These organizations remain dedicated in their commitment to advancing Reproductive Justice. This year, our partners have broadened their work to respond to the increasing number of threats we are facing in today’s political climate. Through the policies we champion and fight for, we are working toward a world where Reproductive Justice is not just a goal—it is a reality for everyone.

Abortion Access

• Eliminate all restrictions on abortion care, including waiting periods, surgical setting requirements, and parental consent or notification.
• Provide public funding for all abortion care services and invest in community-based providers.
• Protect all access to medication abortion.
• Decriminalize abortion– including miscarriages and stillbirths.

Maternal Health and Postpartum Wellness

• Require and reimburse postpartum check-ins within the first 3 weeks after birth, with follow-ups tailored to each person’s healing process, rather than just a six-week visit.
• Expand access to community-based postpartum supports (e.g., home visits, peer support groups, lactation counseling, community healing spaces, postpartum depression, birth trauma and loss).
• Build and invest in holistic centers of care that promote rest, recovery, nourishment, and connection, not just clinical check-ins.

LGBTQIA+ Liberation and Gender Affirming Care

• Protect and expand access to gender-affirming care including hormone therapy, surgical services, and mental health support.
• Expand access to comprehensive, affirming sexual reproductive health education that reflects diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and family structures.
• Ensure policies that protect LGBTQIA+ people from discrimination in healthcare settings.

Protecting and Restoring Medicaid

• Expand Medicaid eligibility to ensure more holistic practitioners can participate in the healthcare workforce, providing access to essential services in marginalized communities.
• Increase funding for outreach and enrollment efforts in Black communities.
• Challenge state policies that exclude formerly incarcerated individuals and immigrants from receiving Medicaid coverage.

Mental and Emotional Well-being

• Expand Medicaid coverage to include comprehensive mental health services.
• Increase funding for community-based mental health services led by culturally responsive providers.

Economic Justice

• Increase the federal minimum wage to $15 and link future increases to the consumer price index.
• Leverage federal funding to provide free state-run child care for working families and students.
• Implement state-based paid family leave.
• Create reimbursement structures that allow holistic practitioners to bill insurance for services rendered in a private practice and community health settings, ensuring their work is financially sustainable.

Environmental Justice

• Enact a statewide water affordability plan that caps water bills based on ability to pay and ensures no one is forced to choose between water and other basic needs.
• Ban water shutoffs for pregnant and postpartum people and households with children, elders and people with disabilities.
• Increase funding to improve water infrastructure and programs that result in clean, affordable drinking water.
• Provide debt forgiveness for families affected by unaffordable water rates and bills.

Housing Rights

• Expand tenant protection and eviction prevention programs.
• Fund emergency rental assistance and relocation support for families facing eviction.

Voting Rights

• Defend the fundamental right of every citizen to vote by dismantling barriers to access and guaranteeing that every eligible vote is not only cast but also accurately counted.
• Provide voter education and resources that help understand citizen rights and legislative roles and responsibilities as it relates to passing laws.

Comprehensive Sexual Education & Contraceptive Equity

• Leverage federal ESSER funding to implement comprehensive sexual health education.
• Require comprehensive and medically-accurate sexual education in all public schools.
• Permit the purchase of birth control pills over-the-counter.

Autonomy and Self-Determination

• The right to equitable comprehensive culturally competent health care impacting Black women, girls, and gender expansive people and their communities– including chronic health conditions.
• Provide full access to safe, affordable, and culturally competent reproductive health care, including contraception, abortion services, prenatal care, postpartum care and gender-affirming health services.
• Ensure that all care is trauma-informed and community-led, including support for maternal care services: specifically midwives and doulas.
• Ensure self-determination and dignity is actualized, and healing from systemic and historical trauma.

HIV/STI Testing

• Ensure that Medicaid programs cover routine HIV/STI screening and treatment.
• Increase funding for community health centers in underserved communities.
• Expand free and confidential testing in community-based organizations, HBCUs, churches, and shelters.

Substance Use Disorders

• Expand access to harm reduction services.
• Shift from punitive approaches to public health-based responses to substance abuse.
• Decriminalize drug possession and invest in community wellness programs.

Religious Autonomy

• Ensure that Reproductive Justice policies protect access to essential care for Black faith-based communities.
• Ensure the rights of individuals to make decisions about their body, family, and future according to their own values and beliefs, including their faith.
• Reject religious refusal policies that allow providers or institutions to abuse their ability to deny reproductive or sexual health care services.

What Can You Do?

• Read more about In Our Own Voice’s state policy and advocacy priorities
• Explore our resources hub for fact sheets, toolkits, and guides to support your local efforts.
• Engage With Your Members of Congress: Call, email, or connect with their staff to uplift policies that are important to you.
• Engage in a public forum or town hall hosted by your member of Congress.
• Share your story or submit an Op-Ed in your local newspaper.
• Use platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Bluesky to engage your members of Congress.
• Send an action alert message to your members of Congress or call your members of Congress.
• Contact our government affairs staff for advocacy strategies and useful resources