By Rebecca Harrelson, Staff Writer

Published in print Sept. 17, 2014

Reproductive Justice and Police Accountability were two of the many workshops held Saturday during the Stand Up, Fight Back (SUFB) conference. Jina Dhillon and Irene Godlinez from Planned Parenthood (P.P) hosted a seminar about reproductive justice and the rights of women.

Dhillon and Godlinez started their seminar with conversation guidelines, an explanation about the importance of using correct terms and having the correct mindset and also included the fact that the room from the start until the end of the seminar would be a no-judgment zone. This allowed the students in attendance the ability to feel comfortable and speak freely about issues in today’s society.

Some of the topics covered were the decision to change terminology within P.P. The women spoke about the change from the terms “right to choose” and being “pro-choice” with the mentality that “choice is not enough, we are working towards justice.”

Speaking on topics such as defining reproductive justice and unsafe abortions in many parts of the world, Godlinez and Dhillon gave many statistics that seemed unsettling to the attendants.

The statistics read, “about 19 million women worldwide will terminate their unwanted pregnancies in unsafe conditions every year and 70,000 of these women will die every year as a result.”

Speaking on the history of P.P, an African American student in attendance mentioned how he was unsure if he wanted to attend this seminar because of the rocky history of the organization. Margaret Sanger was a member of P.P in the 1920’s and she was also the largest supporter of Black Eugenics in that time.

This history has followed P.P around, yet Godlinez spoke about the issue mentioning that she believes in transparency and that P.P doesn’t stand for what Margaret Sanger stood for years ago, and “as a woman of color, I am very glad you brought this issue up. Our 100-year anniversary is coming up in two years and I would love to see Planned Parenthood address this issue. It’s not something we need to ignore if it is keeping people from getting educated and receiving help.”

The women both spoke on how intertwined reproductive issues are in society amongst LGBT issues, racial issues and the Ferguson issue. The question was posed, “Do you think Ferguson is a reproductive issue?” Many in the room said no, and many said yes. They followed by saying that yes, Ferguson is definitely a reproductive issue which sheds a completely new light on the idea of being a parent in today’s society.

The reasons for the events that occurred in Ferguson being linked to reproductive justice is that “this idea of raising a child of color in today’s society changes your parenting style, it changes your thoughts about bringing a child into a world where many children of color are being killed,” Godlinez said.

There have been posts online about Ferguson being tied into parenting and reproductive justice, amongst those posts is a quote circulating the web that Godlinez showed in the seminar: “You deserve to parent your child without fear that he or she will be hurt or killed.”

In another section of their speech, Godlinez and Dhillon focused on women who are pregnant and incarcerated by stating, “the majority of women in prison are single mothers and about 2/3rds of those incarcerated are women of color.”

They also spoke about some of the customs when women are pregnant and giving birth in prison. Women who are incarcerated and miscarry or have pregnancy difficulties are rarely given any extra treatment of even medication for pain.

Also stated was the fact that “women are often shackled during labor and childbirth,” Godlinez said. Godlinez went on to ask the students in the room if they thought women in North Carolina were shackled during childbirth and her answer was yes, “shackling of women giving birth happens in North Carolina very often.”

Godlinez and Dhillon also spoke about the obvious attempt to drive doctors out of practice and make abortion care more difficult to obtain.

Such proposals are known as TRAP laws: Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, allegedly, where the smallest issues with a facility are targeted in order to close it down or push back its ability to help women who seek their services.

Once the Planned Parenthood seminar was over many went to the Police Accountability seminar which was held by Irving Allen, a Greensboro citizen, who spoke on the Rufus Scales police brutality case that has been circulating in the Greensboro news. Allen is a member and employee of the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro that has taken on a role as a safe haven and an area to speak freely about police brutality in Greensboro.

A student in the room spoke about how some people don’t fully understand why cases like Rufus Scales or Michael Brown are issues of race and why issues of race are exploding in the media and in conversations around campuses and how would someone speak to those who don’t see why or how race is such an “important” topic of discussion.

Allen’s response to this was, “It isn’t always about race, it is about being a human being and seeing each other as human beings, but race does play a large factor, show them the statistics of how many people of color are killed, are arrested, are held under false charges, are racially profiled.”

This topic of discussion sparked a large open conversation amongst those in attendance about ideas students have for holding police accountable and for improving equality in racially tense neighborhoods.

Many spoke on how they believe the entire police system is flawed and about demanding a change in Greensboro PD’s next police chief. A student in the crowed said, “I think if you are going to be policing in a neighborhood you should learn about that community, you should get to know the people who live there before you go in feeling like you need to be armed with pepper spray, a taser and a loaded gun.”

Allen spoke on many of the achievements the Beloved Community Center is accomplishing amongst speaking on how this isn’t always a black vs. white issue. This is an issue with everyone, “it’s not always a white cop versus a black man, sometimes it’s black on black issues, sometimes it’s the targeting of LGBT, people of color and the trans community. We need to start holding our police accountable and demanding a change.”

Montravias King sat in on this seminar and also spoke about this issue, mentioning that he has been watching the Greensboro area stating, “as a police officer you are supposed to bring the high tension of a potentially dangerous situation down, not build it up. We should start having citizens be a part of the training process. If they are going to be keeping people in Greensboro safe, they should know who they are protecting.”

Allen wrapped up his seminar by saying “we have the power to ask higher of those we put in power, it didn’t start with Michael Brown and it didn’t end with Michael Brown. We need to keep the communication open amongst all people, all races, and we need to start talking about these issues and demanding a change.”