Reproductive Justice as Intersectional Feminist Activism

Abstract

Reproductive justice activists have dynamically used the concept of intersectionality as a source of empowerment to propel one of the most important shifts in reproductive politics in recent history. In the tradition of 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.” Its popularity necessitates an examination of whether reproductive justice is sturdy enough to be analyzed as a novel critical feminist theory and a surprising success story of praxis through intersectionality. Offered to the intellectual commons of inquiry, reproductive justice has impressively built bridges between activists and the academy to stimulate thousands of scholarly articles, generate new women of color organizations, and prompt the reorganization of philanthropic foundations. This article defines reproductive justice, examines its use as an organizing and theoretical framework, and discusses Black patriarchal and feminist theoretical discourses through a reproductive justice lens.

Keywords:

• abortion
• black feminism
• human rights
• intersectionality
• neoliberalism
• reproductive justice
• sterilization abuse
• white supremacy

Notes

Zakiya Luna, “From Rights to Justice: Women of Color Changing the Face of US Reproductive Rights Organizing,” Societies Without Borders 4 (2009): 343–65.

“A Black Feminist Statement: The Combahee River Collective,” in All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave, edited by Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith (Old Westbury, NY: The Feminist Press, 1982), 15.

The co-creators of the reproductive justice framework (naming ourselves Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice) published a statement called Black Women on Universal Health Care Reform on August 16, 1994 in the Washington Post by 836 Black women critiquing President Clinton’s health care strategies, https://bwrj.wordpress.com/category/wadrj-on-health-care-reform/ (accessed April 16, 2017):

Dear Members of Congress:

Black women have unique problems that must be addressed while you are debating health care reform legislation. Lack of access to treatment for diseases that primarily affect Black women and the inaccessibility of comprehensive preventive health care services are important issues that must be addressed under reform. We are particularly concerned about coverage for the full range of reproductive services under health care reform legislation.

Reproductive freedom is a life and death issue for many Black women and deserves as much recognition as any other freedom. The right to have an abortion is a personal decision that must be made by a woman in consultation with her physician. Accordingly, unimpeded access to abortion as a part of the full range of reproductive health services offered under health care reform, is essential. Moreover, abortion coverage must be provided for all women under health care reform regardless of ability to pay, with no interference from the government. WE WILL NOT ENDORSE A HEALTH CARE REFORM SYSTEM THAT DOES NOT COVER THE FULL RANGE OF REPRODUCTIVE SERVICES FOR ALL WOMEN INCLUDING ABORTION.

In addition to reproductive health services, health care reform must include:

Universal coverage and equal access to health services. Everyone must be covered under health care reform. To be truly universal, benefits must be provided regardless of income, health or employment status, age or location. It must be affordable for individuals and families, without deductibles and copayments. All people must be covered equally.

Comprehensiveness. The package must cover all needed health care services, including diagnostic, treatment, preventative, long-term care, mental health services, prescription drugs and pre-existing conditions. All reproductive health services must be covered and treated the same as other health services. This includes pap tests, mammograms, contraceptives methods, prenatal care, delivery, abortion, sterilization, infertility services, STD’s and HIV/AIDS screening and treatment. Everyone must also be permitted to choose their own health care providers.

Protection from discrimination. The plan must include strong anti-discriminatory provisions to ensure the protection of all women of color, the elderly, the poor and those with disabilities. In addition, the plan must not discriminate since sexual orientation. In order to accomplish this goal, Black women must be represented on national, state and local planning, review, and decision-making bodies.

We, the undersigned, are dedicated to ensuring that these items are covered under health care reform legislation. As your constituents, we believe that you have a responsibility to work for the best interests of those you represent, and we request that you work for passage of a bill that provides coverage for these services.

Sincerely, (836 Black Women).

The 12 women and their affiliations at the time who became the founding mothers of the concept of reproductive justice were:

Table

Hull, All the Women, 16.

See Monica Simpson, “Reproductive Justice and ‘Choice’: An Open Letter to Planned Parenthood,” Rewire, August 5, 2014, https://rewire.news/article/2014/08/05/reproductive-justice-choice-open-letter-planned-parenthood/ (accessed March 22, 2017).

Barbara Christian, “The Race for Theory,” in New Black Feminist Criticism, 1985–2000 Barbara Christian, edited by Gloria Bowles, M. Biulia Fabi, and Arlene R. Keizer (Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 41.

