The Center for Intersectional Feminism holds teach-in about reproductive rights
by Deanna Durben ’25, News Editor
On Wednesday, May 4 at 4:00 p.m., the Center for Intersectional Feminism (CIF) held a reproductive rights teach-in under the Dunham Green tent. Co-Chair Jhoana Flores ’24 gave the opening remarks, explaining that the aim of this teach-in is “to create a more inclusive discussion regarding abortion and reproductive rights” and create a safe space for attendees to process recent events as well as to educate attendees.
She and the rest of the CIF E-board, comprised of Co-Chair Lucy Naughton ’24, Regina Lin ’24, Phoebe Gray ’25 and Hollis Mann ’24, organized and planned the event.
The first speaker, Anna Skrobala ’24 from the Gender and Sexuality Union, explained how overturning Roe v. Wade would have a disproportionately negative effect on the LGBTQ+ community while the privileged and wealthy would retain the ability to travel and receive abortions. She also pointed out how the terminology of abortion as a “women’s right” is reductive and excludes other AFAB people such as transgender men and nonbinary and intersex people who could get pregnant.
College Chaplain Jeff McArn spoke on the clash over the value of life, with the life of an unborn child on one side and the life of the pregnant person on the other. Christianity has a long established patriarchal power system, wherein “men are allowed to distance themselves from the aftermath of a sexual encounter, while those forced to bear children are not.” Some Christians interpret the biblical command to “go forth and bear fruit” as evidence of their pro-life stance, but he thinks it is time to focus on other commandments, such as treating fellow humans with respect.
McArn believes, despite some of its perceived harmful traditions, that there is still value in religion. He quoted bell hooks: “To open our hearts more fully to love’s power and grace we must dare to acknowledge how little we know of love in both theory and practice.” He believes that we shouldn’t just think of the other side in dismissive stereotypes, but to trust in love, respect the dignity of all people and “put front and center those who are the most vulnerable.”
Claire Tzouros ’25, the co-chair of Hamilton’s Planned Parenthood chapter, spoke about how the name of the “pro-life” movement is just “a cloak that hangs over an anti-reproductive, anti-sexual and health care movement” rooted in misogyny and the desire to control women’s bodies. Tzouros reiterates that “being anti-reproductive rights is actually being anti-woman, anti-child, anti-health and anti-birthing people.”
Tzouros pointed out how Indiana defunded five Planned Parenthood clinics, leaving 24,000 residents in Scott County (in which the clinic had not even offered abortion services) without access to essential health care or any HIV testing, which led to an HIV and opioid epidemic. The pro-life movement rarely supports the fostercare and adoption systems to help children after birth, while 22,800 women die annually as a result of unsafe abortions in places where they are banned.
Willa Karr ’25, chapter co-chair, spoke about the importance of Planned Parenthood from a Hamilton student perspective. She emphasized that the establishment of a Planned Parenthood chapter means more than just accessing essential personal health services including STD/STI checks, contraception and sexual education. It means “joining a group of students across the country dedicated to fighting for reproductive justice.” Hamilton students are in a position of privilege, and as such it is their duty to take action on behalf of those who have been historically denied support, such as the underprivileged, low-income refugee communities in nearby Utica and Rome. “We are fighting for our own futures, and the protection of our own rights,” she said. Collaborating with Planned Parenthood gives student activists comprehensive resources and a concrete way forward.
CIF Co-chair Lucy Naughton ’24 concluded the teach-in. “We gather here today to show our love and support for the many Hamilton community members who have felt hurt, scared, angry or unsafe as a result of the Rosary Club’s messaging and the recent news coming out of the Supreme Court. Above all, we gather for the community members living in fear of their reproductive rights being stripped away in a matter of weeks. We see you, we are here for you.” She urged people interested in a follow-up discussion to attend CIF’s Tuesday, May 10, meeting at 8 p.m. in the DMC.
In an interview on Tuesday, Naughton said that “the original intention, before the Roe v. Wade news leaked, was really just to create a space for members of the community or LGBTQ+ people, or anyone who feels affected by the messaging the Rosary Club sent out…to process and let their emotions out.” Flores remembers seeing the outcry on Jodel throughout the Hamilton community, and knowing that that messaging “would harm members of our community.”
