Leaked SCOTUS ruling on Roe v. Wade

The time is now.

The leaked Supreme Court draft decision on Roe v Wade via Politico confirmed what many of us anticipated, yet it was no less shocking.

The Reproductive Justice Movement teaches us that long-term organizing to ensure the right to parent or not and to do so in safe and healthy communities remains central to our liberation.

Groundswell’s grantee partners save lives while building a new world that we haven’t yet seen. They have been preparing for this moment and will continue to be on the frontlines fighting for bodily autonomy and collective liberation for us all. Last year, Bold Futures’ and Strong Families New Mexico helped overturn a 1969 statute in New Mexico that criminalized abortion, creating a haven for people to access abortion care in the wake of neighboring Texas’ 6-week abortion ban.

Women of color in states like Texas, New Mexico, and beyond have the visionary strategy we need. Together with their partners, they are on the ground organizing for justice state by state, connecting the most impacted communities to care, and making sure that we leave no one behind.

Groundswell Fund and Groundswell Action Fund’s grantee partners have the clearest insight and vision to build a new world beyond the white supremacist institutions of SCOTUS and hateful legislative sessions. 

Please see the list of our RJ grantee partners (Catalyst Fund for Reproductive Justice grantees, Birth Justice Fund grantees, Groundswell Action Fund grantees) leading at this moment and fund the RJ warriors in your state.

We encourage our peer funders to show up at this moment by being bold, transparent, and clear about your commitment to the RJ movement and women of color and trans and gender-expansive people of color leadership; a movement Groundswell has funded for 18 years.

Groundswell will use this moment to uplift our grantee partners’ powerful long-term vision and intersectional RJ organizing in philanthropic spaces and increase our strategic support of grantee partners during a pivotal year to protect bodily autonomy and voting rights.

Key priorities for Groundswell

1) Support New World Building

We fund community care efforts led by Groundswell grantee partners, which include self-managed abortion education initiatives, grief/Healing Justice needs, supporting efforts to resist criminalization, and uplifting BIPOC midwives, doulas, and birthworkers who provide community-based full-spectrum reproductive healthcare.

2) Continued support of the RJ movement

Through Groundswell Fund’s Catalyst Fund, Birth Justice Fund, and Groundswell Fund and Groundswell Action Fund’s ongoing Capacity Building support, we will continue moving unrestricted funds to women of color (WOC) and trans and gender-expansive (TGE) people of color-led organizing during a pivotal year. The key to this year is our support of organizations like the BIPOC/WOC/TGE of color-led local abortion funds that are connecting folks to care supported by Groundswell Fund grantee the National Network of Abortion Funds.

3) Funder Organizing

We will engage with our peers in philanthropy to commit to funding intersectional reproductive justice organizing and community rooted models of care at scale and strengthen WOC and TGE people of color-led leadership, vision, and infrastructure in states to hold elected leaders accountable and demand protections for reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ rights.

Please join us on June 23rd for our Reproductive Justice Webinar to learn more about local and state-based RJ organizing happening at this moment.

4) Field Support

We will continue to offer convening support and automatic grant renewals to our grantee partners who have been on the frontlines of protecting bodily autonomy for decades. This is a powerful moment for the RJ movement to expand its base. Groundswell Fund’s Rapid Response Fund is open now for applications and is prioritizing organizing in response to attacks on bodily autonomy. 

At Groundswell, we understand this moment within the context of the historical efforts by the state to control our bodies and our futures. We are experiencing a backlash to our gains in building political power in our communities through intersectional organizing and advocacy.

We must see the attacks on abortion access, LGBTQ+ communities, and voting rights as a coordinated effort by the white supremacist religious right. 

These laws criminalize BlPOC, queer and trans bodies. We reject the criminalization of our communities and are fighting for an abolitionist future. Our grantee partners are ready and are actively working towards that future – they have the vision and the clarity. It is philanthropy’s responsibility to fund them to scale so it can be a reality. 

The time is now.

In Solidarity,

Groundswell Fund and Groundswell Action Fund