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 2000), vii.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Whose Story Is It, Anyway? Feminist and Antiracist Appropriations of Anita Hill,” in Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas and the Construction of Social Reality, edited by Toni Morrison (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1992), 404.

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge Press, 2000), 18.

Crenshaw, “Whose Story Is It, Anyway?,” 404.

See Audre Lorde, “An Open Letter to Mary Daly,” in This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa (Watertown, MA: Persephone Press, 1981), 94. Also, Doris Davenport, “The Pathology of Racism: A Conversation with Third World Wimmin,” ibid., p. 85. Also, Gloria I. Joseph and Jill Lewis, Common Differences: Conflicts in Black and White Feminist Perspectives (New York: Anchor Books, 1981).

Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 202.

Nicole Rousseau, Black Women’s Burden: Commodifying Black Reproduction (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009), 13.

Evelynn M. Hammonds, “Toward a Genealogy of Black Female Sexuality: The Problematic of Silence,” in Feminist Theory and the Body, edited by Janet Price and Margrit Shildrick (New York: Routledge, 1999), 94.

Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (New York, NY: Pantheon Press, 1997), 3–4.

Harriet A. Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (New York, NY: Broadway Books, 2006).

Nicole Ivy, “Bodies of Work: A Meditation on Medical Imaginaries and Enslaved Women,” Souls Journal 18 (2016): 1, 11.

Margaret Charles Smith and Linda Janet Holmes, Listen to Me Good: The Story of an Alabama Midwife (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1996).

Groundswell Fund, “which Exclusively Funds Reproductive Justice Organizations, for Example, Was a Subsidiary of the Tides Foundation, and Became Independent in 2010.” See https://groundswellfund.org/ (accessed March 22, 2017). Other foundations include the Overbrook Foundation, and General Services Foundation. Larger foundations include the Educational Foundation of America and the Ford Foundation.

Kenrya Rankin, “Black Lives Matter Partners with Reproductive Justice Groups to Fight for Black Women,” ColorLines, February 9, 2016, https://www.colorlines.com/articles/black-lives-matter-partners-reproductive-justice-groups-fight-black-women (accessed March 22, 2017).

See Jackie Calmes, “Advocates Shun ‘Pro-Choice’ to Expand Message,” New York Times, July 28, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/us/politics/advocates-shun-pro-choice-to-expand-message.html?_r=0 (accessed March 22, 2017). See also Marlene Gerber Fried, “Reproductive Rights Activism in the Post-Roe Era,” American Journal of Public Health 103 no. 1 (2013): 10-14. See also Miriam Pérez, “A Tale of Two Movements,” Colorlines, January 22, 2015, https://www.colorlines.com/articles/tale-two-movements (accessed March 22, 2017).

For more on the origin of reproductive justice see Toni M. Bond Leonard, “Laying the Foundations for a Reproductive Justice Movement,” Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique, edited by Loretta J. Ross, Lynn Roberts, Erika Derkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater Toure (New York: Feminist Press, 2017), 39.

Loretta J. Ross and Rickie Solinger, Reproductive Justice: An Introduction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017).

Steve Williams, “The DMV Wants an Accurate Driver’s License, Unless You’re Trans,” http://www.care2.com/causes/the-dmv-wants-an-accurate-drivers-license-unless-youre-trans.html (accessed August 25, 2017); Silvie Vale, “Forced and Coerced Sterilization: The Nightmare of Transgender and Intersex Individuals,” http://impakter.com/forced-and-coerced-sterilization-an-unnecessary-intervention-in-transgender-and-intersex-individuals/ (accessed August 25, 2017).

For more on the white supremacist/white nationalist movement, now called the Alt-Right by mainstream media, see Leonard Zeskind, Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009).

Hortense Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book,” Diacritics 17, no. 2 (1987): 78.

For examples, see Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997); Laura Briggs, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Barbara Gurr, Reproductive Justice: The Politics of Health Care for Native American Women (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015); Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, “What is Reproductive Justice?” http://strongfamiliesmovement.org/what-is-reproductive-justice (accessed March 22, 2017); and Elena Gutiérrez, Fertile Matters: The Politics of Mexican-Origin Women’s Reproduction (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008).

It’s beyond the scope of this article to discuss the ambiguity and non-scientific bases for racial classifications. See Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge Press, 2015).

