Paradigm Shift

Contact: Lani Blechman
Civil Liberties and Public Policy, Hampshire College
413-559-6834, lblechman AT hampshire.edu

Reproductive Rights Conference Celebrates 30th Anniversary

With activists around the country focused on recent attacks on reproductive health, more than 1,000 community activists, students and national and international leaders will gather next month to build new strategies for reproductive rights and social change.

From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom, to be held April 8-10th, is sponsored by the Civil Liberties and Public Policy (http://clpp.hampshire.edu) and Population and Development (http://popdev.hampshire.edu) programs. The conference is held at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

The 30th anniversary conference reflects the significant growth of CLPP and PopDev over the past three decades. The conference will be nearly 30 times bigger than the first, with more than 60 sponsors and a diverse, inclusive range of speakers and activists from different generations, the U.S. and abroad. “There’s so much energy and vibration on the campus,” says Leticia Contreras, who is a 2011 student conference coordinator. “With activists, artists and social justice participants of all forms of the spectrum—people who really want to change the world in so many different ways. You feel this energy instantaneously.”

In the face of an emboldened right-wing assault on abortion and reproductive rights, the conference focuses on broadening the fight for reproductive rights and the health of our families by drawing connections between many social justice issues. “Although the Right has been encouraged by legislative gains, we have always been bold,” said CLPP Director, Mia Kim Sullivan. “And our movement is now so deep and strong, we have a new capacity to meet these political and cultural battles, on our own terms.”

Over 180 speakers and 70 conference workshops will highlight successful examples of activism and how struggles for reproductive and sexual rights are intricately linked to movements for economic, social and environmental justice and peace. Topics of workshops and strategic action sessions include abortion access in the U.S. and internationally, alternatives to the prison industrial complex, climate justice, the recent democratic uprisings in the Middle East, resilient community food systems, disability justice, and organizing in state, campus and spiritual communities.

“We have over a thousand activists from all over the country here, and also international activists,” said PopDev Director Betsy Hartmann. “It’s a space for creative political thinking, for thinking about the future of our movements, for crossing movements, for bridging differences and exploring those differences in a safe space. It’s also a place where people can speak out about their experiences with abortion and feel safe about it.”

The three-day conference kicks off Friday afternoon, April 8th, at Franklin Patterson Hall, Hampshire College. For a full list of conference speakers and workshops, please visit http://clpp.hampshire.edu/projects/conference/2011/overview. Friday workshops will run from 4 to 6 p.m., and will be followed by Breaking Silences: An Abortion Speak-Out. Workshops continue on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. and on Sunday from 9 a.m. to noon.

To mark the 30th anniversary and launch our fourth decade of activism, the conference includes a celebration of collective leadership and strength, honoring CLPP and PopDev founders and supporters, on Saturday, April 9th, at 7 p.m.

The conference closes on Sunday, with a plenary session around the theme of revolution, re-building community, re-imagining national priorities, and “waging peace” in cross-movement organizing. Speakers include local, national and international activists, among them Anders Wyatt Zanichowsky, a Hampshire alum who has been organizing with Genderqueer Madison and on the frontlines of labor rights in Wisconsin; Loretta Ross, the national coordinator of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective; and Sylvia “Guy” Claudio Estrada, co-founder of Likhaan, which advocates for women’s health issues in the Philippines.

The activism that CLPP and PopDev has fostered over the last 30 years—and will continue to inspire into the future—reverberates in different movements in the U.S. and all over the globe. On April 8-10th, celebrate this collective work, find new ways for collaboration, and be part of building the movement for reproductive freedom.

Student conference co-coordinators are available for interviews: contact Leticia Contreras or Emily Ryan at 413-559-6834 or clpp@hampshire.edu. Conference speakers are also available for interviews upon request. International speakers include reproductive and sexual rights advocates working in the Czech Republic, India, Kenya, the Netherlands and the Philippines.