Reproductive Equity Now Celebrates Reproductive Justice Leaders in Honor of Black History Month
In honor of Black History Month, we’d like to honor the Black leaders who founded the Reproductive Justice movement, which inspires, activates, and guides the work Reproductive Equity Now does across New England to advance reproductive equity from a holistic, justice-driven perspective.
What is Reproductive Justice?
Reproductive Justice is centered around three core human rights:
The right not to have children using safe birth control, abortion, or abstinence
The right to have children under the conditions we choose
The right to parent children in safe, loving, supportive communities
Reproductive justice is not synonymous with reproductive rights. Reproductive rights focuses on achieving reproductive freedom through the lens of the legal system — reproductive justice takes an intersectional and holistic look at achieving reproductive freedom. Reproductive justice empowers us to utilize an intersectional approach that centers racial justice, disability justice, queer justice, economic justice, environmental justice, and justice from state and gun violence in our activism for bodily autonomy.
The reproductive justice framework goes beyond the legality of abortion and pushes us to consider reproductive autonomy, equity, access, and freedom from all angles. It understands that the legal right to health care is not synonymous with a person’s ability to access that care. For many people, reproductive health care is not an available choice, regardless of the legal status, due to barriers such as cost, reproductive coercion, state violence, availability of providers, and plenty of other obstacles. In order to achieve reproductive justice, we must break down the systems that continue to oppress people’s ability to access full bodily autonomy.
And the reproductive justice movement goes beyond abortion care. It’s about ensuring access to contraception, comprehensive sex education, STI prevention and care, alternative birth options, prenatal and pregnancy care, domestic violence assistance, affordable child care, adequate wages to support our families, safe homes, and more.
History of the Reproductive Justice Movement
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as second wave feminists began to understand reproductive autonomy – the right to birth control and abortion – as a critical feminist political plank, increasingly Black women, trans people, and Indigenous people were silenced or decentralized from this movement and activism. The formation of the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) and other feminist movement spaces were critical for the advancement of legal abortion, but were led by white women who did not empower or endorse Black women leaders. This resulted in an activism that neglected to critically engage with race, class, and ethnicity as systemic barriers to abortion care beyond legal rights.
While the 1970s brought legal abortion nationwide through the issuing of the opinion in Roe v. Wade, the 1980s and early 1990s brought with them significant backlash to advances in feminism and bodily autonomy, and it became clear the reproductive rights movement needed to broaden its strategy beyond the binary idea of “choice.”
According to SisterSong, the term “reproductive justice” was coined in 1994 by a group of Black women in Chicago. Before attending the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, this group of Black women joined together to recognize that a movement was needed to “uplift the needs of the most marginalized women, families, and communities.” These leaders named themselves Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice, and this was the beginning of the burgeoning reproductive justice movement that began to make critical advances to formalize activism through collectives, action committees, non-profits, and alliances of mutual aid organizations.
Some Leaders You Need to Know:
It’s important to highlight a few of the Black and queer leaders who have propelled the reproductive justice movement forward, however, this list by no means encompasses all of the leaders who have shaped the movement today.
Loretta Ross
Loretta Ross is the co-founder of SisterSong, a Black women-led reproductive justice collective. She is an educator, public speaker, consultant and community organizer for reproductive justice. Loretta serves as a faculty member at Smith College, where she instructs a course in White Supremacy, Human Rights, and Calling In.
Loretta founded the National Center for Human Rights Education in the late 1990s, and prior to that led the program for Women of Color at the National Organization for Women (NOW). She also served as the national program director of the National Black Women’s Health Project, now known as the Black Women’s Health Imperative. She served as the Director of the D.C. Area Rape Crisis Center, which provided her with unique insight and experience into working towards healing from gendered violence, loss of autonomy, and reproductive coercion. Loretta is a foundational leader in transformative justice and the process of engaging in calling in and community healing in response to trauma. She co-founded the theory of Reproductive Justice with several Black women leaders in the mid-1990s.
Dorothy Roberts
Dorothy Roberts is a sociologist and legal scholar who focuses her research and writing on bioethics, reproductive coercion and freedom, and state intervention into Black parenthood. She is the author of Killing the Black Body, a widely-acclaimed examination of the reproductive coercion of Black women throughout the 19th and 20th century.
