Climate of Opportunity: Gender and Movement Building at the Intersection of Reproductive Justice and Environmental Justice

Women's reproductive health and rights are inextricably linked to environmental health and justice issues. Women's bodies and reproductive health are often the markers of environmental contamination through diminished fertility, fetal developmental disabilities and increased rates of cancers. Beginning in 2008, the Foundation brought together grant partners working in these two movements to form the Environmental Justice/Reproductive Justice (EJ/RJ) Collaborative. The Foundation has seen firsthand how joint advocacy generates more inclusive movements and stronger outcomes for communities. This report summarizes the EJ/RJ Collaborative as a reference for funders, policymakers, organizations and others interested in joint advocacy work

The Right to (Trans) Parent: A Reproductive Justice Approach to Reproductive Rights, Fertility, and Family-Building Issues Facing Transgender People

In focusing on fertility preservation and the whiff of eugenics in state statutes, this Article aims to make several contributions to issues at the intersection of the LGBT and reproductive health, rights, and justice movements. This Article will show how the reproductive health issues of transgender people remain shadowed in the mainstream LGBT movement and reproductive health and rights movement. This Article will use reproductive justice principles to provide new entry points for LGBT advocates and reproductive health and rights advocates to build alliances around gender, sexuality, and reproduction by highlighting opportunities for reproductive justice advocates to engage on reproductive health and rights issues facing transgender people. Finally, this Article will anticipate and explore areas in which reproductive health, rights, and justice advocates may resist such alliances

Articulating reproductive justice through reparative justice: : case studies of abortion in Great Britain and South Africa

Public health and rights-based approaches to abortion advocacy are well established. Feminists are, however, increasingly using a broader framework of ‘reproductive justice’, which considers the intersecting conditions that serve to enhance or hinder women’s reproductive freedoms, including their capacities to decide about the outcome of their pregnancies. Nonetheless, reproductive justice approaches to abortion are, conceptually, relatively under-developed. We introduce a reparative justice approach as a method of further articulating the concept of reproductive justice. We first explain how this approach can be used to conceptualise safe, accessible and supportive abortion as a key element of reproductive justice in relation to the injustice of unwanted or unsupportable pregnancies. Using Ernesto Verdeja’s critical theory of reparative justice and case studies of two countries (South Africa and Great Britain) where abortion is legal, we show how such an approach enables an analysis of reproductive justice within the specificities of particular contexts. We argue that both the rights-based legal framework adopted in South Africa and the medicalised approach of British law have, in practice, limited reparative justice in these contexts. We discuss the implications of reparative justice for abortion advocacy

The Distinctive Role of Justice Samuel Alito: From a Politics of Restoration to a Politics of Dissent

Justice Samuel Alito is regarded by both his champions and his critics as the most consistently conservative member of the current Supreme Court. Both groups seem to agree that he has become the most important conservative voice on the Court. Chief Justice John Roberts has a Court to lead; Justice Antonin Scalia and his particular brand of originalism have passed on; Justice Clarence Thomas is a stricter originalist and so writes opinions that other Justices do not join; and Justice Anthony Kennedy can be ideologically unreliable. Justice Alito, by contrast, is unburdened by the perceived responsibilities of being Chief Justice, is relatively young by Supreme Court standards (66 years old), is methodologically conventional, and is uniquely reliable. As a consequence, many conservatives love to celebrate him as the ideal Justice, and many liberals love to condemn him as politically driven. However one feels about Justice Alito as a jurist, he is carving out a distinctive role for himself on the Court at a pivotal time. That role and this time should be of interest to people who care about the Court’s work regardless of their ideology. Particularly in light of Justice Scalia’s passing, Justice Alito has become the primary judicial voice of the many millions of Americans who appear to be losing the culture wars, including in battles over gay rights, women’s access to reproductive healthcare, affirmative action, and religious exemptions. Part I observes that Justice Alito relies upon a variety of “modalities” of constitutional interpretation; his conventional methodology distinguishes him only (albeit interestingly) from Justices Scalia and Thomas. Looking elsewhere for what distinguishes Justice Alito from the rest of his colleagues, Part II observes that his tenth year on the Court coincides with a potentially significant moment in American constitutional history. Connecting the moment to the man, Part III examines Justice Alito’s distinctive role, which is most apparent in his majority opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and his dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges. There and elsewhere, Justice Alito voices the concerns of Americans who hold traditionalist conservative beliefs about speech, religion, guns, crime, race, gender, sexuality, and the family. These Americans were previously majorities in the real or imagined past, but they increasingly find themselves in the minority. Part IV considers two alternative characterizations of Justice Alito—one from conservatives (who may view Justice Alito as a Burkean conservative), and the other from liberals (who may view him as a movement conservative). The Conclusion suggests that Justice Alito’s distinctive role will likely be amplified in the years ahead, and identifies questions that follow for his supporters and critics

