Mission
Take Control Initiative (TCI) works to remove barriers and increase access to birth control in Tulsa County.
Vision Statement
TCI envisions a community in which all people have equitable access to birth control, ultimately promoting community health and economic opportunity.
Operating Framework
Since 2010, TCI has worked to ensure individuals have the resources and information to decide if and when they want to become pregnant in an effort to honor and support their autonomy and safety. In coalition with a strong network of partners, TCI builds sustainable bridges between community and health centers.
To create this reality, TCI promotes the following conditions for Tulsa:
– Everyone has access to all birth control options and are supported in self-advocating for their patient rights
– Health centers and community-based organizations are supported in implementing practices that affirm dignity, trust, and respect
– Systemic barriers, including financial, transportation, language, and logistical barriers to health center access are removed
To ensure our mission is carried out with equity, TCI affirms our commitment to the following acknowledgements:
We acknowledge that our work is based in human rights and that 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.” (source: SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective)
We acknowledge that our work originated in the complex history of the provision of LARCs and we support partner health centers providing care “in a consistent and respectful manner that neither denies access nor coerces anyone into using a specific method.” (source: SisterSong & National Women’s Health Network, LARC Statement of Principles)
We acknowledge and denounce the forced sterilization of any individual. We condemn “the eugenicist practices that have occurred and continue to occur at the hands of clinicians and within systems of social control”, including on people who are currently incarcerated in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers across the country and call for an end to these violations. (source: The Reproductive Health Access Project)
We acknowledge that historically, reproductive rights and health services have centered around cisgender women, but we understand that individuals who identify as transgender, non-conforming, non-binary or agender face “bias in the health care system and need competent, affirming services from practitioners who understand the harmful effects of stigma.” (source: National Center for Transgender Equality)
We acknowledge Black Lives Matter and Tulsa’s Historic Greenwood District and the lasting legacy of ‘Black Wall Street,’ we honor those lost during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and we commit to addressing the historical racial trauma that lingers in the wake of the Massacre. (source: Hannibal Johnson, Esq., 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission)
We acknowledge that Tulsa County land is the home of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), and Osage Nations, as well as the Caddo, Wichita, Quapaw, Kiowa, Comanche, Plains-Apache, and Pawnee, and other tribes who called this land their home before the forced removal. As guests on this land, we respect their hospitality and honor their history. (source: Tulsa City-County Library’s American Indian Resource Center)
2023 Annual Report
Metriarch
Metriarch is a statewide data collaborative that aims to normalize and broaden women’s health conversations in Oklahoma through data storytelling, resource curation, and interactive outreach events.