See Lutz Kaelber, “Eugenics: Compulsory Sterilization in 50 States,” http://www.uvm.edu/∼lkaelber/eugenics/VT/VT.html (accessed March 22, 2017). Also see Alexandra Minna Stern, Eugenic Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); and Nancy Ordover, American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003).

Despite the racialized stereotype of teen pregnancy as a Black phenomenon, white teenage pregnancy rates are rising in states that mandate the toughest restrictions on sex education, birth control, and abortion access. While the national teen pregnancy rate in 2010 was 34 per 1,000 teens, the most conservative states—with the most stringent restrictions—had much higher rates, 48 per 1,000, and higher, up to 76 per 1000 in Mississippi, surely because these states resist providing the kinds of resources that would reduce teen pregnancy, concentrating instead on “abstinence only” programs. See Kathryn Kost and Stanley Henshaw, U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions, 2010: National and State Trends by Age, Race, and Ethnicity (New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2014), https://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2014/05/05/ (accessed March 22, 2017). See also, Amanda Peterson Beadle, “Teen Pregnancies Highest in States with Abstinence-Only Policies,” ThinkProgress, April 20, 2012, http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/04/10/461402/teen-pregnancy-sex-education (accessed March 22, 2017).

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, “United Nations, adopted by the General Assembly,” December 9, 1948, https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2078/volume-78-i-1021-english.pdf (accessed March 22, 2017).

Kenneth Irving Zola, “Developing New Self-Images and Interdependence,” in Independent Living for Physically Disabled People, edited by Nancy Crewe, Irving Kenneth Zola and Associates (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1983), 49–59.

It should be noted that women’s health activists, particularly from the Global South, led the way in applying the human rights framework to reproductive health and rights issues, articulating a transnational framework at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. See C. Alison McIntosh and Jason L. Finkle, “The Cairo Conference on Population and Development: A New Paradigm?,” Population and Development Review 21, no. 2 (1995): 223–60.

See William Felice, Taking Suffering Seriously: The Importance of Collective Human Rights (Albany: State University of New York, 1996).

Upendra Baxi, “Inhuman Wrongs and Human Rights,” quoted in Shulamith Koenig, “Equal Access to Full Human Rights for Women,” Huffington Post, March 18, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shulamith-koenig/equal-access-to-full-huma_b_377927.html (accessed March 24, 2017).

Toni Cade Bambara, The Black Woman (New York: New American Library, 1970); Malcolm X, Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Grove Press, 1966).

Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (New York: Dial Press, 1978).

Linda LaRue, “The Black Movement and Women’s Liberation,” in Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall (New York: NY: The New Press, 1995), 165.

Benita Roth, “The Making of the Vanguard Center: Black Feminist Emergence in the 1960s and 1970s,” in Still Lifting, Still Climbing: African American Women’s Contemporary Activism, edited by Kimberly Springer (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 74.

Ibid., 73.

“Shirley Chisolm, “Facing the Abortion Question,” in Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall (New York: The New Press, 1995), 390–95.

Beverly Guy-Sheftall, “Florynce “Flo” Kennedy,” in Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall (New York: The New Press, 1995), 101.

Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena R. Gutiérrez, Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice (Boston, MA: South End Press, 2004), 5.

See Sandra Morgen, “On Their Own: Women of Color and the Health Movement,” in her Into Our Own Hands: The Women’s Health Movement in the United States, 1969–1990 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 41–69. Also see Gloria I. Joseph and Jill Lewis, Common Differences: Conflicts in Black and White Feminist Perspectives (New York: Anchor Books, 1981).

Silliman et al., Undivided Rights, 74–75.

Hazel V. Carby, “White Women Listen: Black Feminism and the Boundaries of Sisterhood,” in The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70 s Britain, Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, 1982, 212.

Jessie Rodrique, “The Black Community and the Birth-Control Movement,” in Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women’s History, edited by Ellen Carol DuBois and Vickie L. Ruiz (New York: Routledge Press, 1990), 333–44.

Paula Giddings, “The Last Taboo,” in Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas and the Construction of Social Reality, edited by Toni Morrison (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 461.

Guttmacher Institute, “Higher Abortion Rates Among Women of Color Reflect Higher Rates of Unintended Pregnancy,” August 13, 2008, https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2008/higher-abortion-rates-among-women-color-reflect-higher-rates-unintended-pregnancy (accessed March 28, 2017).

Linda Villarosa, ed., Body & Soul: The Black Women’s Guide to Physical Health and Emotional Well-Being (New York: HarperPerennial Books, 1994), 186.

