themselves whether to send children to their childcare facility if it is open or continue to pay to hold their child’s unused spot,
  • find alternative childcare either in a center that is open or find alternative care such as babysitting, a nanny, or family/friends who might be able to offer some care, or
  • work without any extra childcare, splitting childcare responsibilities with a spouse or partner as a best-case scenario.

Therefore, money and family/social networks are the only things keeping some of us going. Those of us without such resources are suffering disproportionately. The children themselves are suffering from this uncertain childcare situation and are missing friends, important lessons, and even meals.

Sister Song reminds us that Reproductive Justice means the human right to “…parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.”

Our current childcare crisis in Mississippi is neither safe nor sustainable. Parents and families are not okay. The children are not okay.

Yet here we are in Mississippi, facing a long, hot summer without adequate ways to care for and rear our children.


In Your Own Words

Why do you support reproductive dignity?

Reproductive dignity is the right to fully experience and live in my body without oppression and state terror visited upon it. Reproductive dignity is also a meaning making tool of joy, and embraces that every life deserves to be lived as they wish, regardless of the good, bad, or random luck to be born in a specific time or place or body.

Alexandra Melnick, English teacher at Leland High School in the Mississippi Delta and 2019 Leaders of Moral Courage Fellow

Why do YOU support reproductive dignity? Click here to tell us.

 


Calling Out the Weak Solutions We Have Been Given

Rev. Carol Burnett, our Faith in Women Board President and director of the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative, recently wrote an opinion piece calling out the failures of Mississippi’s response to the crisis in terms of childcare.

Carol’s perspective on the crisis:

  • Existing centers are in danger of closing.
  • Instead of funding new emergency “pop-up” childcare centers as the state of Mississippi has done since the beginning of the pandemic, what about shoring up existing centers with emergency placements and emergency dollars?
  • Our existing childcare centers might not be there later when we need them.

Faith in Women commends you, Carol, for speaking out on behalf of the vulnerable members of our community. 

After our May newsletter went out, Anna Wolfe of Mississippi Today wrote about this very topic of childcare and also spoke with Carol. Read her article here.


Childcare in Mississippi is a Long-Standing and Ongoing Issue. 

Even before COVID-19 and the statewide shutdown, Mississippi had a shortage of child care providers for young children. In 2018 there were only enough spots in licensed centers for 23 percent of our state’s infants and toddlers.

Clearly this aspect of the childcare situation in our state does not pass the “safe and sustainable” test set forth by Sister Song and the values of reproductive justice and dignity. Mississippi simply continues to fail our children.

Universal (public) pre-K is one way to support children in our state. Mississippi First is working toward that goal. Executive Director Rachel Canter wrote an Op-Ed last month about the Coronavirus pandemic showing the need to continue to push in this direction.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

An Upside to the Crisis? 

You may not be looking for an upside to this crisis, but Monisha Bajaj makes some great points on Blavity.com. Check out her opinion piece For Parents Of Color, Schooling At Home Can Be An Act Of Resistance, which offers a positive perspective on the childcare crisis that has come during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I love that Bajaj looks for the new, just, free ways of being in the midst of suffering. Do you have a story or experience in that vein? If so and you feel like sharing, please email me at anna.faithinwomen@gmail.com. I would love to hear some life and joy in the midst of chaos!

I hope that we at Faith in Women can encourage YOU in the ways you are envisioning and even embodying the future in this time of great upheaval.

Wherever you are and whatever your life circumstances right now, may you be rooted and grounded in love. 

Take heart,
Anna

The Reverend Anna Fleming-Jones
Program Coordinator for Faith in Women

@annaflemingjones on IG
anna.faithinwomen@gmail.com email me!

Honoring Mississippi’s Change Makers

Fannie Lou Hamer once said, “You don’t run away from problems–you just face them.” Throughout our nation’s history Mississippi women, particularly women of color, have been standing up and speaking out for change.

On March 9, 2019, a powerful group of organizations and individuals came together on the Coast to celebrate International Women’s Day with a lineup of dynamic speakers followed by a march. Standout speaker Kenyatta Thomas, 19-year-old student activist and organizer from Pascagoula, challenged the audience to examine the ways in which we reinforce white cultural dominance during Women’s History Month by lifting up the stories of the same white women, year after year.  

