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What is Reproductive Justice?: How Women of Color Activists Are Redefining the Pro-Choice Paradigm
Kimala Price
Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, Volume 10, Number 2, 2010, pp. 42-65 (Article)
Published by Indiana University Press
For additional information about this article
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[Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 2010, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 42–65] © 2010 by Smith College. All rights reserved.
42
Kimala Price
What is Reproductive Justice? How Women of Color Activists Are Redefining the Pro-Choice Paradigm
Abstract
Frustrated by the individualist approach of the “choice” paradigm used by the mainstream reproductive rights movement in the U.S., a growing coalition of women of color organizations and their allies have sought to redefine and broaden the scope of reproductive rights by using a human rights framework. Dubbing itself “the movement for reproductive justice,” this coalition connects reproductive rights to other social justice issues such as economic justice, education, immigrant rights, environmental justice, sexual right, and globalization, and believes that this new framework will encourage more women of color and other marginalized groups to become more involved in the political movement for reproductive freedom. Using narrative analysis, this essay explores what reproductive justice means to this movement, while placing it within the political, social, and cultural context from which it emerged.
Frustrated by the individualist approach of the pro-choice framework, a
growing movement created and led by women of color has emerged to
broaden the scope of reproductive rights. Calling itself the reproductive
justice movement, this coalition of women of color activists and their allies
are using a human rights and social justice framework to redefine choice.
Focus group research has shown that women of color and low-income
women do not identify with the pro-choice message; in fact, the choice
Kimala Price • What is Reproductive Justice? 43
rhetoric is almost meaningless (PEP 1997; 2004). Reproductive justice
activists believe that this new framework will encourage more women of
color and other marginalized groups to become more involved in the
political movement for reproductive freedom.
The main goal of the reproductive justice movement is to move beyond
the pro-choice movement’s singular focus on abortion. The Oakland-based
advocacy group Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice (ACRJ)
defines reproductive justice as:
the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, economic, and social
well-being of women and girls, and will be achieved when women and
girls have the economic, social and political power and resources to
make healthy decisions about our bodies, sexuality and reproduction
for ourselves, our families and our communities in all areas of our lives.
(ACRJ 2005, 1)
As the above definition suggests, the reproductive justice framework
recognizes the importance of linking reproductive health and rights to
other social justice issues such as poverty, economic injustice, welfare
reform, housing, prisoners’ rights, environmental justice, immigration
policy, drug policies, and violence. The movement’s three core values are:
the right to have an abortion, the right to have children, and the right to
parent those children. Women must be able to freely exercise these rights
without coercion. Although reproductive justice activists acknowledge that
an emphasis on gaining legal rights, lobbying, and electoral politics is not
necessarily a bad thing, they argue that there has to be an intersectional
analysis and the acknowledgment of oppression in order for women to
truly gain freedom.
Using narrative analysis, I will discuss this emerging movement and the
concept of reproductive justice: What is reproductive justice? How does it
differ from “choice”? What is the political, social, and cultural context
from which this “reproductive justice” framework emerged? In order to
address the questions posed, I gathered and analyzed the stories of the
individuals and organizations who are actively involved in building the
reproductive justice movement; specifically, I focus on the activities of
SisterSong and many of its member organizations. I will show how
reproductive justice activists have rhetorically created space for women of
color, low-income women, women with disabilities, and other women who
44 meridians 10:2
have been marginalized not only within the mainstream reproductive
rights movement, but also in society at large. This particular project is
well-suited for narrative analysis, as reproductive justice activists have
consciously used storytelling as an organizing tool; that is, storytelling is
used as a pedagogical tool for consciousness-raising within their respec-
tive communities. Although we normally associate storytelling with the
telling of personal stories, this essay focuses on the collective public stories
that activists and advocacy groups tell about reproductive justice organiz-
ing and the histories of women of color and their communities. In other
words, this essay is not grounded in the personal stories of individuals, but
in the collective stories of communities.
Reproductive Justice in Context
A rich legacy in reproductive activism within communities of color is
increasingly being documented by feminist scholars and the activists
themselves. From Jennifer Nelson, we have learned how women of color in
the black and Puerto Rican Nationalist movements worked to get feminist
issues, particularly abortion and reproductive rights, onto their respective
movements’ agendas (Nelson 2003). Jael Silliman and her co-authors have
documented the history of women of color creating their own reproductive
health organizations in the 1980s and 1990s; some of the groups profiled
include the National Black Women’s Health Project (now known as the
Black Women’s Health Imperative) in 1984, the National Latina Health
Organization in 1986, Asians and Pacific Islanders for Reproductive Health
(now known as Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice) in 1989, and
the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center in 1988
(Silliman et al. 2004).
