This advocacy group is mobilizing to engage Black men and Latinos in abortion discussions — a space where they’ve been underrepresented and for some, unsure of where they fit in.
Grace PanettaSeptember 25, 2024, 8:00 a.m. ET
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Jason Smolka lives in the Chicago area and is the national chair of a historically Latino fraternity. Jah Green lives in Philadelphia, where he works in the cannabis industry. Akil Bell is a grants manager for a nonprofit focused on Black women’s health in the Los Angeles area.
All are part of a growing effort to engage men of color in abortion rights advocacy.
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and states passed strict abortion bans across the country men, including top lawmakers and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, started stepping off the sidelines and publicly advocating for abortion and reproductive rights. But men of color, who overwhelmingly support abortion access, have been underrepresented in those discussions.
The stigma around openly discussing abortion in some communities and existing ideas about masculinity had led to many men of color not knowing how they fit into the abortion rights movement, according to advocates.
So earlier this month, the abortion rights group All Above All convened more than 100 advocates, many of them men of color, for a day of lobbying and advocacy on Capitol Hill. They were there to lobby in favor of two bills, the Abortion Justice Act and the EACH Act, which proponents say would expand federal funding and access to abortion for people of color and lower-income people especially.
Green, who traveled to Washington, D.C., from Philadelphia, described himself as a longtime “ally” on the issue of reproductive rights.
“It’s always been important for men to weigh on this issue,” he said. “It’s not just a women’s issue. It’s a family issue, it’s a people issue.”
“There is a voice amongst the men of color that we are comfortable in saying, ‘We are for this,’” said Smolka, the national chairman of Sigma Lambda Beta International Fraternity, Inc. “We are not just sitting around the sidelines and saying, ‘Well, it’s not my choice, so you go to fight the battle.’ It’s not my choice, but the battle is still mine as well.”
Bringing men into the conversation has historically been somewhat of a blind spot of the abortion rights movement, said All Above All’s president, Nourbese Flint.
Polling from All In Action Fund and HIT Strategies found that while men of color support abortion access and view it as an important issue in determining how they vote, they’re unsure of their place in the abortion rights movement and were waiting to be invited in.
“So this was our invitation, as well as our rallying call, to men who might care about this issue but don’t know how to get involved and need to see some other folks get involved,” she said.
All Above All has advocated for expanded abortion access and going beyond the protections of Roe v. Wade as a vehicle for advancing economic and racial justice. The organization is a longtime supporter of The EACH Act, a bill that would repeal the Hyde Amendment that has for decades prohibited federal dollars from funding abortions. The rule bars low-income Americans from having abortion procedures covered by Medicaid, a burden that falls disproportionatelyon women of color.
“At this moment, where Roe is gone, why don’t we build the things that people need? That’s what we’re trying to advocate for: Let’s rebuild not for 1973, but for 2024,” Flint said.
Men “look to other men” as ambassadors when it comes to engaging on the issue, according to Flint. For her, getting men of color into the conversation is part of a longer-term strategy to make the abortion rights movement more representative of those impacted.
“We actually have to bring men into the conversation and then show them the structure of what masculinity looks like, and know that you can be a feminist and still be masculine,” she said.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California, who leads a congressional caucus of fathers, has been one of the leading men of color advocating for abortion rights among House Democrats.
“As chair of the Dads Caucus, it’s clear to me and our 39 members that men need to step up and advocate for reproductive rights — this is not just a women’s issue, it’s an everybody issue,” Gomez said in a statement to The 19th. “Data shows the majority of men, specifically men of color, support reproductive rights and it’s on us to loudly speak out for these personal freedoms, push for legislation to protect abortion access and fully join this fight..”
Men of color who participated in the lobby day all tied abortion rights to issues of broader economic well-being and fairness, health care and civil rights.
Bell, the grants manager for Black Women for Wellness from the Los Angeles area, described abortion rights as not just an individual matter but a “community issue.”
“For me as a Black man, it’s been about finding my voice in the conversation,” he said. “It’s more than just about abortion, it’s about access to health care.”
Of the 132 advocates from 22 states and D.C. who came to the Capitol, 74 were men. They held over 70 meetings with congressional offices, according to All Above All.
Many of the men present were there with historically Black and Latino Greek letter organizations, which have played a more prominent role in the 2024 election since Vice President Kamala Harris, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., became the Democratic nominee.
“The voice of our current membership feels very passionate about this and is being impacted in a way that the previous generation wasn’t,” Smolka said.
Smolka said he’s seen a shift in how young Latinos openly discuss both abortion and gender roles. Becoming more involved and vocal on reproductive rights, Smolka said, is also helping them deconstruct traditional notions of machismo within their community, one that is “often viewed as hyper-masculine.”
“We ourselves are in an identity crisis as we go through the term from Hispanic to Latino, to Latinx and Latine, and how that impact even is felt within our own membership generation,” he said. “With the younger generation, you see this comfort with better gender equity, more fluidity, what gender is and whose roles are what.”
Former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have been seeking to peel off support from Black men, who lean Democratic, in large part on economic issues. Both parties will be vying for the votes of Latinos, who supported Trump over Harris by 7 points in the latest 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll.
Black men and Latinos, while less likely to support Harris than Black women and Latinas, do overwhelmingly support abortion access. In the same poll, 71 percent of Black men, 68 percent of Asian-American and Pacific Islander men and 61 percent of Latinos believed abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Just under half of Black men and over half of Latinos also agreed that elected officials should take steps to protect fertility treatment, birth control and emergency contraception.
Green, who works in the cannabis industry, sees parallels between cannabis policy and the post-Roe v. Wade abortion landscape, where rules differ from state to state. He argued abortion bans that make people navigate state-by-state rules “pigeonhole” lower- and middle-class people into lesser options.
“Let’s not pretend like this is not an economic issue,” he said. “People are already living on the margins, the middle class is shrinking yearly.”
Vice President Kamala Harris has centered abortion rights in her presidential campaign and pledged that if elected, she would sign legislation to restore a right to abortion, a proposition that could have long odds without Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress.
Democrats have repeatedly passed the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would guarantee a federal right to abortion, when they’ve controlled the House. But the legislation hasn’t passed the Senate due to the upper chamber’s filibuster rules, which require 60 votes to advance most legislation. In a recent interview, Harris called to eliminate the Senate filibuster to pass abortion rights protections.
Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, a sponsor of the EACH Act, said she believes “the tide has turned” more in favor of repealing the Hyde Amendment as more stories come out detailing patients suffering and even dying in states with abortion bans.
“This is a different era,” she said. “Suddenly, people are understanding that people are dying, that terrible harm is being done, and that we have to get rid of this rule.”
To Green, policies like the Hyde Amendment wrongly assume people exist in “silos” outside the context of families and support networks.
“I don’t have kids currently, but I come from a family of single parent households, and I’ve been fortunate enough to break the cycle within my family,” he said. “I think every righteous person out there should have that right to make that decision for themselves on whether or not they want to break those cycles.”
