Woodhull Sexual Freedom Presentation: Beyond Incarceration: The Policing of Black Women and Children Through the Child Welfare System?

Erin Cloud, the supervising attorney for our Family Defense Practice, shares her talk from the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit about how the womb to fostercare pipeline separates babies from their mothers.

The womb to fostercare pipeline makes it more likely for low-income, women of color to lose their children at childbirth due to prior involvement with the foster care system. This results in women hiding their pregnancies in fear of their children being removed at birth and not receiving the resources they need.

Cloud says there’s a lot of advocacy that ends at birth, but there’s not enough conversation about parent’s right to parent a child.

“When we’re looking at a reproductive justice model, we’re thinking what is your right to have a child; if you choose to have a child, your right to parent that child free from however many intrusions,” says Cloud.  

Watch the interview here.