Small Strategic Wins: Reproductive Rights Activism in GOP-Controlled Louisiana

• In Event: Women, Politics, and Policy: A View from the States

Abstract

Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, Republican-controlled legislatures across the U.S. initiated or were able to finally implement existing draconian abortion restrictions. Reproductive health and justice advocates and scholars have long warned of the implications of restricting reproductive rights for birthing people everywhere including increased maternal and infant mortality (Silliman et al. 2016; Ross 1992; Ross et al. 2017; Vilda et al. 2021; Bossick et al. 2023). Nonetheless, in order to appeal to anti-abortion policymakers, advocates across the country have strategically separated “maternal and child health” (MCH) issues, such as increased insurance coverage for midwifery and doula care, from issues often labeled as “reproductive rights,” such as access to sex education, birth control, and abortion. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Louisiana, a state with one of the most restrictive policy environments for reproductive rights and one the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in the United States.

Indeed, despite the cultural and political climate in Louisiana, a largely Catholic and Republican state, in the years leading up to Dobbs and in the year and half since, reproductive health advocates have had small strategic wins aimed at addressing maternal and infant health and counteracting some of the negative consequences of restrictive abortion policy. Unsurprisingly, these wins have occurred primarily in the realm of “MCH” and have resulted from a surge of advocacy in response to stark racial disparities in birth outcomes in the state. However, as some reproductive rights and justice advocates on both national and local levels point out, this strategic separation has likely contributed to the downfall of abortion rights. They have pointed out that this newly more repressive context sheds a bright public light on how the lack of access to abortion endangers the health and lives of pregnant-capable people. As such, the best opportunity for advocates to move legislation that improves reproductive self-determination may be to highlight connections between reproductive rights and MCH.

In this paper, we consider the current conundrum facing advocates in Louisiana: that the moment has never been riper for connecting reproductive rights to MCH issues, but at the same time, with the election of Governor Jeff Landry, a staunchly anti-abortion Republican, the political climate has arguably never been less hospitable to reproductive rights. We analyze legislative discourse, political news coverage, and interviews with key informants to understand the legislative challenges facing advocates, the strategic separations and allyships they employ, and the implications for other states and reproductive health more broadly. We take a particular interest in the racial politics of these strategies and discourses, seeking to understand the role that race may play in both the restriction of reproductive rights and the rising public profile of maternal and infant mortality. We aim to uncover how racial politics are strategically deployed both for and against reproductive justice.

Authors

• Clare M Daniel, Tulane University

• Anna M. Mahoney, Dartmouth College