By Anu Kumar, Ipas President and CEO
In 1962, Ruth Bader Ginsburg traveled to Sweden for a legal research project, a trip that opened her eyes to a new and different set of gender norms. Here was a society where women had power — the kind of power Ginsburg wanted women in America to have, too.
Swedish women were making visible strides. As Ginsburg recalled during a 2013 conversation at Columbia Law School, about 25% of Swedish law students in 1962 were women, compared to a meager 3% in the United States. Swedes were having a lively public debate about whether women should have jobs and do all the housework. And the case of Sherri Finkbine, an American woman who had traveled to Sweden for an abortion, was dominating the news.
Finkbine had taken the drug thalidomide as a sleep aid during her pregnancy. But the internationally available drug was discovered to have devastating, deforming side effects on babies born to women using it. Finkbine decided she wanted an abortion, but, in that pre-Roe v. Wade era, U.S. hospitals turned her down. She even sought a court order to obtain an abortion in her home state of Arizona. Her case went nowhere — so she went to Sweden.
When Ginsburg returned to the United States, she saw widespread gender discrimination, through a new lens. Teachers forced to take maternity leave when their pregnancies began to show, with no guarantee of getting their jobs back. Women whose jobs included health-care benefits for themselves but not their families, because women weren’t considered “family breadwinners. Prestigious summer programs for “budding engineers,” so long as the budding engineers were boys.
It’s no wonder that she came to be the cultural icon known as “notorious RBG.” She understood, like my partners in the fight for reproductive justice, that oppression is not a single-issue predator; it strikes at the intersection of many issues to dismantle our freedom and human rights. A woman who has gained economic freedom through a good-paying job still is not living a life of true equality if, for instance, she is Black or brown and her right to vote is being suppressed — or if she is sexually harassed in the workplace, or cannot legally marry her same-sex partner, or faces other forms of gender discrimination.
RBG dove into the challenge of fighting for gender equity in its fullest sense — at its intersections with the many broader issues of human rights. And within a few years, Ginsburg sensed “a new spirit in the land, a growing understanding that the way things had been was not right and should be changed.”
I am inspired to fight in the same way for women around the world. At Ipas, we focus unapologetically on abortion but understand that abortion intersects with many issues. Abortion is health care, and health care is a human right. So, for example, as the movement for universal health coverage grows, Ipas is working with governments and partners to ensure that universal coverage means all people have access to essential, quality health services, without financial hardship — including access to abortion.
We are also working on issues at the intersection of reproductive rights and climate change, which disproportionately affects women. In countries such as Mozambique and Bangladesh, Ipas is looking into how climate change affects women’s vulnerability and reproductive health decisions, so that in times of climate distress, their access to sexual and reproductive health services can be guaranteed.
Using the same broad lens, we realize that traditional gender roles often deny women the ability to make their own reproductive health decisions. It’s critical that our work involves men as well as women. In India, Bolivia and other countries, we’re helping educate men on gender equity and challenging gender norms that deny women power. This involves reaching men in spheres that are traditionally male-dominated — like the police force, military and groups of male community elders.
At its core, the right to abortion is about a woman’s role in society and whether she can realize her full potential. Ruth Bader Ginsburg knew that and championed it. We, too, know that reproductive justice, racial justice, climate justice and economic justice are intertwined and indivisible. In our work each and every day, Ipas is determined to honor RBG’s legacy by keeping up the fight for justice — for all people, in the United States and around the world.
Our “Believe in Justice” campaign is honoring RBG’s legacy with online conversations around #WhyIBelieveinJustice. Individuals from across our diverse, global community are sharing their motivations, inspirations and hopes for the future. Please join us: www.ipas.org/BelieveInJustice.
