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Sometimes non-profit sector campaigns may actually put people’s human rights at risk. In early 2010, a pro-life organization in Atlanta, Georgia launched a campaign which called for legislation that would criminalize abortions provided to Black women. To protect and ensure reproductive rights for Black women, the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective created a counter-campaign that used the opponent’s message and brought to light its negative implications for civil and women’s rights. 

The anti-abortion message implied that by virtue of their race, every Black woman is obliged to give birth to more children in order to preserve the race. Furthermore, the campaign accused Planned Parenthood of engineering “genocide” by providing abortions to women of color. SisterSong determined that if such legislation was passed, Black women would likely lose access to reproductive health options, including safe abortions.

It was important to understand the underlying negative message being advanced by the SisterSong Collective’s opponent. The SisterSong Collective and their partners analyzed the rhetorical implication of the anti-abortion campaign. The campaign emphasized two messages, as Loretta J. Ross states, “Either we were victims without agency unable to make our own decisions [regarding abortion], or we were the uncaring enemies of our own children.” The SisterSong Collective identified the primary negative implication of the message to be the denial of agency of Black women.

In order to organize an effective counter-campaign, the SisterSong Collective researched the funding sources, goals, and tactics of their opponent. The SisterSong Collective and its partners learned that the anti-abortion campaign was connected to the Republican Party’s effort to unite white and black conservative voters. Additional tactics used by the opponent’s campaign was the employment of an African American woman to promote the idea of abortion as genocide; billboards; and two documentaries promoting the idea of a relationship between eugenics and abortion. The opponent thus consisted of a non-profit organization with strong ties to a political party, and their strategy engaged multiple media formats to misrepresent information and statistics about African Americans.

Realizing that the anti-abortion campaign aimed to reinforce historical divisions between civil rights and reproductive justice, the SisterSong Collective sought to build strategic relationships by reaching out to civil rights organizations ranging from local groups to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  

In their counter-campaign, the SisterSong Collective focused on constructing a positive, affirmative message – emphasizing Black women’s ability and right to make their own decisions regarding abortion. For example, “We protected the future of black children, not our opponents.” Another important component of this tactic was to respond and refute misused data by the opponent. For example, anti-abortion rhetoric often uses the statistic that Black women have three times more abortions than white women to portray abortion clinics as anti-Black. The SisterSong Collective refuted this statement by focusing on issues and barriers related to access to contraception that influence the high rate of abortion in the Black community. By re-framing their opponents’ message and building strategic partnerships from within the rights community, the SisterSong Collective was not only able to put their opponent into a defensive position but achieved their goal in preventing the legislation while also raising awareness on reproductive justice issues in communities of color in Georgia and beyond.  By building a message that affirmed the civil and reproductive rights of Black women, the SisterSong Collective also created a stronger connection between the civil rights and women’s rights movement, underscoring the importance of race discourse within the pro-choice movement.

Implementing the tactic in different contexts

This tactic can provide ideas to other communities to stand up and counter messaging that limit, deny or endanger human rights. Whether it is a local or nation-wide campaign, a TV report, or an article in the newspaper that misuses facts about a certain group, the SisterSong Collective example provides ideas to respond. It is instructive in teaching us how to understand the negative implications of a message, the importance of analyzing such messages, and organizing constructive alternative messages.

Photo: Image of a man participating in a SisterSong event. Image found on the SisterSong website Jan 2011.