Summary, part 3

Reproductive Justice and Disability Justice

Another critical issue for the reproductive justice movement is disability justice. The culture of ableism in the U.S. deems able-bodied people as superior and most valuable while disabled people are understood to have lesser value since disability is feared and looked down upon. The reproductive justice framework addresses this by allowing us to understand how eugenic “science” is still a part of U.S. culture and how it shapes the reproductive lives of disabled women. 

The first part of women with disabilities (WWD) reproductive lives that are attacked under ableism is their right to parent. WWD have historically experienced high rates of forced sterilization (as they are deemed “unfit mothers”), discouragement from having children, and the elimination of participation in the adoption process. Many medical authority figures blame disabled women for their choice to have children, stating that it will take a toll on everyone around the woman. 

The second part of WWD’s reproductive lives that is attacked by ableism is their sexuality. Society often desexualizes disabled women and considers them to be dependent upon able-bodied people, and this leads to the idea that disabled women don’t need reproductive care. Disabled women also often do not receive sexual education, and healthcare providers may fail to ask disabled women about their sex lives or provide extensive reproductive health exams because it is believed that they do not (or should not) have sex.

Another aspect of WWD’s reproductive health damaged by ableism is their access to services. Disabled women often experience limited access to healthcare information and services, lack of suitable transportation, inaccessible clinic facilities, inaccessible health information due to lack of interpretation, dependency on caregivers, and isolation due to the stigma surrounding disability. Additionally, women with mental disabilities and disability/class intersections experience heightened marginalization. 

Sexual violence is another form of reproductive harm that disabled women face at a disproportionately higher rate. Women with disabilities are especially vulnerable to domestic violence, sexual assault, and abuse because of their dependence upon caregivers, such as a family member, partner, nurse, and/or doctor who could withhold their medication, medical care, pertinent medical information, or transportation to exert power or control over them.

Eugenics is also still a prevalent reproductive issue that disabled women face, given that continued eugenic thought in the U.S. causes medical establishments supposed justification in utilizing population control methods against disabled women and children. Disabled women are routinely sterilized or indefinitely kept on birth control, and while many pro-choice feminists argue for the right to abortion, disabled feminists are left to wonder how many of those decisions are rooted in ableism.

Reproductive Justice and Men

It is important that reproductive justice centers the voices and experiences of women with women leading the movement because they face more attacks on their reproductive decisions and are far more impacted by reproductive issues than men. However, men should be involved in the movement. According to the authors, men can play a role in bringing about reproductive justice by ensuring their own reproductive health and community resources meet men’s reproductive health needs. Additionally, they can support their partners in finding reproductive health services and play a role in ending sexual violence, which is a barrier to reproductive justice for everyone.

The author reminds readers that all forms of male sexual violence (domestic and dating violence, rape and sexual assault, sexual harassment, pornography, etc) are sexist because they are primarily perpetrated by men and help uphold men’s unearned dominance over women. Reproductive justice for women is limited in this sexist context, so it is important that men support women’s efforts to bring about reproductive justice and work to eliminate sexism and all other forms of oppression. 

The author then discusses what men’s work to end sexist violence involves both the personal and societal levels. On a personal level, here are some of the actions the authors mention men can take to end sexist violence: 

• Work to ban gender, racial, and homophobic slurs from personal vocabulary and stop tolerating them in others’ personal vocabulary

• Stop undermining women’s authority, power, and voice

• Pay attention to how sexual and reproductive behavior interferes with women’s and other men’s sexual/reproductive rights

• Support women (and men) by donating/fundraising for organizations supporting the fight for reproductive justice

On a societal level, men can take the following actions to end sexist violence:

• Organize locally to support women’s rights

• Organize marches, demonstrations, fundraisers, etc. in support of reproductive justice (with childcare provided)

• Join women as they work towards reproductive justice

The author also reminds readers that, while it is not men’s role to ‘give’ women reproductive justice, which they inherently own, men can work to support women’s efforts to expand reproductive justice.

Reproductive Justice and Adoption and Foster Care

Generally, the conversations around human rights in relation to adoption have been centered around those who don’t have the right to adopt, such as LGBTQ+ people, single people, impoverished people, disabled people, etc. The author poses a broader question to readers: does the need to put a child up for adoption signal that many needs for reproductive freedom are not being met?

As reproductive freedom movements become more successful, adoptions become rarer, leading wealthier nations to seek adoption from poorer ones. This leads the reproductive justice framework to ponder whether there is room for “choice” to be involved in regions with growing “material scarcity,” or limited resources, such as Guatemala, which has the highest rate per capita of adoption due to said scarcity (p. 28). Additionally, neoliberal governments often have insufficient welfare frameworks to support women and children, leading many to have no other “choice” but adoption.

Racial groups of the 1970s have also brought to attention the disproportionate amount of Black and Indigenous children being adopted by white families, another discrepancy showing the racial bias within adoption. This racial bias means that the conversation surrounding adoption must shift from who has the right to adopt towards how ethical adoption actually is as an institution. 

On a different note, the foster care system violates the right of women to parent their children, and the reproductive justice framework should be extended to this area. Most cases of child maltreatment involve parental neglect, which is often extremely difficult to separate from conditions of poverty. The foster care system neglects to acknowledge systemic societal conditions that lead to hardships for low-income families, and it instead resorts to attributing conditions of poverty to “parental deficits and pathologies that require therapeutic remedies rather than social change” (p. 29).

