In light of the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, many have been galvanized to join the fight for reproductive justice. As imperative as it is to keep donating to abortion funds and attending protests, it's equally important to educate yourself on the history of the reproductive justice movement and all that it encompasses.
There's more to the phrase than the Instagram infographics let on.
While reproductive justice includes abortion rights, it also incorporates much more. As defined by SisterSong, a Southern-based reproductive justice organization that aims to improve the reproductive lives of marginalized communities, 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." The term was invented in 1994 by the Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice, a group of Black women organizers in Chicago who met before the International Conference on Population and Development. For many years before the official coinage of the term, Indigenous women, women of color, and trans people had been organizing around the tenants of reproductive justice.
Organizers were doing reproductive justice work well before Roe v. Wade established the right to choose to have an abortion in 1973, and they have a lot of the answers you're looking for on their websites or in free resources they've created in the continued fight for reproductive justice for all. Here are some great places to start learning about reproductive justice.
SisterSong
SisterSong is the largest multi-ethnic reproductive justice collective and is recognized as a leader of the movement. The organization's website offers a fantastic explainer on reproductive justice and how it emerged to advocate for the needs of women of color and trans people, as well as the go-to definition of reproductive justice. Click and start learning about what reproductive justice is and how to achieve it.
We Testify: Abortion Explained
We Testify is an organization founded by Renee Bracey Sherman in 2016 that's devoted to uplifting the voices of people who have received abortion care. The organization publishes abortion stories in order to destigmatize the experience. There's a section of the website called Abortion Explained, where myths about abortion are debunked, the history of reproductive justice is explained, and the intersection of abortion and other social justice issues — including queer liberation, disability justice, and incarceration — are explored. There are also brief summaries of each topic, from abortion stigma to immigration. Click "learn more" about any issue for further information.
We Organize to Change Everything
We Organize to Change Everything is a free e-book available from the publisher Verso Books and the socialist feminist magazine Lux; it features the voices of health care providers, activists like Verónica Cruz Sánchez of Mexico's Las Libres, and clinic defenders like Derenda Hancock and Kim Gibson of the Pink House Defenders in Mississippi. The book's title comes from a strike call from Ni Una Menos, a grassroots feminist movement against gender violence that started in Argentina in 2017 and spread across Latin America. We Organize to Change Everything encourages U.S. activists to learn and take inspiration from those movements, tackling topics like how to rebuild the feminist movement, the relationship between abortion and transgender healthcare, and how abortion bans impact Indigenous women.
Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equality Resources
URGE is a reproductive justice organization run by young people that centers the needs of young LGBTQ people and people of color. The website contains a ton of helpful information, including a "Young People's Reproductive Justice Policy Agenda" as well as issue briefs and fact sheets that explain a variety of issues, from why sexual education is a reproductive justice issue to actions you can take and relevant pieces of legislation or specific issues in different states, like voting rights in Ohio or the state of sex education in Alabama. URGE's policy agenda covers the need for real abortion access, sexuality education, democracy reform, economic justice, decriminalization and creating safe communities, and immigrant justice. The document also defines important reproductive terminology and emphasizes the intersectionality of reproductive justice.
NYC for Abortion Rights: How do we wage a new fight for abortion?
NYC for Abortion Rights is an intersectional feminist-socialist reproductive collective that organizes in NYC. In December 2021 the group published a zine created by Christine Pardue, a member of NYC for Abortion Rights. The 9-page zine offers five starting points for how to wage a new fight for abortion rights, including centering working class people and fighting back against clinic harassment. The NYC for Abortion Rights website also has a fact sheet about the negative effect of clinic harassment on abortion patients.