Loretta Ross has shown how African American women were actively
involved in the birth control movement in the early part of the twentieth
century (Ross 1992). College-educated, middle-class African American
women were actively involved in their communities with the sole purpose
of racial uplift. They felt that it was their duty to help their impoverished
brethren and believed that access to birth control was the key to the
economic and social mobility and self-determination of the African
American community as a whole (Davis 1983; Ross 1992). Moreover,
African American women established abortion clinics, such as the
Kimala Price • What is Reproductive Justice? 45
Gainesville Women’s Health Center in Florida, which was founded in 1974
by Byllye Avery and four of her colleagues.
Prominent African American women such as politician Shirley Chis holm
and feminist lawyer and advocate Florynce “Flo” Kennedy were involved in
abortion politics in the 1960s and 1970s. Chisholm was the first president
of NARAL (then known as the National Association for the Repeal of
Abortion Laws), and in 1969 Kennedy was one of the lawyers representing
the Women’s Health Collective and 350 plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging
New York State’s law prohibiting abortion (Davis 1983; Ross 1992; Nelson
2003; Silliman et al. 2004).
In the 1970s, advocacy groups founded and led by women of color, such
as the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), the Third World
Women’s Alliance, and the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against
Sterilization Abuse (CARASA), included abortion and reproductive rights
and sterilization abuse on their political agendas (Davis 1983; Ross 1992;
Springer 1999; Nelson 2003; Silliman et al. 2004). Specifically, these groups
exposed federal government-sanctioned sterilization campaigns targeting
African American, Puerto Rican, Mexican American, and Native American
women in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s (Davis 1983; Roberts 1997; Silliman
and Bhattacharjee 2002; Smith 2005b). In the words of Silliman et al.:
CARASA saw the mainstream pro-choice organizations as narrow at
best and, at worst, as taking positions that undermined the reproduc-
tive freedom of many women. In this regard, they specifically cited
hostility [from the mainstream pro-choice movement] to regulations
regarding sterilization abuse and the use of population control argu-
ments for abortion rights. Following the lead of women of color,
CARASA placed opposition to sterilization abuse on par with support
for abortion rights. (Silliman et al. 2004, 33)
Women of color have been active as members and staffers in traditional
reproductive rights organizations, such as the National Organization for
Women (NOW) and NARAL. In fact, many of the mainstream groups
developed programs that specifically targeted women of color, such as
NOW’s Women of Color Program and the Religious Coalition for Abortion
Rights’ (RCAR; now known as the Religious Coalition for Reproductive
Choice) Women of Color Partnership Program. In 1987, NOW hosted the
first national conference on women of color and reproductive rights; it
46 meridians 10:2
coincided with the 1987 March for Women’s Lives. Some smaller pro-
choice organization such as the Reproductive Rights National Network
(R2R2) placed race, class, and LGBT issues at the center of their mission
(Fried 2007).
Nevertheless, many women of color activists have expressed their
frustrations with working within majority-white, pro-choice organiza-
tions. In her book of essays, long-time African American activist Marcella
Howell writes:
During my 30 years in the women’s movement, I have watched young
black women come into women’s and reproductive rights organizations
with idealistic hopes of what they could achieve. By the time they leave,
usually within a few years, they are disillusioned with these organiza-
tions in particular and with the women’s movement in general. In many
cases, these young women found themselves in inhospitable and often
hostile environments. (Howell 2007, 7)
The disillusionment stemmed from the perceived lack of attention to
issues that were of concern for many women of color, such as the repeal of
the Hyde Amendment, which prevented federal monies (for example,
Medicaid) and facilities (for example, military hospitals) from being used
for abortions (NAPAWF 2008). This frustration also partly stems from the
“choice” rhetoric of the movement, which is problematic because it is
based on a set of assumptions that applies only to a small group of women
who are privileged enough to have multiple choices. Although the “choice”
message tactic may have worked in the short run in response to the actions
of the conservative anti-abortion countermovement, many reproductive
rights activists, especially women of color, believe that choice should not
be the long-term or sole goal of the reproductive rights movement.
