“Abolition is about presence, not absence. It’s about building life-affirming institutions.”

—Ruth Wilson Gilmore, abolitionist scholar and activist

Public health defines health not as merely the absence of disease, but as addressing all of the conditions and determinants that we know create health and wellbeing at the community and population levels, for the most people possible. On its face, public health is working to create the life-affirming institutions that Gilmore challenges us all to build. Abolition is life-affirming — and that should be an ultimate goal for public health.