RCRC believes that having the legal right to reproductive health care and access to reproductive health services are vital. But there is even more to this issue.
We need justice in the reproductive lives of all people.
RCRC is building a multi-issue, multi-cultural, multi-generational movement. This movement must ensure that all people have access to the resources they need to live healthy, happy, and fulfilling lives.
Our work today blends our ongoing commitment to reproductive health and legal rights — the focus of our past — with a broader spectrum of human rights and social justice.
This framework is known as reproductive justice.
Reproductive justice (RJ) is an intersectional theory. It has emerged from the experiences of women of color as they have faced a complex set of reproductive oppressions.
RJ encompasses legal rights to abortion and gender equality, but it includes more. RJ recognizes that access to healthcare is influenced by other factors such as class, race, sexual orientation and immigration status.
It focuses on marginalized communities — women of color and the poor — who encounter sharp disparities in access to sex education, adequate health care, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, prevention of unintended pregnancies and access to abortion care.
The privacy and moral agency of these women to make their own health decisions has also been severely attacked.
Loretta Ross, one of the founding mothers of this movement, has written, “the ability of any woman to determine her own reproductive destiny is directly linked to the conditions in her community, and these conditions are not just a matter of individual choice and access. For example, a woman cannot make an individual decision about her body if she is part of a community whose human rights as a group are violated, such as through environmental dangers or insufficient quality health care.” (footnote to Sister Song document on What is Reproductive Justice?)