Early reproductive justice activists were strongly influenced by interna-
tional human rights discourse. Beginning in the early 1970s, a global,
transnational women’s movement that placed human rights at the core of
its organizing activities emerged. Many U.S. feminists were arguing that
women should be involved in the international human rights scene
(Silliman et al. 2004). As Charlotte Bunch argued, “The separation of
women’s rights from human rights has perpetuated the secondary status
of women” (Bunch 1995). This transnational movement was centered on
several of the international women’s and human rights conferences held by
Kimala Price • What is Reproductive Justice? 47
the United Nations. There were the two decades of women’s conferences:
Mexico City, Mexico (1975), Nairobi, Kenya (1985), Copenhagen, Denmark
(1980), and Beijing, China (1995). There were also other UN conferences
such as the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) in 1979; the World Conference on Human Rights held in
Vienna, Austria in 1993; and the International Conference on Population
and Development held in Cairo, Egypt in 1994. Many women of color
activists were involved in these international conferences and were
radically influenced and inspired by the human rights framework em-
ployed at these conferences:
[T]he term Reproductive Justice was coined in 1994 by women of color
shortly after [the United Nations International Conference on Popula-
tion and Development in Cairo, Egypt]. We were envisioning from the
perspectives of women of color engaged in both domestic and interna-
tional activism, and attempting to create a lens applicable to the United
States with which to interpret and apply the normative (but not univer-
sally agreed) understandings reached at Cairo. . . . As activists in the
U.S., we needed an analysis to connect our domestic issues to the global
struggle for women’s human rights that would call attention to our
commitment to the link between women, their families, and their
communities. (Ross 2006, 6 )
Reproductive justice activists were particularly inspired by how the
United Nations conceptualizes human rights, as simply stated in Article 3
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to
life, liberty and the security of person” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights
1948). The UN delineates three broad categories of human rights: 1) civil
and political rights; 2) economic, social, and cultural rights; and 3) sexual,
environmental, and developmental rights (OHCHR 1996). The first
category includes rights that provide for liberty and equality, freedom from
discrimination, and the right to participate in the political life of our
communities, whereas the second category provides for the material well
being of individuals, the right to live and participate in communities, and
the preservation of one’s cultural identity. The last category refers to bodily
integrity, community self-determination, and rights to land and other
natural resources. Human rights doctrine has taken center stage in the
reproductive justice framework.
48 meridians 10:2
There have been several attempts to create a national reproductive rights
coalition for women of color, such as the Women of Color Coalition for
Reproductive Rights, which was launched in 1992 by six organizations
(Silliman et al. 2004). The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health
Collective (known simply as SisterSong) is the latest attempt to create a
national network. Comprised of over eighty national and local women of
color and allied organizations, boasting hundreds of individual members,
and headquartered in Atlanta, SisterSong was formed in 1997 by sixteen
organizations with funding from the Ford Foundation.
In 1997 and 1998 under the leadership of Luz Rodriguez, director of the
Latina Roundtable for Health and Reproductive Rights (New York), the
Ford Foundation hosted a series of meetings. Although the original
purpose of these gatherings was to focus on reproductive-tract infections
among women of color, the participants shared the belief that women of
color have the right and responsibility to represent themselves and their
communities (Ross et al. 2001). As a result, the group developed a plan to
create a collective vision and coordinated effort among women of color
groups. The Ford Foundation would eventually provide the seed money
SisterSong needed to launch itself as a viable advocacy organization. In
fact, the initial support from Ford was channeled through an unprecedent-
ed funding model; not only did SisterSong receive funding, but several of
the founding organizations also received funding for their individual
projects and programs. Loretta Ross, a veteran women’s rights, civil rights,
and human rights activist, would become SisterSong’s national coordina-
tor, a position comparable to being an executive director.
In keeping with its mission of creating and maintaining a multicultural
movement that acknowledges, respects, and supports a diversity of voices
and perspectives, the collective is organized into five principal caucuses
representing ethnic and indigenous groups in the United States: 1) African
American/Caribbean/African, 2) Arab American/Middle Eastern/North
African, 3) Asian/Pacific Islander, 4) Latina, and 5) Native American/
Indigenous. Over the years, other caucuses have formed, including ones for
the LGBTI/queer community, young women under the age of twenty-four,
and women of color who work in majority-white, reproductive rights
organizations. Last, the member organizations also represent specific
issue niches. Besides representing specific racial and ethnic communities,
SisterSong organizations work on a range of issues, including, but not
Kimala Price • What is Reproductive Justice? 49
limited to, HIV/AIDS, anti-poverty policy, violence against women,
disability rights, gay and lesbian rights, environmental rights, biotechnol-
ogy, and immigration rights. It has also incorporated human rights
principles in its organizing educational efforts, especially in its national
and regional trainings and workshops. In fact, the organization often
distributes free copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to its
grassroots constituency.
Many social movement theorists have typically focused on resource
mobilization and participation in the political process in their evaluations
of the impact and effectiveness of social movements (Staggenborg 1991).
However, Francesca Polletta and James Jasper argue that the construction
of a collective identity is just as important for assessing the impact of
movements as well as understanding what mobilizes people to participate
in movements and accounts for the tactical choices that activists make
(Polletta and Jasper 2001). In its attempts to map out space for itself within
the social and political landscape, part of SisterSong’s strategy is to
develop a strong collective identity, which is important for recruiting
individual and organizational members, especially women of color,
economically disadvantaged women, and other women who have felt
marginalized by the pro-choice movement. Doing so is also part of its
political vision and mission. Moreover, collective identity-formation is
important for distinguishing the movement from other social movements,
mainly the pro-choice movement. Is the reproductive justice movement
merely an outgrowth of the pro-choice movement? Is it a countermove-
ment? Or is it a parallel movement in its own right that is distinctive from
the pro-choice movement? Storytelling aids in this process of collective
identity-formation.
