Nnennaya Amuchie on Defunding the Police to Fund a Reproductively Just World

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Written By ReproJobs Team
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Nnennaya Amuchie

Pronouns: Any

Twitter: @theafrolegalise

Over the past few weeks, many of us have been called to take stock of the ways anti-Blackness impacts our communities, workplaces, and lives, and are thinking about how we can make changes to save the lives of Black people and end the system of policing that is killing them. The movement for Black lives is demanding systemic change for our nation and the world, and one of those calls for change is to defund the police. Some people are left unsure of what that all means and how this intersects with our work in reproductive health and rights. We spoke to reproductive justice activist, lawyer, and Black Live Matter organizer Nnennaya Amuchie about their work and what defunding the police might look like in the reproductive rights space.

ReproJobs: You’ve been an instrumental activist in the Black Lives Matter movement and reproductive justice movement, particularly working on local issues in Washington, DC like decriminalizing sex work, abortion funding, and defunding the police. Can you tell us how you came to this work and why these intersections are the core to your activism?

Nnennaya: I come through this work as a Black non-binary queer person who has experienced both state violence and intercommunual gendered violence. My first stench of activism was in the 3rd grade when I was organizing a petition to get a girls sports team in elementary school, and later in middle school when I petitioned to play on the “boys” football team. I have transgressed gender and norms since I was a child and through deep study and a commitment to organizing, I have learned how systems of white supremacy, cis-hetero patriarchy, xenophobia, and queerphobia have shaped my experiences. Particularly, I come to reproductive justice through my own experiences with abortion. I had an abortion while in law school and it was one of the most liberating experiences. I believe in Black people’s ability to self determine without the intervention of the state in all its forms, including but not limited to policing and prisons. As such, I recognize the abolition of the prison industrial complex as a reproductive issue because it strips people's dignity, agency, and humanity. Lastly, the criminalization of sex work is one of the primary ways Black women and girls experience experience police violence, sexual assault, and incarceration. We need to draw the connections of these issues and build a world that renders the United States and its violent institutions obsolete and I am committed to being part of that struggle. 

ReproJobs: The Movement for Black Lives has recently taken the nation with the call to defund police. Can you talk a bit about what that means and what that would look like in our communities?

Nnennaya: Defunding police is a popular abolitionist demand. People are growing in their understanding of contradictions of the police and the state. Defunding the police is a call for communities to divest from policing and realize safety among themselves and their communities. For example, the Washington D.C. government spends over $500 million every year on policing and consistently increases the D.C. police budget despite growing homelessness, rising unemployment, and increased community violence. Defunding the police is one of the many abolitionists demands that seeks to eliminate interactions between police officers and civilians and eliminate the legitimacy policing has in our lives. Budgets are moral documents that show who and what the government prioritizes. Defunding the police is an invitation for folks to understand how useless and violent policing is to Black and brown communities. When we say defund the police, we mean defunding the police so that it no longer exists and no longer functions. 

ReproJobs: An uncomfortable truth about the reproductive health and rights movement is that we are intertwined with the police as a way to ‘protect’ clinics from anti-abortion terrorists. For those in our movement who are uncomfortable with the idea of defunding police, can you share how a decarceral abortion movement could benefit us all?

Nnennaya: To center Black women and gender oppressed people is to understand that policing is a tool of oppression and is an off-shoot of slave patrols. Despite the relative advances in the reproductive rights and health movements, most people in the United States do not have *access* to abortion to even exercise their *right* to abortion. Black, brown, and indigenous people who try to exercise their right to parent or not parent are met with criminalization. States are moving swiftly to find new ways to criminalize abortion and punish people who exercise autonomy and agency over their bodies and the future of their family and communities. How can we rely on the same system that criminalizes people who seek self-managed abortion or who endure miscarriages? How can we rely on police officers to *protect* Black, brown, and indigenous clients when they routinely target, harass, sexually assault, and kill us in both private and public? We can create networks of support without relying on the state or police, abortion funds are evident of that. Most abortion funds run on volunteers and independent donors; from coordinating rides, to raising funds for abortions, to supporting with childcare, to supporting people during an abortion. We have decarceral examples and we should ask who are we trying to protect and who or what are police trying to protect?

ReproJobs: What does a community without police look like? What do you think it would look like for abortion clinics to operate without police given the constant harassment of anti-abortion white supremacists?

Nnennaya: A community without police looks like universal and free housing, healthcare, child care, job security, transportation, food and water, internet, and the resources and tools people need to thrive. Policing is a state apparatus and its goal is to surveil and control oppressed people. I envision a world where all oppressed people, particularly Black people, are free and have the time and resources to build strong communities and mutually beneficial relationships grounded in compassion, care, understanding, and pleasure. I envision a world where people have the resources to prevent conflict and harm while also having the tools, strategies and relationships to transform and deal with harm. I envision a world where people have access to abortion at anytime in any situations and where we build self-managed, community-centered abortion care outside of the state. 

Recently, I volunteered to be on a safety team at a convening of over 100 Black radical organizers. We provided 24-hour security for almost a week. We were trained on different levels of risks and responses to those risks, including de-escalation, exit plans, trauma-informed interventions, street medicine, and escalation plans. We were successful and we were participants and in relationship with people at the convening. Our safety was connected to the safety of everyone who was involved. I do not have all the answers on how to provide security to abortion clinics which are often on the receiving end of threats from white supremacists, religious people parroting racist and sexist tropes. However, I do know that police are also white supremacists who facilitate racist and sexist behavior and violence. Thus, we need to invest more time and capacity on training community based teams on de-escalation and safety measures and continue experimenting. This requires widespread community support and education from the people who live and work in communities where abortion clinicis are located while simutanously pushing and organizing for more community-based, self-managed abortion care. I am only one person, but I invite everyone to think deeply about our responsibility to protecting and supporting one another and the ways we show up for people who are experiencing harassment and violence when accessing abortion care. 

ReproJobs: For someone who is just learning about the police and prison abolition movement, what would you suggest they read?

Nnennaya:

ReproJobs Team
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