Shivana Jorawar is the Reproductive Justice Program Director at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, the only national, multi-issue Asian and Pacific Islander (API) women's organization in the country, where she coordinates the organization’s reproductive justice policy priorities. She is passionate about uplifting the status of women in communities she identifies with, and has a background in legal advocacy and community education around issues of gender-based inequity and violence. Her experience includes working with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a legal clerk, working with the the anti-domestic violence organization Sakhi for South Asian Women, co-chairing a chapter of Law Students for Reproductive Justice, and co-founding the Indo-Caribbean women’s organization Jahajee Sisters, where she is now a member of the Steering Committee. Originally from New York, she now works out of NAPAWF’s Washington, D.C. office. Shivana holds a B.A. in Political Science from Fordham University and a J.D. from Emory University School of Law.
As immigrant women continue to seek better lives in the United States—51 percent of new immigrants are women—we cannot neglect the impact health-care policies and anti-choice legislation have on their lives.
As a woman with privilege who has depended on the law, I am grateful for Roe. As a queer, Indo-Caribbean from an immigrant family in the Bronx, I remember that laws often require less than justice does.
What does it say about a society when it leaves a woman to die in the name of “life?” Where is the respect for women’s lives? This irony pervades the politics surrounding women’s health in my own country, the United States.
