What is Reproductive Justice
Installment One of my Freedom Friday Series. Freedom Friday's where I do my best to write about what freedom actually looks like
There are so many more aspects of reproductive health that sorely need the attention and support of our government and communities alike. Interestingly enough, there is an allegedly radical organizing principle that works to address a lot of them, it’s called reproductive justice. Reproductive Justice was a term coined by the Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice in 1994. They did it to call out the unaddressed disparities that the Democratic Party’s plan for Reproductive Health would create. Considering the rampant and escalating disparities in Reproductive Health, I thought it’d be prudent to dive into what they’re talking about and why I believe they were right.
Now if you’ve read my first piece, "Diplomat to Doula", you have at least seen the term reproductive justice. But it covers a fairly wide breadth of political action so I’m going to break down the core principles so we can get an entry point and start to imagine all of the possibilities of organizing that it could include.
Now reproductive justice has 3 guiding beliefs. All people have;
The right to have a child
The right to not have a child
The right to rear your child or children in safe and stable conditions
See what I mean? Not that radical when you lay it out. Having kids is a big decision and children are our literal future. Therefore, people should have the information and material conditions to make an active and conscious choice to have them. Additionally, people should be able to live in a society that allows them to provide for themselves and their children. The thing is people find it radical because it means that we have to create a world that actively cares about people’s humanity.
It means that we have to center people’s humanity in our government, our health care, our culture, and our society.
How can we claim that everyone has a choice about whether or not to have children when they don’t have comprehensive and evidence based sex education programming?
How can we claim that people have a right to have a child when maternal mortality is at the steadily increasing rate that it is?
How can we claim that everyone has the right to raise children in safe and stable conditions when 1 in 6 children already experience food insecurity here in the United States?
How can we claim that people have safe and stable conditions to raise their children in when schools are constantly underfunded and higher education is a poverty sentence?
How can we claim there are safe and stable conditions when our jobs don’t guarantee parental leave and rising costs make child care inaccessible?
How can we claim that everyone has the right to have a child when restrictions on LGBTQ rights limit the parental rights of queer parents?
Reproductive justice means we have to be brave enough to fight for people to have the freedom to choose the kinds of families they want to create. It means creating medical institutions and training providers that don’t permit inequitable outcomes based on geography, race, insurance provider, or what have you. Education should be something we care about investing in and making accessible. Reproductive justice does not mean investing in censoring education or using it as a pipeline to prisons either or even as a way to police our children’s sexualities or gender expression(But that last part is an article in and of itself). Reproductive justice means we should dedicate money, labor, time, and other resources towards families of all kinds. Reproductive justice means that we care for people enough to create a world that recognizes their humanity and work endlessly towards improving their futures. After having laid all of that out, I hope I don’t sound too radical. Frankly, I don’t care much if it does….Happy Friday though!