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. Reproductive justice is a combination of the terms reproductive rights and social justice.
This framework was created by activist women of color to address how race, gender, class, ability, nationality, and sexuality intersect. It reframes reproductive politics as not about choice, but about justice. The choice narrative is limited because it ignores structural factors that limit ones ability to choose. Reproductive Justice is a more inclusive movement than the earlier reproductive rights movement.
There are three frameworks that focus on the reproductive needs of women and all people who menstruate:
Reproductive Health - Addressing inequalities in health services and advocating for the robust provision of services to underserved communities
Reproductive Rights - Emphasizing the protection of an individuals legal right to reproductive health services, access to free contraception, and free and legal abortion
Reproductive Justice - Encompassing reproductive health and reproductive rights while using an intersectional analysis to address the systemic political, economic, and social inequalities that affect reproductive health and the ability to control ones fate and future during their reproductive life
Reproductive justice is based on the international human rights framework, which states that reproductive rights are human rights.
History of Reproductive Justice
In 1994, a group of Black women calling themselves the Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice convened in Chicago for a conference sponspored by the Illinois Pro-Choice Alliance and the Ms. Foundation for Women. They published a statement titled “Black Women on Universal Health Care Reform” in response to the Clinton administrations proposed plan for universal healthcare. The women who created the reproductive justice framework were Toni M. Bond Leonard, Reverend Alma Crawford, Evelyn S. Field, Terri James, Bisola Marignay, Cassandra McConnell, Cynthia Newbille, Loretta Ross, Elizabeth Terry, ‘Able’ Mable Thomas, Winnette P. Willis, and Kim Youngblood.
In 1997, 16 different women-of-color organizations representing four communities of color - Native American, African American, Latin American, and Asian American - launched the nonprofit SisterSong to build a national reproductive justice movement. The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice collective was the first organization founded to build the reproductive justice movement. Additional organizations followed suit, springing up from this initial launch and forming or organizing themselves as reproductive justice organizations.
Reproductive justice was a response to the “reproductive rights movement” of the 1970’s, which favored exclusionary politics that were too narrowly focused on the interests of classed, white women of the western world. Black women, brown women, LGBTQI+ people, impoverished women, incarcerated women, homeless women, immigrant women, and disabled women were marginalized and outcast from the reproductive rights movement, which focused on abortion’s pro-choice versus pro-life debates. Reproductive justice sought to acknowledge the ways in which social forces like race and class intersected with gender to limit the freedom to make informed choices and exercise their bodily autonomy. This extended past the issue of abortion and extended into pregnancy, access to menstrual health and gynecological services, emergency contraception, contraception, abortion, treatment and prevention of STI’s, domestic violence assistance, out of hospital birth options, access to midwives, doulas, and lactation consultants, domestic violence assistance, support services after medical trauma and harm, safe homes, childcare, and sex education.
Issues Covered By Reproductive Justice
Sex Education and Body Literacy - the right to comprehensive sex education, understanding of one’s own fertility, knowledge of consent, and choice in partner
Birth Control - every individual's right to be informed about all birth control options and to have access to choosing whether to use birth control and what method to use
Abortion - access to abortion care that is compassionate, safe, local, and free, without barriers, and includes aftercare and support
Maternity Care - advocating for the midwifery model of care to improve birth outcomes and protect pregnant people from the violence of the medical industrial complex
Sexual Health - standardized and medically accurate sexual health curriculums inform people who can become pregnant about their bodies and result in fewer unwanted pregnancies, STI rates, and provide individuals with the resources to make informed decisions about their reproductive health
Sexual Coercion and Violence - protecting individuals at home, in the workplace or other institutions, and in public from sexual coercion and assault that occurs when a person is pressured, tricked, threatened or physically forced to participate in unwanted sexual acts
Forced Sterilization and Forced Contraception - advocating for legal protections to outlaw forced sterilization or forced contraception, especially affecting people of color, immigrant Latino women, mentally disabled women, physically disabled women, and impoverished women
LGBTQI+ Reproductive Health and Fertility Services - fighting for LGBTQI+ people to be able to access the same comprehensive sex education, sexual and reproductive healthcare, STI testing and treatment, birth control, abortion, and maternity care services as cisgender heterosexuals
Family Separation - advocating for the rights of families to stay together despite the cruelty of the criminal justice, child welfare, and immigrant detention systems which frequently target and separate marginalized families
Economic Justice - destruction of economic systems that keeps people impoverished, as they face further barriers in accessing reproductive health services
Environmental Justice - acknowledging that environmental issues like unhealthy drinking water and toxins in personal care products can impact physical and reproductive health and children's health and working to change these conditions
Immigration Reproductive Justice - the right to exercise autonomy over family structures and the right to reproduce as deportation and immigration policy can affect family planning and structure
Disability Reproductive Justice - fighting against the right for others to make reproductive decisions for the disabled, one of the most targeted communities for forced sterilization and forced contraception
Racial Justice - dismantling systemic racism, especially in medical institutions, which affects the quality of care and safety of the individual
Genital Mutilation - intervening to stop the continuation of genital mutilation, which is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls, women, and intersex people
