What is Reproductive Justice?

From the SisterSong Website: 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 vs Reproductive Rights: 

  • Reproductive rights and institutionalized reproductive healthcare have a long history of white supremacist, classist, and transphobic violence. Reproductive justice was created in response to this systemic violence. 

  • Reproductive Justice was created in 1994 by a group of Black Women who were dissatisfied with the ‘choice’ rhetoric rooted in individualism instead of the structural problems that create barriers for pregnant people. 

  • Choice vs Access: (from the SisterSong website)

    • Reproductive rights are about the legality of abortion as an individual “choice”

    • While the legality of abortions and other procedures (?) is necessary, the rhetoric of choice does not encapsulate the structural barriers many people (especially low-income, POC, and other marginalized groups) face

• Sister Song urges us to:

  • 1) Analyze power systems

  • 2) Address intersecting oppressions

  • 3) Center the most marginalized

  • 4) Join together across issues and identities

• How can students do these things?

  • 1) Who has access to menstrual products, Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARCs), Birth Control, Plan B, etc on campus? Who determines the access, and what type of access do people have? 

  • 2) Healthcare professionals on campus—are they versed in trans healthcare? Do students with disabilities have equal access?

  • 3) Working with students on campus to address their reproductive health concerns -- do they have equal access?

  • 4) Collaborating with student groups, particularly identity groups who face structural barriers to access. What are the steps to increase access?