SisterSong and Narrative Analysis
This essay is based on a narrative analysis of a range of written and oral
texts. I specifically focus on the activities of and documents produced by
SisterSong and its member and allied organizations. Stories serve multiple
purposes. They can be documentary in nature; they can provide informa-
tion about a person, project, situation, event, or any other set of circum-
stances. Second, stories construct reality, or at least provide a glimpse into
the storyteller’s version of reality. We cognitively make sense of the world
50 meridians 10:2
around us by telling stories; storytelling is how we give meaning to our
experiences and convey those interpretations to others (Stone 1989;
Czarniawska-Joerges 1998; Feldman and Skoldberg 2002; Czarniawska-
Joerges 2004; Feldman et al. 2004). Third, stories can create space; that is,
storytelling can be a means by which those who are marginalized within
society or in a specific community can create a reality that includes and
addresses their experiences, perspectives, and concerns, that is, their
reality. Last, stories can serve as consciousness-raising tools for grass-
roots, political organizing. Reproductive justice activists consciously use
storytelling as a form of activism to document the experiences, history,
thoughts, and emotions of women of color and other marginalized groups
before these stories are lost or erased from official, public memory.
Narrative analysis is most often associated with the analysis of data
collected from oral interviews; however, stories can be collected from a
variety of primary and secondary documentary sources. Stories can be
collected from media sources such as newspaper articles, magazines, and
blogs, especially if one is interested in analyzing the public discourse on a
particular social or political issue. Social movement organizations produce
a variety of materials, including pamphlets, brochures, reports, press
releases, flyers, and congressional testimony, all of which are rich sources
for gathering narratives.
For this project, I gathered narrative data using several strategies. First,
I gathered information from my participation and observation in several
reproductive justice movement activities, such as meetings and confer-
ences. These included four annual meetings of the SisterSong Women of
Color Reproductive Health Collective (2004–2006, 2009), the national
conferences held by SisterSong in 2003 and 2007, and a national policy
conference (entitled “Reproductive Justice for All”) convened by the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Smith College in 2005.
Participant observation provided a great deal of context that aided in the
interpretation of the documents that I collected.
I collected and analyzed documents produced by reproductive justice
organizations, including websites, reports, mission statements, fact
sheets, newsletters, and meeting transcripts. Ultimately, I collected stories
from over 100 documents and seventeen websites. The following groups
are represented in this project: SisterSong; Asian Communities for
Reproductive Justice; Center for Genetics & Society; California Latinas for
Kimala Price • What is Reproductive Justice? 51
Reproductive Justice; National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health;
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF); African
American Women for Reproductive Freedom; California Black Women’s
Health Project; Black Women’s Health Imperative (formerly NBWHP);
African American Women Evolving (AAWE); Wise Women Gathering Place;
Justice Now; Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment
(CWPE); Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA); Mothers
Movement Online; Population and Development Program (Hampshire
College); and Advocates for Youth. I collected many of these documents
from archival organizational records at the Sophia Smith Collection at
Smith College.
Last, I collected interview transcripts from the Voices of Feminism Oral
History Project, which is housed at the Sophia Smith Collection. Many of
the feminist activists interviewed are the “founding mothers” of the
reproductive justice movement, including Byllye Avery, Loretta J. Ross, Luz
Martinez, Luz Rodriguez, Marlene Fried, Katsi Cook, Nkenge Toure, and
Carmen Vazquez.
I coded the texts for specific narrative themes. From the analysis, three
categories of stories emerged: origin stories, opposition stories, and
cautionary tales. For the rest of this essay, I will discuss these different
categories of stories and how they contribute to the construction of the
reproductive justice framework.
Origin Stories: Establishing a Movement
In the early stages of an emerging social movement, it is crucial to gain as
much momentum as possible at the grassroots; a movement must con-
struct an identity that not only reflects what it stands for, but also estab-
lishes it as a viable and effective political contender. The process of
constructing a social movement identity includes the repeated telling of
origin stories. Origin stories are the collective narratives that a culture
uses to explain how other things came into being, such as the beginning of
the world or the creation of the human race. Emerging social movements
often tell stories about their founding and purpose in their grassroots
organizing activities, such as membership meetings, conferences, training
workshops, and other related events. The following is an example of an ori-
gin story about SisterSong:
52 meridians 10:2
Throughout our herstory in the United States, women of color have been
engaged in individual and collective struggles to save our lives. Our
reproductive and sexual rights have always been an integral part of this
movement. Now, newer generations of women are continuing this
legacy. Its [sic] important for them to understand “herstory” and on
whose shoulders they [stand]. Despite evidence of our resistance,
women of color in the United States remain disproportionately affected
by reproductive health concerns and related human rights violations.
The SisterSong Collective emerged at a crucial time in this herstory, a
time when the women’s and civil rights movements were both experi-
encing critical backlash. SisterSong is the fifth and longest-lived
attempt to organize a national coalition of women of color health
organizations. The previous efforts were in the late 1980s and early
1990s, but did not last due to lack of funding to build the capacity of
women of color organizations to support a national collaboration.