Fearless: Casey Butrico and Melanie Emerson

Casey Butrico (‘16) and Melanie Emerson (‘16) recently started a discussion group called Students for Reproductive Justice. This group is dedicated to the belief that women should control all aspects of their reproduction, including education about and access to safe birth control. They also aim to focus on gynecological care, pre-natal care, and abortion as human rights. These two fearless first-years have made a mission to educate and raise awareness about local and national issues that relate to women’s reproductive autonomy and the legal restrictions threatening it. [excerpt

Biopower, Disability and Capitalism: Neoliberal Eugenics and the Future of ART Regulation

Discourse around reproductive and contraceptive technology in the United States is typically organized around ideas of autonomy, privacy, and free choice. The dichotomy of “pro-choice” and “pro-life” structures all debates on the topic, and the political framework of neoliberalism channels discussion into prepackaged frameworks of cost-benefit analysis and the primacy of free market choice. However, an examination of history and present policy developments paints a different picture. This Note argues that access to and regulation around contraception, abortion, and overall reproductive health and technology has been informed by and continues to interact with ideas of biopower and both positive and negative eugenics, and that neoliberal conceptions of free reproductive choice ignore the implications of this connection. Part II traces the history of the eugenics movement in America, exemplified by forced and coerced sterilization of people considered mentally or physically “degenerate,” particularly those confined to institutions, and explores the rhetoric in early contraceptive-focused treatises and court decisions that reflect eugenicist views. Part III analyzes the modern trends on legal access to and regulation of reproductive and contraceptive technology and its interaction with race, socioeconomic status, and, in particular, disability (one of the more anxiety-producing categories of humanity in the neoliberal era). In Part IV, the Note goes on to argue that construction of a rational and compassionate legal framework where a woman’s right to choose is preserved (or revived) and the humanity of disabled persons is also respected is not only possible, but essential. A truly feminist reproductive framework must be built on justice, not market choice, and must respect both the agency and autonomy of pregnant women and the humanity and individual subjectivity of disabled persons. Policy strategies towards this end will not be easy, but attention to all the intersectional and overlapping factors that affect women’s reproductive decision-making, especially with regard to disability and reproductive technology, can change the way we view and value disabled personhood in our society

Unexpected Links Between Baby Markets and Intergenerational Justice

Intergenerational justice does not require increased government regulation of reproductive technologies in the United States. Arguments tarring reproductive technologies as unnatural or immoral fail to withstand close scrutiny, and moreover ignore competing moral concerns like the liberty and equality of people to form families in different ways, as well as the interests of children born via assisted reproduction in having their families recognized just as coitally conceived children’s families are recognized. Embryo markets, in contrast, might present different challenges, requiring a separate analysis of their potential impact on intergenerational justice

Property and women’s alienation from their own reproductive labour

There is an urgent need for reconstructing models of property to make them more women-friendly. However, we need not start from scratch: both ‘canonical’ and feminist authors can sometimes provide concepts which we can refine and apply towards women’s propertylessness. This paper looks in particular at women’s alienation from their reproductive labour, building on Marx and Delphy. Developing an economic and political rather than a psychological reading of alienation, it then considers how the refined and revised concept can be applied to concrete examples in global justice for women: in particular, the commercialisation of embryonic and fetal tissue in the new stem cell technologies

Reproductive justice: A framework for abortion law reform

Australia has seen a number of efforts at reform of abortion laws in recent years. Some jurisdictions have decriminalised abortion entirely, and other states have made efforts to reform abortion law without complete decriminalisation. At the other end of the spectrum, Queensland in 2018 listed abortion as a criminal offence. This article uses the framework of questions in the Queensland Law Reform Commission consultation paper to reprise the need for abortion law reform in Queensland specifically, and Australia generally. While answering the Queensland Law Reform Commission questions, we frame our inquiry around empowering women’s self-determination to make decisions about their reproductive health as a hallmark of their equality as citizens.Full Tex

Ms. Foundation for Women, 2011 Annual Report

Energized by New York, the Ms. Foundation is helping transform a regional win into victory nationwide. We were there to support DWU as it led the formation of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), a coalition that now boasts 31 member groups from 11 states and is propelling the movement across the United States. Today, the Ms. Foundation is funding a local organization and NDWA member, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, to push for a California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. The momentum is palpable: Their bill passed the California assembly in June 2011 by a decisive 41-19 margin, setting the stage for passage by the state Senate. In a national political environment awash with increased attacks on women, workers and immigrants, domestic workers' success in New York and California is a beacon of hope for progressives across the United States