She is also widely read for her works on adoption, the foster care system, and the role of child protective services and other so-called welfare agencies in disrupting Black families and committing effective cultural genocide by separating Black children from their parents.
Monica Simpson
Monica Simpson is a queer, Black activist and artist who serves as the Executive Director of SisterSong. She is a recognized expert in the intersection between reproductive autonomy, abortion access, and queer justice. Monica created Artists United for Reproductive Justice as a project of SisterSong to deploy artists to spread the message of reproductive justice in their work.
Renee Bracey Sherman
Renee Bracey Sherman is the founder and Executive Director of We Testify, a collective of abortion storytellers who use their personal abortion and reproductive health stories as a tool to educate and activate their communities for abortion justice. Renee is responsible for popularizing the movement phrase, “everyone loves someone who had an abortion.” She is currently co-authoring a book on the reproductive experiences of Black women and people of color throughout U.S. history. She also co-hosts a podcast on the history of abortion with Regina Mahone, the A-Files.
Toni Bond
Dr. Toni Bond is also one of the co-founders of Reproductive Justice. In 1996, she co-founded and led the first Black women’s reproductive and sexual justice organization in the country, Black Women for Reproductive Justice. Dr. Bond is a nationwide expert on the intersection between faith, race, and abortion/bioethics of reproduction.
How Reproductive Justice Guides Reproductive Equity Now’s Work and Mission
As an organization that strives to advance the tenets of the reproductive justice movement, Reproductive Equity Now takes seriously the mandate to engage in bold activism for maternal health, abortion access, contraception access, birth justice, childcare and support for new parents, and racial justice.
Here are a few of Reproductive Equity Now’s priorities that we hope progress reproductive justice across New England.
Ending Maternal Mortality and Supporting Equitable Birth Outcomes
A critical plank of reproductive justice is ensuring that those in our community who want to be parents are able to become parents and grow their families without the fear of medical complication, coercion, or costly services. Black pregnant patients disproportionately face complications throughout pregnancy and birth due to medical racism, high cost of care, lack of availability of care, and systemic racism embedded throughout the prenatal care and birth process. By expanding access to maternity and pregnancy care, Doula and midwifery care, ensuring doctors are trained and well-equipped to support Black patients, and rooting out the systemic racism that exists in our health care system, we can reduce the racial maternal mortality gap and improve birthing outcomes for all people.
Advocating for Contraception and Abortion Access
In the work of transforming from an abortion rights-focused movement to a reproductive equity-driven movement, Reproductive Equity Now seeks to educate and advocate for abortion and contraception access, as opposed to merely rights. We understand that while most states in New England enjoy broad rights to abortion and contraception, many New Englanders cannot access abortion or contraception, a problem that disproportionately impacts low-income folks, young people, and BIPOC communities. By ensuring that the state amply supports patients with the cost burden of abortion and contraception care through eliminating cost sharing for care, supporting abortion funds, ensuring patients have autonomy of choice over the broad range of contraceptive care, ensuring there are enough providers in enough locations to support the needs of patients, creating community-based networks of care to support individuals navigating abortion and contraception care, and working to eliminate existing “viability bans,” we can ensure that our definition of reproductive autonomy goes beyond rights to access.
Child Care and Support for New Parents
It is critical that when our community members decide to become parents, we must ensure that all types of families—whether built through IVF, surrogacy, adoption or more—have the ample support, safety, and resources to allow them to thrive. New parents need ample time off from work to spend with their children after birth, and deserve paid parental leave for any kind of pregnancy outcome, including pregnancy loss. By expanding access to child care, ensuring that employers are required to provide paid maternity and paternity leave, ensuring all families and providing other community resources for parents, we can help New England families thrive.
Public Health, Safe and Supportive Communities for our Children
Ensuring parents in our community can raise their children in safe, supportive, loving communities is critical to the mission of reproductive justice. We recognize that in order to achieve reproductive equity, we must also support efforts to achieve environmental justice, racial justice, housing justice, transit justice, and more.