As we continue to honor Women’s History this month, we are heeding Thomas’s challenge to re-examine those whom we lift up and those we omit, and we want to do better. There are countless African-American women from Mississippi who have demonstrated tremendous courage, strength, and tenacity in the pursuit of justice and human rights. Today we remember the legacy of some of these extraordinary women, and we celebrate the women and girls today who carry the torch of hope into our state’s future.

 

Fannie Lou Hamer, civil rights leader

Born in 1917 Fannie Lou Hamer grew up as a sharecropper and become one of the most influential activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights movement. In 1961 Hamer went to her local hospital for minor surgery, and without her consent or knowledge, she received a hysterectomy. The sterilization of black women was such a widespread practice that it earned a nickname: “a Mississippi appendectomy.”

A year later Hamer, who had recently attended a meeting for voting rights, joined a group from her community to visit the county seat where they attempted to register to vote, only to be turned away. On the way home when their bus was stopped, the driver arrested, and the passengers detained, Hamer began singing spirituals, a trademark of her activism.  

Despite persecution, arrests, and violence, Hamer remained a steadfast leader in the civil rights movement throughout her life. She was one of the founders of the Freedom Democratic Party and the National Women’s Political Office, ran for state office, and worked on a grassroots level to register African-American voters in Mississippi. She died in 1977.

 

Ida B. Wells, investigative journalist and activist  

A renowned journalist and civil rights activist, Ida B. Wells was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). When she was born, she and her family were enslaved–the Emancipation Proclamation had not yet been signed. As a teenager Wells lost both of her parents and an infant brother to an epidemic of Yellow Fever.

Wells pursued her education and became a school teacher, but she also had a knack for journalism–though it would cost her dearly. After founding a newspaper in Memphis, she began investigating lynchings in the South. She lost her teaching job, and a white mob destroyed her newspaper office.

After leaving the South for Chicago, Wells continued her activism for African Americans and women and became a prominent leader in the efforts for equal rights and suffrage. She later ran for office, one of the first American-American women to do so. She died in 1931.    

 

Myrlie Evers-Williams, activist and journalist  

A former chairwoman of the NAACP and prolific author, Myrlie Evers-Williams was born in Vicksburg. She worked alongside her husband Medgar Evans to end racial segregation in Mississippi. After he was killed by a white supremacist in 1963, Evers-Williams fought to bring the killer to justice. Evers-Williams rose through the ranks of the NAACP and was named Woman of the Year by Ms. Magazine. In 2013 she delivered the invocation at President Obama’s second inauguration.    

 

Genesis Be, musician and human rights activist

Originally from Biloxi, Genesis Be has roots in the civil rights movement. Her grandfather was Rev. Clyde Briggs, a prominent activist in 1960s Mississippi. Today Genesis Be uses her musical platform to address political issues and advocate for human rights. Several years ago during a show in New York she performed with a confederate flag in reaction to Gov. Phil Bryant’s declaration of April as “Confederate Heritage Month.”  In reflecting on this artistic decision, Genesis Be commented, I would love to see a time when both sides can come together for dialog and acknowledge the pain, the guilt, and see how to make this a more united Mississippi.”

 

Angie Thomas,  author

A Jackson native, Angie Thomas is an award-winning author. Her book The Hate U Give debuted number one on the New York Times Bestseller list for young adult fiction and was adapted into a movie in 2018. The story centers around the police shooting of a young black man and the Black Lives Matter movement. Thomas’s latest book On the Come Up is available now.

January Resource Review: 5 Titles to Add to Your 2019 Reading list

 

Did you know that reading more books ranks as the seventh most popular New Year’s resolution that people make? That’s one goal that we can get behind! Whether you have committed to reading more in 2019 and are looking for books to add to your to-read list–or if you simply want to gain a better understanding of the issues that impact women and girls in our communities –we’ve compiled a list of highly recommended books that we suggest you pick up this year. (Looking for more recommendations? Check out our other reading list we put together in 2017.

 

Birthing Hope: Giving Fear to the Light  by Rachel Marie Stone

This award-winning memoir about birth, death, and the spaces in between will send tingles down your spine. Stone’s artfully-crafted reflections on faith and our reproductive decisions call us all to deeper, more intentional conversations about life’s greatest complexities. Weaving together lessons and errors from ancient texts, modern learning, and personal stories, this book includes discussions of contraception, abortion, disability, and AIDS.

 

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower  by Brittany Cooper 

Both raw and personal, Cooper’s collection of essays about life as a Black woman in America is required reading for everyone. She explores topics like growing up as a Black girl in the South, the power of friendship, and Black feminism. Cooper also dives into her encounters with the church and how they have shaped her sense of self–for better and at times, for worse. 

