Our Values as An Organization

These following values reflect how we want to be as an organization and the way we work with one another. These values can/will have overlap to the work we do as a direct service to communities.

Common Theme 1: Collective Power

Creating relationships of power with each other, not power over each other.  Creating systems and processes that enable us to come to group decisions so that we can speak with a credible and unified collective voice.

Common Theme 2: Balancing Autonomy and Collaboration

We respect and honor each other’s contributions and work in a way that is responsive to the work and the values other people hold.  We recognize that role clarity intentionally balances power and respects the unique wisdom of each person. We check in with people who would be directly impacted by our actions before we take them.

Common Theme 3: Intersectionality

We understand that experience, insight, and impact are all different based on the various identities (race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, socioeconomic background, people with disabilities, etc.) that we hold.  We speak from our experiences, and we center folks with marginalized identities to ensure that our decisions and actions are creating a truly inclusive environment.

Common Theme 4: Decision-making Transparency

We maintain a decision-making process in which everyone knows how decisions are getting made, who is making them, and how they can participate in decision making processes. The information people need in order to participate in our organization is made accessible. 

Common Theme 5: Honoring Humanity

Acknowledging the lives and circumstances of collaborators. Holding space for messiness. Having reasonable expectations of one another, and understanding we are all balancing different things in order to show up for this work. While creating balance, we aim to be open and honest about our personal capacity, and having reasonable expectations of one another, while remaining accountable to BAF’s overarching mission, values, and goals.

Common Theme 6: Joy

Our work is public, positive, and relationship-focused, which decreases stigma for abortion seekers and for us. 

Our Values as a Direct Service Provider

The following values reflect more about how we do the work of BAF (funding abortions, giving practical support, fundraising, community engagement, etc.) These values may also overlap with how BAF operates internally as an organization.

Common Theme 7: Client-Centered

Our work is fundamentally about serving abortion seekers. We listen closely to what they need. We do our best to create systems and processes that meet them where they are at. When a client is not met by our systems, we prioritize them over our systems to create an individualized response and may even take it as an indication that we need to re-evaluate our systems.

We want our services and our advocacy to be truly accessible. This means listening closely to the people for whom we want to create access so that we can make processes that don’t create barriers. In doing our work, we honor what abortion seekers may be going through and strive to be supportive both emotionally and logistically.

Common Theme 8: Reproductive Autonomy and Justice

According to SisterSong, reproductive justice is the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. People of color often face the highest barriers exercising this human right.

Having the autonomy to decide and control contraceptive use, pregnancy, abortion, and childbearing is vital to reproductive justice.

BAF acknowledges the ways that identity and one’s position with oppressive systems create barriers to realizing reproductive autonomy. Reproductive Justice uses this acknowledgement to remove these barriers and repair harm. We seek to disrupt systems, processes, and ideas that impede reproductive autonomy. BAF is committed to the creation of systems, processes, and ideas that repair harm to folks barred from reproductive autonomy and create and restore reproductive justice.

Common Theme 9: Healthcare as a Human Right

We believe that healthcare should be a human right, not a commodity accessible only to some. Abortion is healthcare.