intro

This zine was created by abortion nurses with the intention of sharing medical knowledge with the people and further opening the conversation about abortions. We present to you the first in a series of zines on abortions and reproductive health as part of the People's Health Education Program, a collaboration between the Panther Solidarity Organization Ridgewood NYC Collective and the NYC Socialist Rifle Association.

We wrote this because as both nurses and as patients, we know that we collectively don’t know much about our own bodies. The medical industrial complex keeps us in the dark about our health and our bodies so that it can continue to profit off us, push drugs onto us, treat us as diseases and conditions to be fixed and not as human beings who need and deserve kindness, compassion, and care. To combat this and to actively render the medical industrial complex obsolete, we must equip each other with the tools and knowledge we need to better take care of ourselves and each other. We must work to build independence from the inherently racist, sexist, classist, ableist healthcare system, with the ultimate goal of building the people power necessary to overthrow this entire system and establish something entirely new, something rooted in care and love for the people. As medical professionals, we have the responsibility to de-professionalize the medical professions and share with the public medical knowledge that has been monopolized and sold to you at exorbitant prices. It must be free and accessible to all.

It is especially important to share this knowledge and destigmatize abortions as see the fascist far right ruling class further strike down on our bodily autonomy from every angle.

True bodily autonomy cannot exist under capitalism, as our bodies, time, and labor are commodified and exploited by our bosses. Every day we see how healthcare under capitalism exploits our illnesses and ailments. Every day we see how life under capitalism strips away our bodily autonomy.

The fight for bodily autonomy and reproductive rights must therefore be a fight for a classless, stateless society, liberated from the interlocking systems of oppression.

Do what must be done in order to fight for a better world. A better world is not just possible. A better world is inevitable, and we must dare to imagine it, dare to struggle, dare to win.