 

Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds  by adrienne maree brown

Fans of Octavia Butler’s Afrofuturism will devour Brown’s book–a hybrid of tactics, self-reflection prompts, personal stories, and group exercises aimed at doing the work of changing the world in a truly collaborative fashion. Advocates and activists, this would be an excellent book for your organization to discuss as a group and to consider how you might integrate some of her strategies and tactics into your work. 

 

 

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free  by Linda Kay Klein

An unapologetic critique of the “purity industry,” Pure dives into the damaging, long-lasting effects of purity culture on the lives and relationships of those who were immersed in it as young people. Klein argues that “purity” is not a product of the evangelical Christianity alone, but one that secular culture upholds alongside the church.

 

A Spark of Light  by Jodi Picoult 

In her latest novel Picoult’s harrowing story of an anti-choice terrorist who enters Mississippi’s last remaining abortion clinic reads more like fact than fiction. Hour-by-hour, Picoult explores the thoughts, beliefs, and fears of those who oppose abortion, those who provide abortion care, and those who are desperate to terminate a pregnancy. One of the characters, Dr. Louie Ward who travels to the clinic to provide abortions, was inspired by our friend and colleague Dr. Willie Parker.

 

Is there a book you’d like for us to feature in a future Faith in Women book club discussion? Would you like our help in starting a book club of your own featuring one of these books? Please send us an email. We’d love to hear from you!  

Paying for Child Care in Mississippi

$4,863. That was the average annual cost of child care for Mississippi parents back in 2014. For full-time workers paid the state’s minimum hourly wage of $7.25, infant care would account for more than 30% of their monthly income–and that’s before taxes. With this high price tag coupled with no national paid parental leave policy, parents in Mississippi are often forced to choose between maintaining their livelihood and ensuring their children receive the care they need.

The Mississippi Child Care Payment Program (CCPP) is a voucher system designed to lessen the financial burden that child care costs create for low-income parents. By making child care more accessible to these families, the positive rippling effects of CCPP are felt not just by parents, but by everyone in the state: increased employment, reduced poverty, reduced absenteeism and turnover for employers, higher contributions of tax revenue into the general fund, and improved school readiness in children. But despite its benefits, CCPP currently serves just a fraction of eligible children. For too many low-income families, child care remains out of reach.

That’s why Carol Burnett, Faith in Women Board President, formed the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative (MLICCI)— to address this gap in coverage that prevents parents, most of whom are women, from maintaining steady employment. Since 1998 MLICCI has focused on securing women’s economic security by advancing policies and direct service models that work to increase the availability of affordable child care for low-income working parents, to achieve gender equality in the state workforce, and to make the social safety net work for women. MLICCI tenaciously works to increase the number of low income working mothers served by the CCPP, to make access and retention of CCPP services easier for them, and to strengthen the financial viability of the child care centers that serve them.

Because of their deep relationships with low-income single mothers and providers, MLICCI witnesses the many ways in which systematic racism and sexism impact the state’s current child care assistance climate.  Single mothers face an inequitable workforce, and they comprise the majority of adults reliant on public safety net programs. All of these factors obstruct women’s economic security. In response to these realities MLICCI works at the intersection of racial justice and gender justice to advocate for policies and investments that strengthen women’s economic security.

The Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative recently celebrated its 20th Anniversary. More than 100 MLICCI friends, supporters, and child care center directors from across the state joined us for the event where MLICCI released of a report detailing the 20-year history of the state’s Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). Their key observation was this: “[W]hen Mississippi spends more on direct services, it serves more children and more parents can work or attend training or education.” In other words, an investment in affordable child care is an investment in Mississippi’s future.  

To learn more about MLICCI, visit www.mschildcare.org

Called to Resist: Honoring the Legacy of the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion

Pictured: (l-r) Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson; Dr. Gillian Frank; Rev. Bill Kirby; Dr. Willie Parker; Ashley Peterson

The faithful activism of Rev. Bill Kirby, a United Methodist pastor who helped lead the Missouri Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, is tied to his long-held belief that God is love. Guided by Jesus’s commandment to “Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself,” Rev. Kirby felt called to assist nearly two thousand women experiencing unplanned pregnancies in the early 1970s, at a time when abortion was illegal, offering them non-judgemental, compassionate counseling known as All Options. “Even the use of the word ‘abortion’ was illegal,” he said. “We lived in the realm of knowing we could be in trouble.” If a woman in his care chose abortion, he and his colleagues made sure she could get one, even if it meant arranging a secret round-trip flight from Missouri to New York, where abortions were performed safely by trained physicians.

