SisterSong

SisterSong Collective

Working to improve access to health services, information, and resources, SisterSong is part of a larger history of marginalized communities of women coming together to organize on their own behalf. As an attempt to fill the void of formal research and knowledge about women's health, the Collective formed between 1997 and 1998 when 16 grassroots organizations gathered to discuss the common needs and concerns that contribute to women of color's poor reproductive health. The Collective aims to represent five primary ethnic populations in the United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico: African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latina, Native American/Indigenous, and most recently, Arab American/Middle Eastern women.

One of SisterSong's objectives is to challenge the medical approach that assumes a uniform treatment for all women with a particular health issue. Instead, they call for a multiethnic, needs-based approach to medical care that interrogates the way women get services, examinations, and information that is based on their needs and the needs of the communities in which women of color live. Among the health concerns addressed are abortion and contraception services, sexually transmitted and reproductive tract infections, midwifery, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) prevention/care, coercive sterilization, substance/physical abuse issues, and health rights advocacy.

SisterSong Collective makes decisions based on consensus. Many mainstream women's health care and disease prevention programs lack cultural competencies; they are not directed at non-English speaking women, immigrants, or those with strong [Page 1125]religious beliefs. Due to the lack of comprehensive medical information and the historically inappropriate medical treatment of women of color, the Collective has worked to make a national presence with national and local policy makers and government agencies. SisterSong works in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Office of Minority Health, and the National Institutes of Health in identifying appropriate research and data collection needs.

Efforts by organizations such as SisterSong have situated abortion and contraception as part of a much wider set of human rights concerns for women. Core to the notion of reproductive justice is the acknowledgment that women of color's reproductive and sexual lives are not isolated from the socioeconomic inequalities in their lives. Various interlocking forms of oppression, such as poverty, racism, sexism, and environmental degradation affect how, if, and when women are able to bear and raise children safely. Therefore, reproductive justice is achieved when women and girls have physical, economic, social, and political power and resources that allow them to make decisions about their bodies, health, and reproduction.