(SisterSong 2003, 8)
For reproductive justice activists, the purpose of continually retelling
this and similar stories is not only to relate the founding of the collective,
but also to remember and honor the “herstory” of the foremothers of the
movement. These stories dispel the misconception that reproductive rights
is a white women’s issue and that women of color have not been involved in
this type of activism at all. Examples of past achievements and struggles
are meant to educate young women of color and to inspire them to become
the future leaders of reproductive justice activism.
In establishing the identity of the movement, reproductive justice
activists tell origin stories explaining the meaning behind the name
“SisterSong.” According to SisterSong lore, the organization’s name is
attributed to Juanita Williams, a founding member of the collective who
serves on the management circle (that is, the collective’s board of direc-
tors). The collective wanted a name that reflected the commonality in
struggle of all racial and ethnic groups and recognized the specific needs
of each community.
SisterSong and the reproductive justice movement were formed at a time
when a lot of women of color organizations were struggling to stay afloat,
and many of the women of color projects that had been established within
the mainstream pro-choice groups were also struggling. Many of these
Kimala Price • What is Reproductive Justice? 53
organizations had limited funding, small staffs, no computers, and no
non-profit, tax-exempt status, and as a result, they felt isolated from one
another and ineffective. One woman of color activist lamented:
Resources and efforts on reproductive health ceased in communities of
color. In the late 80s, it was in vogue to fund women of color projects
within white women’s organizations. In the early [1990s], because of the
lack of cultural competency within those white organizations and
tokenism, the trend was to fund women of color organizations. Now
they have gone back to funding women of color projects in white
organizations, because many of these organizations are not in existence
or no longer addressing those issues. . . . The [1980s] was when these
organizations flourished, but there [were] no cultural competencies.
These organizations—NBWHP, NLIRH, and NAWHO—were doing the
organizing in their communities. There was a lack of presence of
communities of color in public events. So some people began to
question their effectiveness and began to ask, “Why are we funding
you?” We are still seeing the same issue, but when we had our meetings,
people were showing up. (NLIRH 2001)
According to Juanita Williams at the 2007 SisterSong conference in
Chicago, “we’re singing the same song, but we are not singing in harmo-
ny.” Along with the name came the tagline, “doing collectively what we
cannot not do individually” (SisterSong 2007). The founding of SisterSong
was a move for survival as well as unity, as these organizations were about
to pool their energy and resources to support one another. The collective’s
name reflects the unity of the many voices of the groups.
Opposition Stories: Moving beyond Choice
In the creation of its own identity, a movement not only defines itself by
what it is, but also by what it is not. That is, it defines itself by its opposi-
tion. I call these sets of narratives opposition stories. Borrowed from
semiotics, the term “opposition” refers to the meaning-making process.
An object or entity (that is, a sign) derives its meaning not solely by what it
is, but also by what it is not (that is, its signifier) (Feldman and Skoldberg
2002). In other words, an object has meaning because of another object
that is its opposite.
54 meridians 10:2
In early 2003, the “big four” reproductive rights groups in the country—
Planned Parenthood, NOW, the Feminist Majority Foundation, and NARAL
Pro-Choice America—met to discuss the current state of affairs. They
ultimately decided to hold a march to call attention to the endangerment of
reproductive rights, deciding to call it the “March for Freedom of Choice.”
Little did they know that getting people at the grassroots level revved up
and excited to participate was going to be a challenge. Loretta Ross, the
national coordinator of SisterSong and a former organizer for national
NOW, recalls:
But we women of color felt that the abortion framework, the choice
framework, was just too narrow a vessel to talk about the threat to
women’s lives. We’re dealing with the Bush administration, an immoral
and illegal war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, poverty—I mean, all these things
would not be challenged by just talking about freedom of choice. I
mean, if we made abortion totally available, totally accessible, totally
legal, totally affordable, women would still have other problems. And so
reducing women’s lives down to just whether or not choice is available,
we felt was inadequate. . . . It was really about choice and abortion. Not
the right to have a child, but the right to terminate a pregnancy. That’s
all they wanted to talk about. And so, we had dissatisfaction with the
name of the march. We had dissatisfaction with the fact that there were
no women of color involved in the decision-making about the march.
And then, if they wanted women of color to significantly participate in
the march, then they had to build our capacity to do so. We’re represent-
ing organizations that have one, two, three staff people, so which one
of our projects are we going to drop so that we could participate in their
agenda? That was not a tenable solution for us. And so, we had the
plenary and then the march organizers sponsored a post-plenary
discussion caucus dinner where we sat around, about twenty of us sat
around, and hashed it out with them. (Ross 2005)
As Ross’s story suggests, the march was not gaining any momentum
among grassroots constituencies in the early stages of the planning. Many
activists were resentful that the “big four” had decided to plan a march
without any significant input from them and were dissatisfied that the
march would address only abortion rights. Eventually, SisterSong, the
Black Women’s Health Imperative, and the National Latina Institute for
Kimala Price • What is Reproductive Justice? 55
Reproductive Health would join the planning team of the 2004 march.