Rev. Kirby was one of three featured speakers at Faith in Women’s September event, “Called to Resist: The Pre-Roe Faith Movement that Saved Women’s Lives,” co-sponsored with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC).  More than forty local clergy, churchgoers, health educators, and representatives of Mississippi-based reproductive health and rights organizations gathered in Jackson to learn about the history of the Clergy Consultation Service (CCS) and how its legacy continues to inform the prophetic work of reproductive health, rights, and justice advocacy today.

Historian Dr. Gillian Frank, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Program in American Studies at the University of Virginia, gave a brief overview of CCS’s history. At a time when abortion was a punishable crime, more than 2,000 Protestant ministers, Jewish rabbis, and dissident Catholic priests and nuns banded together to fight publicly for reproductive rights and to counsel hundreds of thousands of women on how they could access safe, compassionate abortion care. The underground networks they formed were robust: members were active in 40 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and in the city of Tokyo, Japan.

Why were these faith leaders willing to risk so much–their careers, their livelihood, even their freedom–for these women? They saw the devastating impact that illegal abortion was having on their communities. Back-alley abortion providers took advantage of desperate women, charging exorbitant fees to terminate their pregnancies and even worse, they often endangered their health and their lives in the process. “It became increasingly clear to clergy across the country that abortion restrictions were not preventing abortion,” noted Dr. Frank. “Rather, they were creating a public health crisis.”

The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was a landmark moment for the CCS, whose members had advocated tirelessly for the legalization of abortion. But in Rev. Kirby’s eyes, it was also a moment when the CCS made a strategic error.  “Once we got Roe, we quit. And that’s the mistake we made,” he commented.  “We need to recover the moral high ground. We’ve given it up, and we can reclaim it.”

Dr. Willie Parker, a Christian abortion provider and author of the bestselling memoir Life’s Work, offered his insight as to how we reclaim our prophetic voice in this moment when the future of reproductive rights in the United States seems increasingly tenuous:  

Let’s say hypothetically…that Roe goes away. Our task still doesn’t change. Women don’t lose their right to bodily autonomy and safe management of pregnancy. The question becomes what do we do next? If it’s non-negotiable that women have a right to safe termination of pregnancy and control of their lives, how creative are we going to be as people of goodwill?

Dr. Parker also emphasized that the intersectional analysis of the reproductive justice movement continues to be central in responding to the relentless political destruction of reproductive health and rights that has occured since the Roe decision. This expansive framework, he said, lends itself to the kind of coalition building we need right now—and that we will continue to need in the future.

Audience reaction was overwhelmingly supportive. For many attendees, the event was their first introduction to the history of the CCS. “I continue to be surprised to learn just how deeply involved faith leaders have been in this movement from early on, including advocating for safe, legal abortion and helping to provide care when it was still illegal in most states,” said one Jackson-based United Methodist minister. “I was also impressed with how strategic the CCS was in crafting an incredibly holistic movement that spanned several states and accounted for every detail of the process to help women have as smooth and safe an experience as possible. It was an amazing operation!”

Others considered their own faith perspectives as they listened to the speakers. “It’s so easy to lump all religious perspectives into one belief system or moral understanding of faith, grace, and health and healing. The movement is lead by people who are doing the work not in spite of their faith, but because of their faith,” commented one attendee. “That most resonates with me and my approach to life.”

To learn more about the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, check out RCRC’s interactive timeline.

 

Highlighting Our Faith + Reproductive Justice Partners

Everyday we’re inspired by the tireless efforts of so many advocates to improve the lives of women, girls, and families in Mississippi and beyond.  To honor that work, this month we are highlighting three of our colleague organizations working at the intersections of faith and reproductive health, rights, and justice: Exhale, the Religious Institute, and SisterReach. Read on to learn about their prophetic leadership in these areas, and how you can get involved with their ongoing work.

Exhale 

With its uniquely “pro-voice” approach, Exhale honors the breadth of abortion experiences and uses storytelling to shift the public conversation away from divisive labels and towards compassionate listening. Exhale’s Executive Director Rev. Susan Chorley, an ordained Baptist minister, preaches about her abortion experience to congregations around the country as part of Exhale’s Pro-Voice Tour.

