Reproductive justice
[7] They gathered in Chicago for a conference sponsored by the Illinois Pro-Choice Alliance and the Ms. Foundation for Women with the intention of creating a statement in response the Clinton administration's proposed plan for universal health care.
In contrast, reproductive justice advocates argue that the civil rights-based, pro-choice framework centers on the legal right to choose abortions without addressing how socioeconomic status impacts the choices one has.
Thus, the regulation of reproduction and exploitation of women's bodies and labor is both a tool and a result of systems of oppression based on race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, age and immigration status.
[10] When defining reproductive justice, activists often reference the concept intersectionality, a broader framework used to analyze the various life experiences individuals may have as a result of the ways in which their identity categories, such as race, class, gender, and sexuality, interact with each other.
This means that it is often harder for oppressed people to access healthcare due to factors such as education, income, geographic location, immigration status, and potential language barriers, among others.
[36] The birth control movement essentially espoused the idea that women could attain freedom and equality by receiving legal access to family planning services, which could help lift them out of poverty.
[38][37][39] In Killing the Black Body, Author Dorothy Roberts asserts that Sanger ultimately contributed significantly in the fight for contraception access but did so in a way that often shifted the focus away from reproductive autonomy and utilized eugenic ideas that were prominent at the time.
CESA created a "working paper" that essentially served as an open letter to mainstream feminist activists called Sterilization Abuse: A task for the Women's Movement.
[46] This caucus preceded the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) that took place two months later[47] and produced the Cairo Programme of Action, which identified reproductive health as a human right.
They argue that reproductive justice can be achieved by examining power structures and intersectionality, joining across identities and issues, and putting the most marginalized groups at the center of advocacy.
[54] Moving forward, reproductive justice groups modeled some of their rhetoric after Dr. George Tiller, a late-term abortion provider who was assassinated in his church in Wichita, Kansas, in 2009.
Title X gives funding for clinics to provide health services such as breast and pelvic examinations, STI and cancer testing, and HIV counseling and education.
Having safe, local, and affordable access to abortion services is a crucial part of ensuring high-quality healthcare for women (and for trans and gender non-conforming people who can get pregnant).
[77] Organizations that promote reproductive justice such as NOW and Planned Parenthood aim to provide increased access to safe abortions at a low cost and without external pressure.
Shackling in five-point restraints (both wrists, both ankles, and across the belly) during pregnancy and postpartum has been known to cause issues like a miscarriage (if a woman trips and cannot break her fall with her hands) and can reopen stitches from a cesarean.
The trend towards longer and heavier sentences has also led to greater health concerns, as many prisons, jails, and detention centers offer little accessibility to adequate medical care.
Likewise, prejudice against LGBTQ people is a reproductive justice issue impacting their personal bodily autonomy, safety, and ability to create and support healthy families.
This caused low-income women further barriers in accessing reproductive health services, and meant that they would have to "forgo other basic necessities in order to pay for their abortion, or they must carry their unplanned pregnancy to term".
[112][113] The amendment results in the discrimination of poor women who "often need abortion services the most"[114] and have "reduced access to family planning, and experience higher rates of sexual victimization".
[121] It was born out of protests that occurred in response to a polychlorinated biphenyls landfill, which was located in Warren County, "a rural area in northeastern North Carolina with a majority of poor, African-American residents".
Reagan McDonald-Mosley, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, discussed the extent to which racial inequity contribute to black women's experience with maternal mortality.
[140] Under such pressure, healthcare providers may have a difficult time making decisions about whether to accommodate the beliefs of the general population to follow science-based guidelines or to refuse the provision of care.
[142] In such a view, contraception is believed to be inherently wrong, associated with negative consequences, perceived as leading to "immoral behavior," considered unnatural, anti-life, and a form of abortion, and is thought to carry health risks and side effects, among other concerns.
Prior to the ICPD, international efforts to gauge population growth and to produce approaches that addressed its challenges focused on "strict and coercive" policy that included compulsory birth control and preferential access to health services by people who had been sterilized.
[137] Critics say that it gives higher priority in funding distribution to faith-based organizations, including some "with little or no relevant international development experience" and some which promote abstinence instead of utilizing effective prevention methods.
[77] Required by the United States to grant funding to non-governmental organizations that work to reduce the burden of HIV/AIDS internationally, this oath pledges to oppose sex trafficking and prostitution.
[163] Researchers studying migrant women who enter into British Columbia, Canada through this program found that they face unique barriers that inhibit their bodily autonomy and freedom to make choices surrounding their sexual health through "state-level policies and practices, employer coercion and control, and circumstances related to the structure of the SAWP".
[163]: 29 These women are impacted by many factors that contribute to their marginalization, including precarious legal status, lack of access to health care services, poverty, knowledge and language barriers, and job insecurity.
These hotlines, founded by reproductive rights activists, emphasized the facilitation of accurate, factual information regarding pregnancy termination and how to safely seek an abortion.
[170] The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation describes potential ramifications of this increased ratio:[171]"Because of a traditional preference for baby boys over girls, the one-child policy is often cited as the cause of China's skewed sex ratio [...] Even the government acknowledges the problem and has expressed concern about the tens of millions of young men who won't be able to find brides and may turn to kidnapping women, sex trafficking, other forms of crime or social unrest.
