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Reproductive Justice

This guide provides a starting point to learn about reproductive rights, abortion, birth control, and reproductive justice.

The Herstory of Reproductive Justice

The term Reproductive Justice was coined in 1994, just before attending the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo (at which international leaders would agree that the individual right to plan one's own family must be central to global development, rather than population control efforts), a group of black women gathered for a conference sponsored by the Illinois Pro-Choice Alliance and the Ms. Foundation for Women. Their goal was to create a statement about the Clinton administration's proposed Universal Health Care plan. In the process, they coined "reproductive justice" as a combination of "reproductive rights" and "social justice." The women who created the reproductive justice framework were: Toni M. Bond Leonard, Reverend Alma Crawford, Evelyn S. Field, Terri James, Bisola Marignay, Cassandra McConnell, Cynthia Newbille, Loretta Ross, Elizabeth Terry, Mable Thomas, Winnette P. Willis, and Kim Youngblood.

Wikipedia

Selected Studies

Luna, Z., & Luker, K. (2013). Reproductive Justice. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 9(1), 327–352.

Tam, M. W. (2021). Queering reproductive access: reproductive justice in assisted reproductive technologies. Reproductive Health, 18(1), 1–164.

Eaton, A. A., & Stephens, D. P. (2020). Reproductive Justice Special Issue Introduction “Reproductive Justice: Moving the Margins to the Center in Social Issues Research. Journal of Social Issues, 76(2), 208–218.

Petchesky, Rosalind Pollack. (1980). “Reproductive Freedom: Beyond ‘A Woman’s Right to Choose’.Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 5(4), 661-685.

Prakash, Jaya and Bartz, Deborah (2023) "Combatting Abortion Misinformation and Disinformation in Medical Education," Feminist Pedagogy: Vol. 3: Iss. 2, Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/feministpedagogy/vol3/iss2/6