In an interview with SELF magazine about the tour,  Rev. Chorley said, “[Abortion] feels like an area that I’ve recognized the church is lacking in terms of supporting women’s experience—not that churches have to be supportive of abortion, but more that this is a reality for some women that are sitting in the pews.” By addressing the stigma surrounding abortion from the pulpit, Rev. Chorley brings visibility to a common, but invisibilized experience that many religious women have been too ashamed to name in their faith communities.

To learn more about Exhale and how you can support their work, visit exhaleprovoice.org.

Religious Institute 

The Religious Institute advocates for sexual, gender, and reproductive justice both within faith communities and beyond them. With a network of more than 8,500 people, they equip religious leaders and people of faith to bring their prophetic voice to the public square on issues concerning gender, sexuality, and our reproductive lives.

Abortion + Faith

In partnership with the Texas Freedom Network, Just Texas, and the Afiya Center, the Religious Institute has convened a series of trainings for clergy and lay leaders in Texas called Abortion + Faith. The training develops participants’ theological, pastoral, and congregational competency in the areas of reproductive access, reproductive justice, and abortion.  Guided by theological reflection, informal presentations, and hands-on activities, the Abortion + Faith curriculum aids faith communities as they discern their call to advocate for reproductive justice in a hostile political and religious environment.

Webinars to Engage, Equip, and Inspire

Last summer the Religious Institute presented a webinar series entitled “Religious Resistance and Reproductive Justice”  that focused on four thematic areas: Pastoral Care, Liturgy, Religious Education, and Preparation for Preaching. In partnership with subject matter experts, these webinars helped maintain faith leader advocacy engagement after what had been an exhausting six months of attacks on reproductive health, rights, and justice at the federal level. Recently the Institute presented a webinar entitled “When Seminaries Aren’t Safe: Sexual Assault and Harassment in Graduate Theological Education”  that was facilitated by Rev. TiShaunda McPherson, a civil rights attorney, seminary graduate, and elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. You can view the webinars on the Religious Institute Youtube page.

To learn more about the Religious Institute’s work and to stay up to date about their latest campaigns, visit religiousinstitute.org.

SisterReach 

Founded in Memphis in 20011, SisterReach was the first Reproductive Justice organization established in the state of Tennessee. Through advocacy and education, SisterReach strives to support the reproductive health and rights of all women and young people through community conversations and engagement with faith communities.

Faith & Advocacy Toolkit

As part of their interfaith advocacy work, SisterReach has developed  free resources for faith leaders and their communities to engage them in the movement for reproductive justice. The EDUCATE! Toolkit is designed with seminarians, clergy, and other people of faith in mind while the ADVOCATE! Toolkit is for community partners that might be interested in partnering with religious organizations and their leadership. You can download these free toolkits by signing up on their resources page.

To learn more about SisterReach’s mission in Tennessee and beyond, visit sisterreach.org.

Is there another organization doing this work that we should know about?

Send us an email, and we’ll highlight them them in a future post.

Compassionate Care Training in Jackson

Photos: Chauna Lawson, RCRC

In partnership with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), Faith in Women co-hosted and co-facilitated a two-day training called “Space for Grace: Compassionate Care for Reproductive Decision and Loss” in Jackson, MS.

The training curriculum was developed by RCRC as both an expansion and adaptation of previous training programs that historically centered on “pastoral care” and generally was offered only to clergy and faith leaders. The framework of compassionate care opens up the space for professionals across various sectors, including health care, advocacy, social work, and religion, to come together for a time of learning, skill-building, and networking.

Facilitators Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson and Rev. Katey Zeh

More than a dozen participants representing organizations from across the South attended the training to gain new skills and understanding around how to be both a compassionate presence and prophetic witness for reproductive health, rights, and justice in their communities.  Among the cohort were nurses, activists, practitioners, non-profit leaders, scholars, and clergy, all of whom contributed valuable expertise and insight from their respective disciplines.

Rev. Susan Chorley, a Baptist minister and the Executive Director of Exhale, traveled from Boston to participate in the training. “The depth of the conversation among participants was impressive and the facilitation allowed us to create connection and community in a very short amount of time,” she remarked. “I left the training feeling hopeful and invigorated by the work ahead of us.”

Like Rev. Chorley we at Faith at Women are energized by the openness and commitment to justice we witnessed at the training. Though our challenges are many, we are heartened by the number of people working to improve the lives of Mississippi’s most vulnerable women and girls.

How To Get Involved

If you’re interested in attending a future training with Faith in Women and RCRC, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email, and we’ll be in touch.