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Anarcha-feminists went on the offensive in the fight for reproductive freedom in the 1990s.

Women in the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (1989–98), the leading US anarchist organization of the period, advanced sharp critiques of the liberal abortion strategy that had ceded so much ground to the Right.

Anarchists offered radical alternatives for women to take back control of their lives and bodies. Rather than petition the state for reforms, they mobilized to defend abortion clinics from the Far Right and taught themselves how to perform reproductive care at the grassroots level.

They maintained that abortion restrictions were a form of state violence, especially as they corresponded with the structural violence of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. Anarchists argued that feminists must oppose the state itself as the ultimate patriarchal institution and the source of much of the violence they faced.

Thus, rather than the slogan “We’re prochoice and we vote,” anarchists often marched behind a banner reading “We’re prochoice and we riot!”

Read more in my new article "'To Repulse the State from Our Uteri': Anarcha-feminism, Reproductive Freedom, and Dual Power" in Radical History Review https://read.dukeupress.edu/radical-history-review/article/2024/148/90/384729/To-Repulse-the-State-from-Our-Uteri-Anarcha?guestAccessKey=7806bc55-d93d-4b68-ac99-8c9b089b52ef