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June 8, 2007
Three women smiling
“Let’s Talk About Sex” drew a diverse range of reproductive justice activists from around the United States to discuss issues of sexuality and human rights.
Photo courtesy of Richard Lord.

From May 31 to June 1, Ipas collaborated with the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective and other partners to present “Let’s Talk about Sex,” a remarkable conference of a diverse sexual and reproductive rights activists from across the United States.

The conference was created in response to what sponsors perceived as the clinical approach to sex most often seen in the U.S. pro-choice movement.  According to the conference website, “…the right to have sex is rarely discussed when addressing reproductive and human rights issues.”

The three-day Chicago event included more than 90 workshops on topics such as how young women can contribute to building a stronger reproductive justice movement; how state restrictions on abortion affect women of color; mobilizing for sex education in U.S. schools; and societal values about abortion in the United States.

Ipas Senior Policy Associate Leila Hessini presented “Mapping Our Rights,” a unique, joint project between Ipas, Atlanta-based SisterSong, and New York’s National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The Map is an interactive tool to enable activists and journalists to understand how state policies have an impact on sexual and reproductive rights in the United States.  The partnership is one of the first of its kind and represents a bridge between the reproductive rights, reproductive justice and sexual rights movements.

Hessini said that just as the Map has helped progressives better understand the links between their movements, the “Let’s Talk about Sex” conference allowed an opportunity to discuss reproductive health across racial lines and national boundaries.

In another presentation exploring how U.S. policies are detrimental to women’s health, Hessini compared how the American government’s policies affect women within and beyond its borders.

In the United States, Hessini said, lack of support for women’s reproductive health is “having devastating consequences on the health and lives of individuals across our country. Unwanted pregnancies and STI rates are the highest of all industrialized countries; HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among African-American women ages 25 through 34; and states are proposing complete abortion bans, potentially making it easier to get an abortion in Mexico City than in Mississippi.”

U.S. policy has a direct impact on the health of women from globally due to:

While reproductive health indicators and the policy environment demonstrate the difficulty of guaranteeing women’s rights to health and health care in the United States, the situation in many developing countries is much worse, said Hessini.

Pregnancy — one of the most common experiences faced by women — is deadly in many parts of the world. Every minute of every day, a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth. Unsafe abortions kill 200 women, 14 percent of whom are under the age of 20, each day. One in three women globally is a victim of gender-based violence.

Activists who attended “Let’s Talk About Sex” were drawn from diverse reproductive and social justice movements, ranging from indigenous environmental activists to Latina reproductive rights activists, to women of color lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender activists.

“This conference demonstrates why it is so important to go beyond our boundaries of nations and movements and ethnicity,” Hessini said. “Issues of sexuality and human rights are integrated throughout the human experience.”

For more information, contact:
Kirsten Sherk
Senior Associate, Media Relations
e-mail: sherkk@ipas.org
phone: 919.960.5612
fax: 919.929.0258