Reproductive Justice

To be told that I am “a professional woman” and therefore somehow immune to the reality of domestic violence—how reductive. As if my education or appearance shields me from an origin of systemic harm. As if my life has ever followed a “normal” path.  Intersectionality calls in the diversity and complexity of privilege and oppression. Systems of oppression are multifaceted and interwoven.

White privilege shapes my access, even as I’m targeted by other systems. I acknowledge the responsibility of holding that privilege and the imperative to use it in service of dismantling oppressive structures. Silence is complicity.

I’ve learned from the work of Dean Spade, from abortion doulas, from fellow system experts. Language has the power to divide or unite. My undergraduate research focused on the discourse between “pro-life” and “pro-choice” movements and ultimately argued that the true common ground lies in reducing the need for abortion. The "how" from the common ground differed but we still landed united in the grounding before veering left or right. I believed the how to be not by limiting access, but by expanding support, autonomy, and justice.

My heart still races in response to the uncertainty of humanity. Yet, I continue to hold on to hope. I believe in my own resilience. I am actively learning what self-worth means, the radical value of rest, and how critical self-care is in a world that so often asks us to abandon it.

Working in emergency care systems during a global pandemic has exposed me to the depth of institutional failure—especially in nonprofit sectors where we simultaneously labor to transform the very systems that harm us. This work is not neutral. It is shaped by the long history of the nonprofit industrial complex and its entanglement with broken, racist structures.

I find myself embedded in a system that must be dismantled before it can be truly transformed. Coalition-building is our way forward—especially when rooted in local communities. Change begins at home: by engaging with city budgets, understanding institutional priorities, and demanding a reallocation of resources that reflect an ethical, community-driven politics of care.

Institutional trauma is real. Healing cannot happen until the systems themselves are healed. The Metro Denver 7-County Homeless Response System—what if it were reimagined as a Housing Solutions System? Systems must be people-centered, trauma-informed, and led by those most impacted. Yet “lived expertise” is often co-opted and commodified by gatekeepers, dividing people into the “deserving” and “undeserving.” That binary is violence disguised as policy.

Our language must evolve. Words like “choice,” “resource,” and “opportunity” have become unmoored from their human context. We need new frameworks that are soul-centered, rooted in care, and informed by system experts who carry the weight of terrible knowledge—knowledge gained not by choice, but by survival.

To make a revolution, people must not only struggle against existing institutions. They must make a philosophical/spiritual leap and become more 'human' human beings. In order to change/transform the world, they must change/transform themselves." - Grace Lee Boggs

I had an abortion at 20 years old, nearly 14 years ago. As public discourse around Roe v. Wade continues, I honor those who share their stories. Healing is not fully possible while systems of control remain intact, but storytelling remains a form of resistance. Survivors need a justice system that values their humanity.

My own catalyst for system reform was personal. I survived childhood violence, sexual abuse, neglect, and institutional harm. My high ACE score doesn't capture the nuance of that suffering—of abusive caregivers, of homelessness, of arrests that criminalized my attempts to survive. I remember my ribs broken by someone I loved. I remember the trauma of involuntary commitment, my body handed over to a system without consent. My body remembers being lost—literally—by the hospital on the day I was born.

I know what it is to be bred for harm. And yet I’m still here.

The same “terrible knowledge” can lead to vastly different outcomes. JD Vance, who shares an Appalachian background not unlike my own, leveraged his story of hardship into capital and political power—ultimately reinforcing the very systems that harmed our communities. We both emerged from places shaped by poverty, addiction, and generational trauma, but our paths diverged. He chose to assimilate into the system’s logic, while I am committed to dismantling it.

My Appalachian roots run deep. I carry with me the complex legacy of a region too often romanticized or pathologized, but rarely understood. My family in West Virginia still grapples with the impacts of incarceration, addiction, and generational violence. The trauma etched into our DNA is inseparable from the structural abandonment of rural places. What does it mean to honor that legacy while refusing to replicate the harm?

To truly belong to the collective, we must first be centered in ourselves.

So I ask again, as both a personal and political question:

What does family mean to you?

What does home mean to you?