In response to New York State passing a law legalizing abortions only up to 24 weeks, and a Latina woman, Carmen Rodriguez, being the first to die from a legal abortion right after the law was passed, the Young Lords protest against a racist healthcare system that causes harm to Latine people seeking abortions.

This leads them to open community clinics in New York. The Brown Berets, a Chicano nationalist organization, also opens community clinics, but they are against abortion and argue that all forms of contraception are "tools of genocide."