See Deborah Gray White, Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999), 88–89. Also see Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: HarperCollins, 1984), 137.

Loretta J. Ross, “African American Women and Abortion: 1800–1970,” in Theorizing Black Feminisms: The Visionary Pragmatism of Black Women, edited by Stanlie M. James and Abena P.A. Busia (New York: Routledge Press, 1993).

Loretta J. Ross, “Trust Black Women: Reproductive Justice and Eugenics,” in Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique, edited by Loretta J. Ross, Lynn Roberts, Erika Derkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater Toure (New York: Feminist Press, 2017), 58.

bell hooks, “Loving Black Masculinity,” in her Salvation: Black People and Love (New York, NY: Perennial Press, 2001), 128–53.

Giddings, “The Last Taboo,” 460.

Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization (New York: Humanity Books, 2003), 173. Original published 1922.

See White, Too Heavy a Load, 120–124.

Robert G. Weisbord, Genocide? Birth Control and the Black American (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), 43.

Roberts, Killing the Black Body, 100.

SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective policy report, “Race, Gender, and Abortion: How Reproductive Justice Activists Won in Georgia,” https://www.trustblackwomen.org/SisterSong_Policy_Report.pdf (accessed March 21, 2017).

Aviva Galpert, “Demographic Winter: Right-Wing Prophecies of White Supremacy’s Decline,” Political Research Associates, http://www.politicalresearch.org/2014/07/03/demographic-winter-right-wing-prophecies-of-white-supremacys-decline/# (accessed March 24, 2017).

See http://www.maafa21.com/ (accessed March 24, 2017).

See https://prochoicenc.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/we-always-resist-trust-black-women-black-women-and-reproductive-freedom/ (accessed March 24, 2017).

Giddings, When and Where I Enter, 182.

Kenneth C. Edelin, Broken Justice: A True Story of Race, Sex and Revenge in a Boston Courtroom (New York: Arbor Press, 2008).

Willie Parker, Life’s Work: From the Trenches, A Moral Argument for Choice (New York: Simon & Shuster, 2017), 165.

Cynthia R. Greenlee, “T.R.M. Howard: Civil Rights Rabble-Rouser, Abortion Provider,” Dissent Magazine, May 16, 2013, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/t-r-m-howard-civil-rights-rabble-rouser-abortion-provider (accessed April 12, 2017).

Douglas Martin, “Howard Moody who led Historic Church Dies at 91,” The New York Times, September 13, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/nyregion/howard-moody-minister-of-judson-memorial-church-dead-at-91.html (accessed April 12, 2017). See also Parker, Life’s Work, 210.

Edgar Keemer, Confessions of a Pro-Life Abortionist (Detroit: Vinco Press, 1980), 163–64, 214–15.

Silliman et al., Undivided Rights, 36.

Byllye Avery, “Breathing Life into Ourselves: The Evolution of the National Black Women’s Health Project,” in The Black Women’s Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves, edited by Evelyn C. White (Seattle, WA: Seal Press, 1994). The National Black Women’s Health Project is now the Black Women’s Health Imperative.

Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class (New York: Random House, 1983), 206.

Caroline McFadden, “Critical White Feminism Interrogating Privilege, Whiteness, and Antiracism in Feminist Theory,” 2011, HIM 1990–2015. 1159, http://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses1990–2015/1159 (accessed March 27, 2017).

See Adrien Katherine Wing, Critical Race Feminism: A Reader (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 7.

Rousseau, Black Women’s Burden, 141.

For more on SisterSong’s history, see Jennifer Nelson, More Than Medicine: A History of the Feminist Women’s Health Movement (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 210–20. See also Loretta Ross, Sarah Brownlee, Dazon Dixon, and Luz Rodriguez, “The ‘SisterSong Collective’: Women of Color, Reproductive Health, and Human Rights,” American Journal of Health Studies 17.2 (2001): 79.

Sadly, some of these organizations no longer exist because of the difficult funding climate that privileges providing most financial resources to large, mainstream organizations over grassroots organizations led by women of color, particularly African American women. It’s beyond the scope of this brief article to analyze this climate, but Incite! Women of Color Against Violence has analyzed this trend in its anthology, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-profit Industrial Complex (Boston, MA: South End Press, 2007). As Ella Baker cautioned in 1963, “I’m very much afraid of this ‘Foundation Complex.’ We’re getting praise from places that worry me,” quoted by Incite!, http://www.incite-national.org/page/beyond-non-profit-industrial-complex (accessed March 15, 2017).

