Protect REpro Organizers

TW: State-sanctioned violence

Statement of Support for Repro Organizers

On January 22, a group of reproductive rights organizers and advocates held a nonviolent protest at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Columbus during an event explicitly dedicated to anti-abortion political advocacy and ideology.

These organizers are now being targeted by the state, charged with outrageous criminal offenses, and stripped of their first amendment right to protest as well as their bodily autonomy, all the while, no laws were broken.

It is legal to protest. It is legal to have an abortion. It should not be legal to target peaceful protesters. Our carceral system has always upheld the status quo of white power, targeting Black and brown people to maintain its chokehold on liberation. Anti-abortion extremists are working to silence our movement's leaders but we will not be quiet.

We are in solidarity with all repro organizers. We call on the Catholic Conference of Ohio, the Columbus Police Department, and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office to stop prosecuting these community organizers for speaking out at St. Joseph’s public anti-abortion event.

Columbus Police Officer Zachary Rosen murdered Henry Green in 2016, has been filmed stomping on a Black man’s head during an arrest, and is now leading the charge against these pro-abortion organizers. We must divest from policing and reinvest in our own communities and organizations, independent of the state - this is a reproductive justice issue and a critical matter of survival.