Fulfilling the Promise of ICPD+30 and the Movement for Reproductive Justice
By Dilly Severin, Executive Director, Universal Access Project
2024 is here and halfway through the month and less than a week away from the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, January is already feeling a little less new. I have been pondering what I want to say to you, UAP’s dear friends and supporters, because none of the usual platitudes about new starts and resolutions seem appropriate in a year whose second day was marked by the Fifth Circuit Court in the United States ruling that emergency room doctors are not required to provide lifesaving abortions despite federal guidelines, even as evidence continues to emerge of the grave harm the Dobbs decision is inflicting on Black, Brown and indigenous pregnant people. As I stared at the blank page, Brittany Watts, a Black woman in Ohio who suffered a traumatic and life-threatening miscarriage was being criminalized by the state. Thankfully, for Brittany, justice has prevailed, but these and other cases demonstrate the urgency of the fight for abortion rights, and how inseparable the provision of abortion must be from the full range of sexual and reproductive health information, services, and supplies.
I have spent most of my career engaging in SRHR advocacy. For almost two decades, I alongside other advocates have made the case for sexual and reproductive health as a right, while also illuminating its positive ripple effects for legislators, ministers of health and finance, philanthropists and businesspeople on maternal, newborn and child health, educational attainment, gender equality, and yes even economic wellbeing. But in the most challenging environments and the most embattled moments, we have always relied on the simple reality that it saves lives. So, as I agonized over what to say to you, I realized my unease stemmed from a single question:
What does it mean when our lives cease to matter?
It is one of the many searing questions that the reproductive justice movement has posed for decades, while challenging us to think holistically, transnationally, and intersectionally—and to have both the imagination and compassion to center the needs of communities even when our legal frameworks seem to fail us. At the same time, when local realities seem grim, global normative frameworks which reaffirm the advancement—and not the retraction—of rights are more critical than ever. It feels fitting then, that the reproductive justice movement and the ICPD Program of Action (PoA) which evolved together and are informed by each other are both celebrating 30th anniversaries in 2024.
Both milestones remind us that the failure to value the lives of women is ultimately the failure to recognize that sexual and reproductive rights are human rights—the foundational principle of the ICPD Program of Action. Our lives matter, and now more than ever we must recommit to the nearly worldwide consensus that sexual and reproductive rights are essential human rights and fundamental to individual wellbeing and progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Against this backdrop, 2024 becomes an even more pivotal year for the Universal Access Project. As we kick off our own 15th anniversary, I’m reflecting on where we’ve been and looking forward to where we’re going.
Most importantly, I am starting the year asking how is UAP fit for purpose to uphold—and advance—the ambitious and as yet unfulfilled promise of ICPD+30 and the reproductive justice movement?
Throughout 2024 we will be engaging with you on UAP’s direction and we’ll approach all of this through the framework of our three grounding priorities for 2024. We will be embarking on a new strategic planning process to recalibrate and reinvigorate our purpose to meet the current moment. We’ll be convening and directing resources to the most strategic partners in U.S. government advocacy on global SRHRJ and pulling together the right people at the right times to shore up our movement ahead of and in the wake of the U.S. Presidential election. We’ll be doubling down on trust-based, decolonized philanthropy through the Resilience Fund, and we’ll be bringing our learnings to the broader philanthropic community to ignite change. And we’ll be exploring new ways to engage press and other storytellers to make sure the stories of global sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice are told.
This work continues to move forward because of your support for UAP, our partners, and this movement. I’m rolling up my sleeves, and I’m ready for what 2024 has in store. I hope you’ll join me.
More soon.