The Black Women for Wellness Action Project is an advocacy organization based in Los Angeles, California that promotes and lobbies for pro-abortion policies and legislation. The organization is active in the political and electoral arena, lobbying on abortion-related issues, and leading a coalition that canvasses homes, hosts phone banks, provides trainings, holds forums, and speaks to elected officials in Los Angeles.

The organization is operated by its sister organization, Black Women for Wellness, a charity that also promotes pro-abortion stances and promoting health and fighting obesity in black communities by hosting vegetarian cooking classes and diabetes education and prevention. ¹

Background

Black Women for Wellness Action Project was founded in 2017 by Black Women for Wellness, a charity in Los Angeles that began in the 1990s engages on abortion and other cultural issues in the African-American female community. ² The group has a stated platform of directing the left-leaning voting power of black women toward abortion-related issues. ³

People

Nourbese Flint is the director of the Black Women for Wellness Action Project while Janette Robinson Flint is executive director of Black Women for Wellness. ⁴

Nourbese Flint also serves as the program manager for sister organization Black Women for Wellness; she directs abortion policy, environmental policy, and does community organizing and voter engagement on behalf of both organizations. Flint studied women’s health in Spain and Cuba and has a master’s degree in Women’s health from Suffolk University and an undergraduate degree from San Jose State. Other left-leaning groups Flint is involved with include being a founder of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Organization for Women and serving on the Board of Directors of the California National Organization for Women Political Action Committee. She is also a founder of Trust Black Women, a national coalition that supports many of the same issues as Black Women for Wellness at a national level, and is a member of The California Women’s Agenda and the Black Women’s Democratic Club. ⁵

Activity

Black Women for Wellness Action Project lobbies to support expanded abortion and to oppose the activities of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, resource centers that do not perform abortions. The organization promotes a short film it produced that purports to detail the “horror” created by the crisis pregnancy centers. The organization’s opposition to such centers launched the You Deserve Better Campaign in conjunction with Courage California. ⁶

The You Deserve Better campaign launched by the Black Women for Wellness Action Project is an effort by the organization in partnership with Courage California to attack Crisis Pregnancy Centers and brand them as “Fake Health Clinics,” which the campaign refers to as “The F@!#boys of Clinics.” The campaign champions the California Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency (Reproductive FACT) Act, which was supported by Black Women for Wellness and other pro-abortion groups. The campaign is critical of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), which language a lawsuit against the State of California to support two of its pregnancy centers that were adversely affected by the legislation. ⁷

In 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of NIFLA, granting an injunction preventing the state of California from enforcing the Reproductive FACT Act and holding that the pro-life groups were likely to succeed in arguing the law violated the First Amendment. ⁸

1. “About Us”. Black Women for Wellness Action Project. Accessed July 10, 2020. https://www.bwwactionproject.org/about-us/#
2. “About Us” Black Women for Wellness. Accessed July 10, 2020. https://www.bwwla.org/about-us/
3. “Donate: Black Women for Wellness Action Project.” EveryAction. Accessed July 10, 2020. https://secure.everyaction.com/-E_VfQergkSMTgbHxjfD2w2
4. “Staff” Black Women for Wellness. Accessed July 10, 2020. https://www.bwwla.org/staff/
5. “Nourbese Flint”. Othering and Belonging Conference. Accessed July 10, 2020. http://conference.otheringandbelonging.org/nourbese-flint
6. “Stop Fake Health Clinics”. Sameside. Accessed July 10, 2020 https://onsameside.com/campaigns/stop-fake-health-clinics.html
7. “What is NIFLA v. Becerra?”. You Deserve Better. Accessed July 10, 2020 https://www.stopfclinics.net/nifla-v-becerra
8. Howe, Amy. “Opinion Analysis: Divided Court Rules for Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers in Challenge to California Law.” SCOTUSblog, June 26, 2018. https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/opinion-analysis-divided-court-rules-for-anti-abortion-pregnancy-centers-in-challenge-to-california-law/.