Reproductive Justice Organizations to Support and Seek Movement Stewardship From
SisterSong
“SisterSong’s mission is to strengthen and amplify the collective voices of indigenous women and women of color to achieve reproductive justice by eradicating reproductive oppression and securing human rights.”
SisterSong is a southern-based collective of Reproductive Justice advocates founded by the originators of the theory of reproductive justice. This multicultural, multilingual, multidisciplinary collective supports the nationwide work of advancing reproductive justice for women of color. SisterSong supports the reproductive justice movement through convening space for activists, strategy and movement stewardship, facilitating movement work, and training the next generation of activists for RJ. Learn more at https://www.sistersong.net/.
The Yellowhammer Fund
“The Yellowhammer Fund is a 501(c)3 abortion advocacy and reproductive justice organization serving Alabama, Mississippi, and the Deep South. We envision a society in which reproductive decisions are made free from coercion, shame, or state interference, a society in which individuals and communities have autonomy in making healthy choices regarding their bodies and their futures. We commit ourselves to community education and empowerment, policy advocacy, and the development of systems of mutual aid to ensure that our friends, families, and neighbors never go without the things they need.”
The Yellowhammer Fund is an abortion fund and reproductive justice advocacy group. They provide mutual aid for abortion seekers and new parents, as well as provide community education in and around the Deep South and legal protection for people facing criminalization for pregnancy outcomes. Learn more at https://www.yellowhammerfund.org/
Indigenous Women Rising
“Indigenous Women Rising is committed to honoring Native & Indigenous People’s inherent right to equitable and culturally safe health options through accessible health education, resources and advocacy.”
Indigenous Women Rising is an abortion fund and mutual aid collective that primarily provides abortion funding, practical support, and community care for Indigenous people seeking abortion care. They provide doula and midwifery care for Indigenous patients seeking birth support as well. The fund is available for Indigenous people with the capacity to become pregnant in both the United States and Canada. Learn more at https://www.iwrising.org/.
The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF)
“The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) is determined to build a world where all reproductive options are valued, accessible, and stigma-free. We believe all people know how to best care for their own bodies and build their own families. And we’re committed to ensuring the conversation about racial, economic, and reproductive justice includes the people most affected by the barriers to abortion access. We work with our member abortion funds to build a base of collective power. Together with these funds, we organize and add strength to our call: Fund Abortion! Build Power!”
The National Network of Abortion Funds is a network of 100 independent abortion funds. These member funds work to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access. Learn more at https://abortionfunds.org/.
Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE)
“URGE envisions a liberated world where we can live with justice, love freely, express our gender and sexuality, and define and create families of our choosing. To achieve our vision of liberation, URGE builds power and sustains a young people’s movement for reproductive justice by centering the leadership of young people of color who are women, queer, trans, nonbinary, and people of low income.”
URGE is a reproductive justice collective run by and for young queer people of color. URGE specializes in organizing on campuses for reproductive justice and trans and queer liberation across the South. URGE specializes in abortion and sexual health advocacy, but has a wide-ranging portfolio from democracy issues to immigrant justice because they understand reproductive justice is deeply intertwined with other politicized social issues. Learn more at https://urge.org/.
Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI)
“Our Mission: To lead the effort to solve the most pressing health issues that affect Black women and girls globally. Through investments in evidence-based strategies, we deliver bold new programs and advocate health-promoting policies.”
Black Women’s Health Imperative is the only nationwide organization dedicated to the advancement of Black women and girl’s mental, physical, and spiritual wellness. BWHI trains doulas to support Black maternal health outcomes and advocates on a whole host of reproductive justice issues, ranging from HIV prevention to fertility care to abortion access and more. Learn more at https://bwhi.org/signature-programs/
Forward Together
“Forward Together is a national reproductive justice organization that centers peoples, families, and communities who experience reproductive oppression. We prioritize queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and other peoples of color. We utilize a cultural strategy to shift the ways we think about family and to build power and movements, grounded in our lived experiences, histories, theories and struggles for reproductive justice.”
Forward Together harnesses the power of reproductive justice advocacy and queer and trans liberation organizing to create more justice spaces for our communities. Forward Together runs multiple programs bringing together artists, writers, activists, politicians, and families together to realize reproductive justice values and help communities thrive. Learn more at https://forwardtogether.org/.
