DISCLAIMER: This edition of Indigenously contains details about legacy violence on Indigenous women as well as pro-choice views about abortion.  If I lose your readership because of my open defense of Roe v. Wade, a law I've benefitted from, I'm sorry to see you go. 💜

Those who have even a base-level understanding of reproductive rights across Indian Country will know that the Supreme Court's draft opinion in the case of Dobbs. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is not the worst case scenario for what misogynistic lawmaking can do to a women’s body.  The year my mother began working as an ICU nurse at the Indian Hospital in Claremore, Oklahoma, coercive sterilizations were happening in the obstetrics unit on Native women giving childbirth.  It was in the 1970s and, as we now know, an investigation by Native rights advocates, including Dr. Connie Pinkerton-Uri (Choctaw/Cherokee), revealed that many of these women were given tubal ligations without their consent or knowledge.  And so, when I learned about the Dobbs opinion which was leaked to Politico on Monday - like a lot of people, I was disturbed by the news, but I wasn’t surprised.  And not because Justice Samuel Alito, across his sixteen years on the bench, had written the draft with such vitriol.  (He called abortions “egregiously wrong.”)  Rather, for Indigenous women, such patriarchal authoritarianism - to be sure, a war on women - is what has always lived at the crossroads of what happens to us; to our wombs, our disappearances, our murders, and ironically, our stolen children.

The leak about the presumed reversal of Roe couldn’t be more dubiously timed.  Not only does this weekend mark Mother’s Day, but for Indian Country,  the news set a dull tone for the National Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day held May 5.  Since 2018, the White House has observed this day as part of a movement that has been building for decades.  In Canada, attention paid to the chronic rate at which Indigenous women and girls, two-spirt and transgendered people are disappeared or are killed has been embedded in national politics for nearly a decade.  But on this day of remembering our women lost to violence, there is little attention paid to the reproductive rights of Native women.

If Alito’s majority draft opinion holds, Dobbs will turn the tables on abortion in Indian Country in ways that could be tragic for Native women.  Of the thirteen states that could ban abortions immediately, eight are home to some of the highest populations of Native women.  In the Dakotas and Oklahoma, representing 52 tribes combined, it’s already hard enough being Native and female.  Indigenous women die from gun violence in Oklahoma more than any other group next to Black women.  And in the Dakotas - often called the “Selma of the North” - poverty is higher on reservations than any other counties in the U.S.  The average life expectancy of Native women in North and South Dakota is 55, about 25 years behind the national average.  Add to this, the backdrop that it was only 15 years ago that South Dakota banned abortions for a short run in 2006.  And if that wasn’t jarring enough, an all male Oglala Nation Tribal Council on the Pine Ridge Reservation followed suit.  Again, these patriarchal hurdles are nothing new for Native women.

National Conference of State Legislatures / Indigenously Illustration

Also, a quick reminder to take care of yourself. The news cycle has been pretty heavy lately, and it’ll bear more weight - so find time to disconnect.  Since returning to the far north, I’ve been spending a lot of time at kitchen tables, visiting and eating a lot of yummy Native foods like whale blubber, beluga flipper, speckled duck, and sheefish.  And having this little friend around has also helped take the edge off. 

On that note, I’m dealing with slow Internet again which may be affecting what I can produce with this newsletter.  For instance, getting this latest edition out required a total reliance on my iPhone hotspot - so, it’s like wading through molasses at times, especially when trying to crunch data and upload media.  Let’s see how it goes in the coming weeks.  Til then, call your mom, and if that’s not possible, send gratitude in whatever way is yours. 🌸

The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling on January 22, 1973, not only gave people the right to access abortion legally all across the country — it also prevented many deaths from unsafe, illegal abortions. 

Abortion is common and accepted — and the data proves it.

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