Reproductive justice

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Reproductive justice is a critical feminist framework that was invented as a response to United States reproductive politics. The three core values of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the right to parent a child or children in safe and healthy environments.^[1]: 62 The framework moves women's reproductive rights past a legal and political debate to incorporate the economic, social, and health factors that impact women's reproductive choices and decision-making ability.^[2]

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," according to SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, the first organization founded to build a reproductive justice movement.^[3] In 1997, 16 women-of-color-led organizations representing four communities of color – Native American, Latin American, African American, and Asian American – launched the nonprofit SisterSong to build a national reproductive justice movement.^[4] Additional organizations began to form or reorganize themselves as reproductive justice organizations starting in the early 2000s.^[5]

Reproductive justice, distinct from the reproductive rights movements of the 1970s, emerged as a movement because women with low incomes, women of color, women with disabilities, and LGB+ people felt marginalized in the reproductive rights movement. These women felt that the reproductive rights movement focused primarily on "pro-choice" versus "pro-life" (supporters versus opponents of abortion rights) debates. In contrast, the reproductive justice movement acknowledges the ways in which intersecting factors, such as race and social class, limit the freedom of marginalized women to make informed choices about pregnancy by imposing oppressive circumstances or restricting access to services, including but not limited to abortion, Plan B pills, and affordable care and education.^[6] Reproductive justice focuses on practical access to abortion rather than abortion rights, asserting that the legal right to abortion is meaningless for women who cannot access it due to the cost, the distance to the nearest provider, or other such obstacles.

The reproductive justice framework encompasses a wide range of issues affecting the reproductive lives of marginalized women, including access to: contraception, comprehensive sex education, prevention and care for sexually transmitted infections, alternative birth options, adequate prenatal and pregnancy care, domestic violence assistance, adequate wages to support families, and safe homes. Reproductive justice is based on the international human rights framework, which views reproductive rights as human rights.