Reproductive Justice as Intersectional Feminist Activism

Author: Loretta Ross

In: Souls, Vol 19, No 3, 2017, pp. 286-599

Reproductive justice activists have used the concept of ‘intersectionality’ to promote one of the most important shifts in reproductive politics. The Combahee River Collective, twelve Black women working within and outside the pro-choice movement in 1994 coined the term “reproductive justice” to “recognize the commonality of our experiences and, from the sharing and growing consciousness, to a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression.” This paper argues that this concept has linked activists and academics stimulating numerous scholarly articles, new forms of organising by women of colour, and the reorganization of philanthropic foundations. It examines how reproductive justice+e is used as an organising and theoretical framework, and discusses Black patriarchal and feminist theoretical discourses through a reproductive justice lens.