The Rosary Club was founded near the end of the Fall 2021 semester, and one of their first campus-wide emails stated that they “unapologetically stand for” the Sanctity of Life, a document that condemns abortion, euthanasia, and suicide as immoral. On Sunday, April 3, the club began a “springtime series of Sunday Rosaries…dedicated to the protection of the most innocent and vulnerable among us, the unborn.” This Rosary for Life series, with its message of abortion being a “moral evil”, has drawn controversy among Hamilton students.
CIF Media Chair Hollis Mann ’24 explained that while planning the teach-in, the E-board “made it a very intentional part of our process to make this a reproductive justice focused event supporting the people hurt by that rhetoric, and now, the shooting down of Roe, not just anti-Rosary [Club].” Naughton added that they were “trying to take advantage of that campus conversation and redirect it in a more positive way. We’re not going to lie and say that we weren’t motivated by the Rosary Club, but this is certainly not an attack on them, because the last thing we want to do is feed into that persecution complex.”
Even before the Supreme Court document leak, Naughton says CIF was trying to connect the current on-campus issues and discussions with larger national ones, and the news has only heightened the importance of that. As Mann says, “the rhetoric being spewed by the rosary club is more of a symptom of a larger problem than the problem itself, and it would be a disservice to the larger problem at this point to focus on them.”
CIF reached out to the chaplaincy, the Newman Council and the chair of the Religious Studies department to ensure a diversity of perspectives, and receive input from experts. McArn’s speech at the teach-in discussed the nuance of being religious and being pro-reproductive freedom. “There was a Rosary Club email with the subject heading ‘Catholic is pro life’, and that’s not true,” Mann said, “you can be pro-women’s rights and pro-abortion in any form.”
Naughton, a Religious Studies minor, said that a quote from her New Testament class has really stuck in her head: “The Bible doesn’t speak unless someone speaks with it.” This means that Christianity and religion is “just something that people interpret and connect to their own personal values.” Flores, who was raised Catholic, notes that there should be a limit to this freedom of interpretation, however, and “there’s a line when it becomes almost a form of hatred.”
Flores says that the supportive response to CIF’s email about the teach-in was overwhelming. Dewayne Martin ’24, a Class of 2024 Student Assembly representative, called her at 11 p.m. on Monday, May 2, wanting to help. CIF and some members of SA as well as other activists on campus quickly got involved in the brainstorming, and they thought of having a walkout.
In an interview on Tuesday, May 2, Flores says the group “spent last night and this morning reaching out to colleges in any way we can: contacts, emails, even that one person from high school who goes to that school” as well as DMing feminist groups and student councils. “I remember being in class and all I could think about was the walkout,” she said. Mann added that “We were all so upset and hurt by the news, but the energy in the room was palpable.”
This effort culminated in a Zoom call with 21 colleges from 12 states to plan the walkout, less than 24 hours after the idea was sparked. The current list of participating colleges is: Hamilton College, Pomona College, Brown University, College of William & Mary, Denison University, Clark University, Amherst College, Connecticut College, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Virginia Commonwealth University, Florida International University, Georgetown University, St. Olaf College, College of St. Benedict, Purdue University, Reed College, Virginia Tech, Wesleyan University, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, UC Berkeley and Middlebury College. More schools, including Yale University, Colby College, Bates College, Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College and Harvey Mudd College are getting involved as word spreads.
The Reproductive Freedom Protest (@rfprotest on Instagram), as they have named it, will happen on Thursday, May 5 at 5 p.m. As of this interview, it is still in the planning stages, but they want it to be a march through the school. Students are asked to wear green on Thursday, a color that has been associated with Planned Parenthood and protecting reproductive rights. Green was originally inspired by Latin American activists, and the protest is being held on Cinco de Mayo partly to pay homage to them.
Naughton gushed that “I didn’t think I could get more grateful than I already was towards the rest of the CIF E-board and G-board for all the hard work they put into the teach-in, then I was grateful for the other student activists at Hamilton, and now, my heart is just full of love and gratitude for activists at colleges I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met. It’s a really good feeling to have, to balance out the existential dread.”
