Wade in the Water: Suggestions for Centering Reproductive Justice in Social Work Education, Practice, and Organizing

ABSTRACT

In this article, we grapple with how social work educators and practitioners should hold and respond to the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade. We begin by outlining what is at stake for the social work field by mapping the impact on the safety and well-being of individuals, families, and communities of color. Our analysis also makes visible the ways in which the Court’s decision has enacted epistemic violence to decades of reproductive justice-based theorizing and organizing spearheaded by women of color. Applying a reproductive justice (RJ) framework to the Council for Social Work Education (CSWE) Competencies, we identify areas within micro-, mezzo-, and macro-level practice for social workers to disrupt patterns of reproductive oppression, including restrictions on abortion. We believe that every social worker is situated to play a unique role in creating liberatory clinical social work practices. By centering reproductive justice and decolonial thinking in social work education and practice, we can begin to ask different questions and try new strategies to build safe and more supportive environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Reproductive justice
• micro, mezzo, and macro
• liberation
• decolonial social work education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Throughout this article, we will use the terms women, femmes, gender-expansive people, birthing bodies, and pregnant people to acknowledge that many different bodies and people are affected by threats to bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom. We find it imperative to name that assigned sex at birth does not determine one’s experience surrounding the making and caring for new human beings and/or ability to (re)produce.