These three groups are credited with broadening the march’s message
beyond abortion and having it renamed the March for Women’s Lives. Not
only did the revamped march draw more than one million participants, it
was endorsed by over 140 women of color and people of color organiza-
tions out of a total 1,400 organizations; only twenty women of color groups
had endorsed the march at the beginning (Cassie 2004; Otis 2004; Kashef
2005). Significantly, the NAACP publicly endorsed the reproductive rights
march, which was the first time ever for the ninety-five-year-old civil rights
organization. Its endorsement resolution simply stated, “A woman denied
the right to control her own body is denied equal protection under the law”
(Cassie 2004).
This story echoes similar stories that emerged from previous reproduc-
tive rights marches hosted by NOW in the 1980s and 1990s. In previous
marches, women of color were not only concerned that their perspectives
would not be included; they also expressed fears that the mainstream
pro-choice groups would co-opt their political perspectives once they were
included in the organizing for these marches (Martinez 2004). The story
reflects the precarious nature of the relationship between women of color
activists and the mainstream, pro-choice groups.
Ross’s story also alludes to the ambivalence that many women of color
activists have felt toward the pro-choice framework. As Andrea Smith
argues, the pro-choice/pro-life framework marginalizes many groups of
women, including women of color, poor women, and women with disabili-
ties, as it is not an accurate reflection of the experiences of these communi-
ties (Smith 2005a). For example, Native American women are not just
concerned about the criminalization or decriminalization of abortion, but
also about fighting for the life and self-determination of their communi-
ties, including the issues of sovereignty rights and the increased incarcera-
tion of people of color. The focus on life should not be concerned just with
the birth of children, but also about the quality of life for those who
already exist. The “right to life” is an empty rhetorical phrase if it is not
also focused on addressing social issues such as poverty and drugs that
contribute to poor living conditions and crime-related activity—which
have a significant impact on reproductive freedom.
When I use the term “opposition stories,” I do not mean to imply that
the reproductive justice movement is a countermovement to the pro-choice
56 meridians 10:2
movement, that is, a movement created to directly oppose the political
agenda of the pro-choice movement. After all, many pro-choice groups,
such as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-
Choice America, and Choice USA, are affiliated (allied) groups of Sister-
Song. Moreover, the reproductive justice movement supports keeping
abortion legal and advocates for women’s right not to have children, but
also for women’s right to to have children and to parent the children that
they have, which have not traditionally been a central component of the
pro-choice agenda. On the other hand, it would be a misstatement to say
that the reproductive justice movement is a subset of the pro-choice
movement, even though many reproductive justice activists have been
involved in pro-choice groups as members, staff, and board members. It is
a movement in its own right; the difference is that intersectional politics
are at the center of its political mission and vision. Intersectional politics
informs its political agenda. These sets of stories are the means through
which the movement establishes its political territory.
The reproductive justice movement forms its identity partially by setting
itself apart from the mainstream pro-choice movement; we make sense of
the identity and the goals of reproductive justice because of its difference
from the mainstream pro-choice movement. Part of this process includes
critiquing the concept of choice and arguing why it is problematic, while
also presenting an alternative framework. It is through the telling of
opposition stories that reproductive justice activists reveal how the
intersections of race, class, sexuality, and other markers of difference
affect reproductive freedom not only for individuals but also for entire
communities; that is, “choice” does not exist in a vacuum. There are
systemic, structural obstacles that can limit the options that exist for
individuals and communities.
Cautionary Tales: The Specter of Eugenics
In addition to telling stories about the origins of the movement and the
limitations of the concept of “choice,” reproductive justice activists also
tell cautionary tales in their consciousness-raising activities. Cautionary
tales are stories that have a moral message and often warn the audience of
the negative consequences of a particular transgression, character flaw, or
objectionable situation. Reproductive justice activists are particularly
Kimala Price • What is Reproductive Justice? 57
cautious when new reproductive and genetic technologies are approved the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and introduced into the con-
sumer market.
In an interview, a Latina reproductive justice activist explained her
organization’s stance on controversial contraceptive drugs and devices:
We did need more options for women. There was the boom and bust of
Norplant—which was promoted as a miracle contraceptive technology,
the way it was utilized, forced on disenfranchised communities—dis-
pensed to poor women, African American women, and Latina women.
The government would pay for the implant, but only for a percentage of
the removal—so there was a coercive mechanism in place through
policy in the public health system. Women get it in, but the side effects
were not good, but then they couldn’t get it out because they did not
have the money for that and the federal government would not pay for it.
Physicians were eager to implant these devices, but were not well-
trained to remove them. These are two separate [issues]. Yes, it was a
good thing to have more technologies available. However, we need to
give some thought to the different possible scenarios where policy
makers may react or overreact in the utilization of those technologies.
