User:Vicaccinoprime/Women of All Red Nations

Lead
Women of All Red Nations (WARN) championed the health of Native American women, the restoration and security of treaty rights, the elimination of Indian mascots in sports, and the protest against the commercialization of Native American culture. Additionally, WARN emphasized the high rate of health issues like birth defects, miscarriages, and deaths on Native American land from nuclear mining and storage. WARN also expressed concerns about the forced sterilization of Indigenous women and the adoption of Indigenous children by non-Natives. In their annual newsletter, WARN published “The Left of Life” to draw attention to the ongoing forced sterilization of Indigenous women. In 1979, the article was reprinted for the National Indian Civil Rights Issues Hearing, which was held in Washington D.C. as part of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

Article body
Protests and Political Action:

WARN was and is an active participant in national conferences and regularly works with other women’s organizations. It is a member of the National Organization for Women, which aims to promote policies to improve minority women's causes. The main political actions taken by WARN are educational improvements and opportunities, healthcare, and reproductive rights for Native American women. It also aims to end violence against women, as well as stop the exploitation of Native Americans through pop culture, like the use of American Indians in sports mascots. As well as all of these WARN advocates for the protection of tribal land and treaties.

the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline protest of 2020. The protest against pipeline construction near reservation lands would threaten water and climate. The pipeline was to cross at least five aquifers used by Native American communities, as well as carry barrels of oil across these lands. Along with the climate threats, WARN protests for the safety of Native American women and girls.

History of the group:

Two other co-founders, Janet McCloud and Phyllis Young, had also taken part in other Red Power movement activism.[citation needed] (Delete)

Madonna Thunderhawk and Lorelei DeCora Means were both part of the Pie Patrol in AIM during the occupation of Wounded Knee.[citation needed] (Thunderhawk was a medic. Also, differing names are referred to in multiple sources as the Pie Patrol, not Pig Patrol. Delete?)

The group was formed as a result both of mounting frustration with a lack of visibility, and because of the persecution of the male leaders of AIM by the FBI.[12][13] (The federal government made arrests of many of the male activists but did not arrest the female activists.)

The Rapid City Conference hosted a variety of attendees, ranging from 30 different tribal communities, AIM veterans, and new activists. Due to FBI determination to eradicate AIM during the 1970s, the leaders of AIM were jailed, killed, or forced into hiding. WARN made an effort to replace AIM as a movement that supported the rights of Native peoples. However, the group's focus shifted to women. Women were appointed leadership positions, and the struggles of Indigenous women were the main focus of the group's activism.

Sterilization of Native Women:

In 1970, the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act led to the forced sterilization of 25% of Native American women during the six-year period that it was enacted. Many of these procedures happened without the women’s consent, and sometimes without their knowledge. Marie Sanchez—the chief tribal judge of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation—explains that the causes of this go much deeper than bodily autonomy: the problem stems from colonialism itself. Not only were Native women’s reproductive rights restricted with forced sterilization, but they also had limited access to other reproductive care like safe abortions. These problems were expedited by a disproportionately worse health care system on reservations. As a group, WARN advocated for women's reproductive rights and against the forced sterilization of Native women.