5 new restaurants tried, 4 blisters, 3 days of sleep deprivation, 2 weeks in New York City, 1 radically different view of reproductive justice: these are just some of the things I have to show from my Moxie experience thus far.
Sure it’s been fun and exciting and new and confusing, but it’s also been hard, physically and mentally. My first two weeks at Choices have been a whirlwind of emotions, assignments, and people. You’re just not quite sure what to expect when your internship supervisor tells you that she’s throwing you into the shark tank, but not to worry, she won’t let you get bitten.
The first thing I noticed about Choices is just how different it is than all the other Moxie placements. It’s the only for-profit organization, the only one located in Queens, and the only one that directly addresses healthcare. But it soon became clear that their mission and work is not so different than that of the other 5 organizations. This week, as a group we studied reproductive justice and the rest of the Moxie group visited Choices on Friday. Their visit helped me bring into focus the rather unique way in which Choices battles for feminism in the capitalistic, private sector.
As a society, we often have a disapproving view of capitalism and it might at first seem selfish for Choices to profit off the hardship of its patients, but as our founder Merle Hoffman pointed out, the value of capitalism lies in how those profits are used. Do they line the pockets of rich executives or are they invested back into the work of the organization? At Choices, that profit is used to benefit its patients, by expanding and creating new programs like TransCare or funding terminations for women who cannot afford an uninsured abortion. So I guess what I’m saying is, for any reader out there who thinks that social justice work can only happen through a non-profit model, consider the benefits not of using capitalism as the end game, but as a tool.
Now I’d like to talk about reproductive justice and why it does not equal reproductive rights. The main concern of reproductive rights is the legal right to have an abortion. Reproductive justice on the other hand is concerned with much more. While it does encompass the pro-choice movement, it goes beyond to suggest the intersectionality between race, gender, class and sexuality, and how those aspects interact to grant or deny access to reproductive privilege in the realms of pregnancy, availability of healthcare, child-rearing, and expression of sexuality. Bottom line: reproductive justice is about trusting women with their own bodies.
I may not have said anything particularly profound in the above paragraphs, but I think it’s necessary to identify capitalism and the reproductive justice framework as two of the largest actors in my experience at Choices. I could talk for hours about all of the things I did the past two weeks, like following a patient through her counseling and abortion procedure, escorting patients inside through a crowd of protestors, or researching standards of care for transgender individuals, and I hope I have the chance to tell you all about those soon, but for now, let’s think about how and why I am even doing those things. Fundamentally, why are women in these situations, who is benefitting, and how do we put reproductive power over women’s bodies into their hands alone?
It is so odd to think about doing “good” through capitalism, which is a problem I guess in itself. As we have talked about nonprofits taking on the role of organizations that help, have compassion, and do nice things, I wonder if this has always been true. Is it capitalism itself that divided up these two different types of work and prior, were there businesses more community-focused in regards to how profits was allocated? This something I think about a lot in terms of how we can best use our Duke education to “serve society” and “do good?” Do you think it would be most beneficial to work at a nonprofit, or work in a for-profit environment, like at Choices, where money is funneled in a “nonprofit direction?”