(NLIRH 2001)
The specter of eugenics looms in the backdrop of reproductive justice
discourse. Popular in the early half of the twentieth century and based on
social Darwinism, eugenics is a pseudoscientific theory that promotes the
improvement of the human species by encouraging or permitting repro-
duction among individuals who are deemed to have the desirable genetic
profile for breeding. Under the eugenics framework, only the fit shall
reproduce. Those who were considered unfit to reproduce or parent have
included the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, criminals, gay men, and
lesbians. Federal and state laws, policies, and court cases promoted,
supported, and upheld eugenics practices. State institutions routinely
sterilized “feebleminded” individuals on the premise that mental health
and low IQs were inherited traits and should not be transmitted to future
generations; these practices were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court,
particularly in Buck v. Bell (1927) in which the court ruled that the forced
sterilization of a woman in a mental hospital was constitutional (Roberts
1997; Cushman 2001; Baer 2002).
58 meridians 10:2
Some reproductive justice activists would also argue that seemingly
beneficial family planning programs may not be as innocuous as they may
appear to be. Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice argues:
Though highly problematic from an anti-racist and anti-imperialist
perspective, population control discourse was politically successful in
increasing the visibility and acceptance of birth control in the first half
of the 20th century. At the same time, African American women who
made connections between race, class, and gender joined the fight for
birth control in the 1920s as much from Black women’s experience as
enslaved breeders for the accumulation of wealth of White slave-owners
as for realization of gender empowerment. In the 1960s, the federal
government began funding family planning both in the United States
and internationally as part of a strategy for population control, rather
than women’s empowerment. Population control has been defined as
externally imposed efforts by governments, corporations or private
agencies to control (by increasing or limiting) population growth,
usually by controlling women’s reproduction and fertility. Other forms
of population control include immigration restrictions, selective
population movement or dispersal, incarceration, and various forms of
discrimination. (ACRJ 2005, 3)
Given the troubling history of sterilization abuse and eugenics practices,
many reproductive justice advocates are cautious not to rush into embrac-
ing newer reproductive and genetic technologies, including Norplant and
Depo Provera, without examining the potential consequences to their
communities. Judges around the country began using the devices in
sentencing not long after their approval by the FDA. Norplant and Depo
Provera were often offered as alternatives to prison for women of child-
bearing age who were convicted of felony possession or distribution of
cocaine, crack, or heroin as well as pregnant women with a history of drug
use. In many states legislation had been proposed that would make the
device a condition for continuation of welfare payments to beneficiaries
(Rees 1991; Samuels and Smith 1992; Arras and Bluestein 1995; Chavkin
and Breitbart 1996; Roberts 1997; Campbell 2000; Paltrow 2002; Roberts
2006). For instance, some states, such as Kansas, Louisiana, and North
Carolina, have proposed legislation in which financial incentives would be
given to welfare recipients to obtain Norplant. This was usually in the form
Kimala Price • What is Reproductive Justice? 59
of a “bonus” of up to $500. There have been reports of the systematic
implantation of Norplant in Native American women through the Indian
Health Services (Smith 2005b).
These policies were modeled after a program implemented by C.R.A.C.K.
(Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity), a private organization founded
by homemaker Barbara Harris in Anaheim, CA in 1994. The organization
offers poor women with substance addictions $200 to undergo surgical
sterilization or use a long-acting contraceptive such as Norplant or Depo
Provera, which essentially are temporary sterilization. The program has
expanded to Chicago, Florida, New Hampshire, and Washington State
(BWHI 2001; CWPE 2006). The Committee on Women, Population, and the
Environment (CWPE) has been diligent in monitoring and counteracting
the activities of C.R.A.C.K.
Concern about reproductive technologies has informed the political
agenda of several reproductive justice organizations. To address the legacy
of involuntary sterilization, for example, the CWPE has begun a campaign
to get state legislatures to pass resolutions to publicly apologize for those
and other eugenics campaigns. They were successful in getting the
Georgia state legislature to introduce and pass a resolution in 2007. The
resolution states:
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE that the members of this body
express their profound regret for Georgia’s participation in the eugenics
movement and the injustices done under eugenics laws, including the
forced sterilization of Georgia citizens. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED
that the members of this body hereby support the full education of
Georgia citizens about the eugenics movement in order to foster a
respect for the fundamental dignity of human life and the God given
rights recognized by our Founding Fathers. (Georgia General Assembly
2007, 2)
Last, this set of stories allows the reproductive justice movement to deal
with political issues in which the pro-choice rhetoric is insufficient and a
nuanced understanding of the reproductive experiences of communities of
color is needed. In early 2010, members of the Georgia State Assembly
introduced a bill, entitled the OB/GYN Criminalization and Racial Dis-
crimination Act, that would categorize abortions performed on fetuses
based on race, color, or sex as a form of discrimination, and it would crimi-
60 meridians 10:2
nalize medical practitioners who performed such abortions (SisterSong
2010b). This legislation was accompanied by large billboards that pro-
claimed that “black children are an endangered species,” tapping into
long-standing fears of genocide among many African Americans. By
fighting the passage of this bill, SisterSong created a coalition of reproduc-
tive justice and allied organizations, including SPARK Reproductive Justice
NOW!, SisterLove, Inc., Feminist Women’s Health Center (GA,) and
Planned Parenthood Southeast, and garnered national support from civil
rights leaders and clergy. Because of its acumen in understanding the
right of all women to have access to abortion and the history of fertility
control targeting communities of color, SisterSong was able to counter the
genocidal arguments of the bill’s anti-abortion supporters and eventually
prevent the passage of the bill (SisterSong 2010b).
