Reproductive Justice
Overview
While reproductive rights are often defined as a narrow set of issues related mostly to family planning and for or against abortion, the issues are in fact much broader. As an example, the Women Donors Network and the Communications Consortium Media Center, in their Moving Forward Initiative – an effort to reframe reproductive rights in ways consistent with the stated values and interests of a majority of voters – identified a variety of issues central to reproductive rights along with a particular set of policy goals: “access to comprehensive health care for women across the life-span; inclusion of a broad definition of material health and rights within the debates over health care reform and related policy; and full access to quality, affordable contraception and reproductive health services.”
And, as is true for many issues, the consequences of restrictive reproductive rights are unequally distributed by race/ethnicity. A recent infographic from the Guttmacher Institute describes ways in which reproductive health outcomes “reflect broader social and economic disparities.” The Institute also points out ways in which growing restrictions on reproductive rights disproportionately disadvantage women of color in the U.S., particularly by making contraception harder to access.
Key sites
- SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective
- Strong Families
- Forward Together
- Trust Black Women: Stand With Us for Reproductive Justice
- Reproductive Justice Program
- Southeastern Alliance for Reproductive Equity
Research
- Sexual Rights as Human Rights: Informing a Domestic Reproductive Justice Agenda
- Race, Poverty, and Reproductive Rights
- The Color of Choice: White Supremacy and Reproductive Justice
- Reproductive Justice 101: A Select History
- A New Vision for Advancing Our Movement for Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Justice
Practices
- Fertile Ground: Women Organizing at the Intersection of Environmental Justice and Reproductive Justice
- Race, Class, and Rights in Mississippi: How A Reproductive Justice Campaign Can Save the Pill and Save the Vote
- Growing from Groundwork: Stories & Tools from the Reproductive Justice Movement
- Movement Building Indicators
- The EMERJ Reproductive Justice Lens Toolkit
- We are BRAVE Toolkit: A Manual for Organizations of Color to Champion Reproductive Justice
- Reproductive Justice Briefing Book: A Primer on Reproductive Justice and Social Change
- Race, Gender and Abortion: How Reproductive Justice Activists Won in Georgia
- CoreAlign Year 4: Preparing for the Half-Decade
- Lawyering for Reproductive Justice Convening Report
- Black Mamas Matter: A Toolkit for Advancing the Human Right to Safe and Respectful Maternal Health Care
