‘What we need in Missouri.’ KC reproductive justice rally pushes for ballot initiative

More than 50 people gathered Sunday in Kansas City to call for a reproductive justice ballot initiative in Missouri, as part of a nationwide effort of rallies on the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

The rally organized by the Reale Justice Network, a grassroots social justice organization, started around noon at the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, after winter weather dampened plans to march through Mill Creek Park.

Organizers held a banner and wore shirts that read “I am more than Roe.”

It’s a phrase they said emphasized the need not only for abortion rights, but also accessible child care, mental health services and inclusive education, among other resources.

‘Nothing can stop it’

Reale Justice Network founder and director Justice Gatson said the group has been talking with Black and Indigenous leaders for more than a year about the kinds of policies that should be included in a future ballot initiative codifying reproductive justice in Missouri.

Over the next year, the group will embark on a statewide tour visiting safe houses and organizations to talk with more people before writing the initiative and filing paperwork.

Gatson said she doesn’t feel she and other activists can make headway in the current Republican-dominated state legislature, which used trigger laws to quickly ban abortion after Roe was overturned. Instead, a ballot initiative that brings the issue directly to voters - as she helped do with the successful campaign to legalize recreational marijuana use statewide - is the only way Gatson sees a path forward.

“Either we do that or we suffer as a state,” she said. “I’m not willing to suffer. I’m not willing to live in a place where my children are in danger, where my friends are in danger.”

While the initiative still needs to be written, Gatson said she wants it to include access to mental health care for women impacted by post-partum depression and other issues, better access to birth centers and education on HIV for women who are pregnant and HIV positive.

The most important part of building the initiative, she said, is to meet with and listen to as many communities as possible and ensure their concerns are met.

“When you build in that kind of way, you’re going to build something so powerful, nothing can stop it,” Gatson said. “And that’s what we need in Missouri.”

‘I was starving myself to survive’

Jenay Manley, an organizer with KC Tenants who’s running for Kansas City Council 2nd district-at-large, shared her experience of trying to get an abortion nine years ago, when she was 21. She inquired at Planned Parenthood, but the organization told her she first needed to go to an anti-abortion pregnancy resource center common across Missouri and Kansas.

At the center, Manley was required to take a third pregnancy test and watch an anti-abortion video while sitting next to a container displaying fetuses in different gestational periods. The woman at the clinic told Manley that she needed the center’s parenting classes, not an abortion.

Manley took the classes each week and worked multiple jobs. But she said they didn’t prepare her to raise her twin babies while living in poverty, and the crisis center that convinced her not to go through with the abortion didn’t provide any resources after she had given birth. She figured out how to get Medicaid on her own, but didn’t get food stamps or WIC, meaning Manley could only afford to eat the one half-priced meal she got each day at her Applebee’s job.

At the twins’ two month check-in, they were rushed to the hospital after losing weight since birth. Doctors told Manley that she suffered from malnutrition and her milk wasn’t providing give her babies the nutrients they needed.

“I was starving myself to survive, but it was killing my babies,” she said. “I was in that mess because people convinced me that I didn’t know what was best for my own body.”

Manley said she and many other Black women have grown used to that kind of treatment from officials, who feel they know what is best for them without actually listening to their concerns. If a person knows they can’t afford a home or food for themselves because they’ve been pushed into poverty, Manley said they shouldn’t be forced to bring another life into the world.

Reproductive justice, she said, pushes for everyone to have access to health care and to make their own decisions about whether or not they can responsibly bring a new life into the world.

Imije Ninaz, who represents the 5th District for Kansas City LGBTQ Commission, said pushing for reproductive justice is particularly important as the Missouri Senate again considers measures to ban transgender athletes in schools and restrict school curriculums.

Ninaz, who uses x/xs pronouns, grew up in a strict religious family and thought parenthood and childbirth was only for cisgender people. X said reproductive justice must include everyone and center those who are most marginalized in order to be effective.

“If you’re not trying to center trans voices, if you’re not trying to center Black trans voices, if you’re not trying to center Black feminine voices, if you’re not trying to center trans youth voices,” Ninaz said, “then you’re not doing reproductive justice.”