Creating Space, Building a Movement
SisterSong is not the entirety of the reproductive justice movement, but it
serves as a good stand-in for the movement given the sheer number of
organizations involved in it. As a movement organization, SisterSong is
continually constructing its collective identity through the process of
telling stories. These stories are repeatedly told at membership meetings,
conferences, workshops, rallies, and other events as well as in various
written materials.
As I have shown in this essay, three types of stories dominate the identity-
construction process. Collectively, these stories serve the purpose of not only
defining SisterSong, and consequently the movement, but also setting it
apart from the mainstream pro-choice movement. This strategy allows the
movement to reach out to constituents that traditionally have never felt a part
of the pro-choice movement. Indeed, many individual activists involved in
the reproductive justice movement, including founding mother Luz Rodri-
guez, were not previously involved in pro-choice organizations, but were
veterans of other social justice activism, such as environmental justice,
economic justice, prison reform, and civil rights. Some of these non-tradi-
tional reproductive freedom activists have expressed, and continue to
express, some ambivalence toward the pro-choice movement.
These stories also create the space that the movement needs in order to
advance its more holistic agenda. This was evident at a recent membership
Kimala Price • What is Reproductive Justice? 61
meeting held in Washington, DC in December 2009, when the health-care
reform bill was on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives for debate
and final vote. Although the planners and participants initially thought
that it would be a routine membership meeting, that sentiment quickly
changed when it was discovered that several amendments had been
introduced that could be detrimental to women of color and immigrant
women (SisterSong 2010a). Several amendments proposed to restrict
immigrants’ access to healthcare. Another, the Stupak-Pitts amendment,
would prevent federals funds from being used to pay for abortions,
including private plans that cover subsidized customers; the amendment
would explicitly codify the 1976 Hyde amendment in the health bill.
Drawing upon their narrative threads, SisterSong was able to rally the 400+
participants to action by sending impromptu state delegations of women
of color, who visited their respective representatives in their congressional
offices, to urge them to vote against these proposals. Although some of
these amendments, including the Stupak-Pitts amendment, passed, the
lobbying experience energized the participating activists, as many of them
had no previous legislative lobbying experience. This moment also marked
the political coming of age of the movement; this was the first coordinated
congressional lobbying effort of the organization.
The goal of the reproductive justice framework is to transform the way
in which we all conceptualize and understand reproductive freedom. Will
this new framework catch on? A Google search in June 2007 of the term
“reproductive justice” yielded over 1.2 million hits, which suggests that the
term is gaining some momentum. In fact, some of the mainstream
pro-choice organizations have adopted the term. For example, in 2005 the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America hosted a national policy
conference entitled “Reproductive Justice for All” at Smith College in
Northampton, Massachusetts, and even the national group Choice USA,
co-founded by Gloria Steinem, hosts a “Reproductive Justice Organizing
Academy” for young activists (PPFA 2005). Although Choice USA uses the
term “reproductive justice” in its political and grassroots activities, it has
still retained the term “choice” in its name (for examples, visit its website
http://www.choiceusa.org). Reproductive justice activists warn that the
term “reproductive justice” is not meant to be a substitute or interchange-
able term for other terms such as abortion rights, family planning,
pro-choice, population control, or even reproductive rights. It is a different
62 meridians 10:2
way of conceptualizing reproductive freedom that is broader in scope than
its predecessors.
The next step in understanding the impact of the reproductive justice
movement is to focus on reproductive activism at the grassroots level,
especially on how the organizing efforts of reproductive justice activists at
this level contribute to the national political and policy agenda. After all,
much of the national agenda is based on issues that arise from the commu-
nity level and depends upon the activities of grassroots activists, especially
coalition-building with other social justice movements. For instance, the
network of reproductive justice organizations in California have worked
successfully with groups representing other social justice movements,
such as immigrants’ rights and traditional African American civil rights
groups, to defeat voter ballot initiatives that could have had a negative
impact on women’s ability to access reproductive health services in the
state. These efforts have served as models for reproductive justice groups
in other regions of the country.
Acknowledgments This essay began as a series of invited talks I gave in 2006 and 2007 at Georgetown University Law School, the Feminist Forum of the George Washington University Law School, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Department of Women’s Studies at San Diego State University. A version of this paper was presented at the 2008 Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) conference. The project was partially funded by a fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
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