Foster care also carries extreme racial disparities, with Black children making up two-fifths of the nation’s foster care population in 2000, although they represented one-fifth of the nation’s children. Black children were four times more likely than white children to be in foster care, and while children of color comprised only 30% of the population, they comprised about 60% of children in foster care (p. 29). Black women are also much more likely to be reported by hospital staff for substance abuse during pregnancy than white women, and they are more likely to have their children removed by CPS (Child Protective Services). These discrepancies and racial biases show just how important it is that reproductive justice advocates work to transform the child welfare system into one that is non-coercive and actually supports families.

Reproductive Justice and Other Observations

How to Connect with Young Women Through Reproductive Justice

The reproductive justice movement is dependent on youth activism. Because of this, the authors argue that the movement must focus more heavily upon the reproductive health and rights of young women in particular. So, how can we support young women and uplift their voices in the fight for reproductive justice and the battle against reproductive oppression? We must realize the unique impact that reproductive oppression has on young teens and adults. Teens are both sexualized by society and also treated as if they are devoid of sexuality, as often abstinence is promoted when discussing reproductive health. The media also ignores teen public health, as showcased by the fact that, in the “top 200 films of the past 20 years, condom use was only suggested once” (p. 5). Unsafe sex is often portrayed as sexy, and we cannot ignore the detriment this has on young adults and teens.

Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Reproductive Justice

America’s reproductive screening selection, human reproductive cloning, egg marketing, and genetic technology systems are often unregulated, and these systems can drive the dominant view on who is fit to reproduce. There are several social justice concerns with this new scientific technology, such as the use of screening and de-selection technologies to selectively abort female fetuses, deepening gender inequity, and discrimination against girls and/or women. Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis tests fertilized egg cells for genetic traits also have the potential to be a social justice concern within technology. This procedure pressures parents to de-select based upon traits deemed genetically inferior, such as disability, sexual orientation, and gender variance.

Additionally, the research used in this assisted reproductive technology can be invasive and dangerous to women’s reproductive health. Stem cell research, for instance, depends on women’s eggs and has possible long-term consequences. Egg trafficking is another exploitative practice that uses stimulants to allow women to produce multiple eggs due to the increased need for eggs for scientific research. This practice also puts women at risk of long-term side effects.

On Overpopulation

The right to have children is just as important as the right not to have children under the Reproductive Justice framework, but women have been denied this right through population control programs, which aim to reduce birth rates rather than empower women to have control over their reproductive lives. 

According to The Population and Development Program, there are ten reasons why rethinking overpopulation is vital to creating solidarity in advancing women’s reproductive and sexual rights: 

1. “The population ‘explosion’ is over.

2. The focus on population masks the complex causes of poverty and inequality.

3. Hunger is not the result of ‘too many mouths’ to feed.

4. Population growth is not the driving force behind environmental degradation.

5. Population pressure is not a root cause of political insecurity and conflict. 

6. Population control programs target women’s fertility and restrict reproductive rights. 

7. Population control programs have a negative effect on basic healthcare.

8. Population alarmism encourages apocalyptic thinking that legitimizes human rights abuses. 

9. Threatening images of overpopulation reinforce racial and ethnic stereotypes and scapegoat immigrants and other vulnerable communities.

10. Conventional views on overpopulation stand in the way of solidarity among global nations and regions.” (p. 31-2)

Environmental Justice

Environmental justice and reproductive justice share frameworks of social justice with a multidimensional focus on physical, mental, social, and cultural well-being. The author states that, since women are the first ‘environment,’ they are the original instruction for environmental justice, and thus the movements are intrinsically linked. 

Many traditional Mohawk cultural practices are protective of women’s health, children’s health, and community health, and the author offers some ways that these practices can and have been implemented into the fights for reproductive and environmental justice. For instance, the author recognizes that breastfeeding, along with being a sacred and beneficial practice, was a “valuable, sustainable cultural resource,” so they approached the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council and Mohawk Council for Akwesasne to engage in research to co-evolve the fight for reproductive and environmental justice (p. 33).

This research addressed many of women’s health concerns, including risks of exposure to industrial chemicals in the environment. Councils collaborated across many areas of knowledge from people like doulas and midwives, who center and support women in their work. They additionally engaged the community across languages and cultures, developing collective action strategies, and this collaborative effort can serve as a model for readers of how to work simultaneously for reproductive and environmental justice in their own lives.

Spirituality

Before Roe v. Wade passed in the Supreme Court, many clergies and lay leaders of various faiths began to give women referrals to safe abortion services, often unbeknownst to their congregants. In 1973, however, this practice was brought into the limelight by several clergy members, who formed the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (RCAR), adding clergy voices to the growing conversation about abortion and family planning. The RCAR was committed to broad reproductive justice framework issues, changed its name to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), and remained interfaith and religiously/theologically diverse. Its message of preserving reproductive choice as a facet of religious liberty has remained the same.

The RCRC has over 40 organizations representing 15 different faiths and religious groups, and it makes connections between spirituality and reproductive justice, focusing on many aforementioned framework issues such as unintended pregnancy, inadequate health care, access to sexual education, contraceptive access, and more.