For examples of policy work by women of color organizations, see SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective’s policy report, “Race, Gender, and Abortion: How Reproductive Justice Activists Won in Georgia,” https://www.trustblackwomen.org/SisterSong_Policy_Report.pdf (accessed March 21, 2017); All* Above All, “130 Organizations Sign Letter for a Budget Without Abortion Coverage Restrictions,” http://allaboveall.org/resource/130-organizations-sign-letter-for-a-budget-without-abortion-coverage-restrictions/ (accessed March 21, 2017); National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, “Replacing Myths with Fact: Sex-Selective Abortion Laws in the United States,” https://napawf.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Replacing-Myths-with-Facts-final.pdf (accessed March 21, 2017).

Barbara Ransby, “Ella Taught Me: Shattering the Myth of the Leaderless Movement,” Black Educator, July 9, 2015, http://blackeducator.blogspot.com/2015/07/ella-baker-black-leadership-today.html (accessed March 21, 2017).

Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 361.

Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 81–86.

Ibid., 37.

Miriam Pérez, “The Meaning of Reproductive Justice: Simplifying a Complex Concept,” in Rewire, February 8, 2013, https://rewire.news/article/2013/02/08/communicating-complexity-reproductive-justice/ (accessed March 21, 2017).

Dan Avery, “Seven Transgender Women Have Been Murdered in the First Two Months of 2017,” Logo, February 28, 2017, http://www.newnownext.com/transgender-murders-2017/02/2017/ (accessed April 2, 2017).

World Health Organization, “Unsafe Abortion: The Preventable Pandemic,” Journal Paper, Sexual and Reproductive Health 4, http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/general/lancet_4.pdf (accessed April 4, 2017).

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the 2017 state legislative sessions are well underway, with nearly every state legislature already in session. In just the first three months of the year, legislators introduced 1,053 provisions related to reproductive health. Of these measures, 431 would restrict access to abortion services and 405 are proactive measures seeking to expand access to other sexual and reproductive health services. See https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2017/04/laws-affecting-reproductive-health-and-rights-state-policy-trends-first-quarter-2017 (accessed April 12, 2017).

Giddings, When and Where I Enter, 108.

Kathy Davis, “Intersectionality as Buzzword: A Sociology of Science Perspective on What Makes a Feminist Theory Successful,” Feminist Theory 9 (2008):67–71. doi:10.1177/1464700108086364.

Crenshaw, “Whose Story Is It, Anyway?,” 414.

Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Theatre Journal, 40, no. 4 (1988): 521–22.

Ibid., 522.

It is little known that the 12- and 14-year-old African American Relf sisters in Alabama, who were sterilized in a famous lawsuit won in 1973, were previously administered trial versions of Depo-Provera as unconsenting child test subjects before their infamous operations that led to the movement to end sterilization abuse in the 1970s. See Jennifer Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 65–67.

Naomi Murakawa, The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 3.

Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe,” 68.

Linda Martin Alcoff, The Future of Whiteness (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2015).

Linda Martin Alcoff, Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatseaf, 1994), 93.

See Loretta J. Ross, “The Color of Choice: White Supremacy and Reproductive Justice,” in Incite! Women of Color Against Violence (Boston, MA: South End Press, 2006), 53–65.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Righting Wrongs,” South Atlantic Quarterly 103, no. 2/3 (2004): 542.

Frederick Clarkson, Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1997), 20.

Ellen Messer-Davidow, Disciplining Feminism: From Social Activism to Academic Discourse (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 219.

Ibid., 288.

Grace Y. Kao, Grounding Human Rights in a Pluralist World (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Loretta J. Ross

Loretta J. Ross started her career in the women’s movement in the 1970s, working at the DC Rape Crisis Center, NOW, the National Black Women’s Health Project, and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, among other social justice organizations. She is one of the co-creators of the reproductive justice framework and has lectured extensively on human rights, racism, appropriate whiteness, Calling In the Calling Out Culture, and violence against women. She has co-written three books on reproductive justice, including a primer, Reproductive Justice: An Introduction, co-written with Rickie Solinger and published in 2017. Her latest book is the SisterSong 20th anniversary anthology, Radical Reproductive Justice, co-edited by Lynn Roberts, Erika Derkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater-Toure, also published in 2017. She was a Visiting Professor in Women’s Studies at Hampshire College 2017–2018.