Signs Resources on Abortion and Reproductive Justice

The enraging Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is an urgent reminder of the importance of the ongoing work of feminist scholars and activists in the fight for equal rights, bodily autonomy, and full citizenship. Today that importance cannot be overstated. In these deeply alarming times, we feel it is critical to offer signposts toward a way forward. The following Signs articles, essays, and multimedia materials offer insight, reflection, and glimpses of a way forward on reproductive justice and abortion rights.

Michele Pred, Power of the Purse, 2016–2019.

Jenny Holzer, For Siena, 2009. Photo: Attilio Maranzano.

<img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-909" data-attachment-id="909" data-permalink="http://signsjournal.org/judith-k-brodsky-detail-women-love-and-philosophy-iii-2004/brodsky-cover/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?fit=1898%2C1182" data-orig-size="1898,1182" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}" data-image-title="Judith K. Brodsky, detail, Women, Love, and Philosophy III (2004)" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Judith K. Brodsky, detail, Women, Love, and Philosophy III (2004)</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?fit=300%2C186" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?fit=940%2C585" class="size-full wp-image-909" src="https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?resize=940%2C585" alt="Judith K. Brodsky, detail, Women, Love, and Philosophy III (2004)" width="940" height="585" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?w=1898 1898w, https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?resize=300%2C186 300w, https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?resize=1024%2C637 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?resize=940%2C585 940w, https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?resize=620%2C386 620w, https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?resize=195%2C121 195w, https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?resize=200%2C125 200w, https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?resize=240%2C150 240w, https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?resize=320%2C200 320w, https://i0.wp.com/signsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Brodsky-COVER.jpg?resize=472%2C295 472w" sizes="(max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px" data-recalc-dims="1" />

Judith K. Brodsky, detail, Women, Love, and Philosophy III (2004)

From the Feminist Public Intellectuals Project

Julie F. Kay, Kathryn Kolbert, Martha F. Davis, Lisa Maldonado, Robin Marty, and Rosalind P. Petchesky, Short Takes on Controlling Women by Julie F. Kay and Kathryn Kobert (2021).
Goodwin, Michele, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Memorial Essay, “The Body Politic: Representation and Reproductive Feminist Jurisprudence” (2021).
Byllye Avery and Susan Reverby, Ask a Feminist on the Past and Future of Reproductive Justice (2019).
Katha Pollitt, Michelle Kinsey Bruns, Jill Filipovic, Dani McClain, Eesha Pandit, Loretta Ross, and Rickie Solinger, Short Takes on Pro by Katha Pollitt (2016).

From Signs

Norwood, Carolette. (2021). “Misrepresenting Reproductive Justice: A Black Feminist Critique of ‘Protecting Black Life’.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 46(3), 715-741.
Heffernan, Valerie, & Katherine Stone. (2021). “#regrettingmotherhood in Germany: Feminism, Motherhood, and Culture.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 46(2), 337-360.
Sutton, Barbara, & Vacarezza, Nayla L. (2020). “Abortion Rights in Images: Visual Interventions by Activist Organizations in Argentina.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 45(3), 731-757.
Boyle, Amy. (2020). “‘They Should Have Never Given Us Uniforms If They Didn’t Want Us to Be an Army’: The Handmaid’s Tale as Transmedia Feminism.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 45(4), 845-870.
Fischer, Clara. (2020). “Feminists Redraw Public and Private Spheres: Abortion, Vulnerability, and the Affective Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 45(4), 985-1010.
Thomsen, Carly, & Morrison, Grace T. (2020). “Abortion as Gender Transgression: Reproductive Justice, Queer Theory, and Anti–Crisis Pregnancy Center Activism.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 45(3), 703-730.
Leach, Brittany R. (2020). “Whose Backlash, against Whom? Feminism and the American Pro-Life Movement’s ‘Mother-Child Strategy’.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 45(2), 319-328.
Cullingford, Elizabeth. (2019). “Abortion and the Environment: China’s One-Child Policy in Mo Yan’s Frog and Ma Jian’s The Dark Road.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 45(1), 75-99.
Mason, Carol. (2019). “Opposing Abortion to Protect Women: Transnational Strategy since the 1990s.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 44(3), 665-692.
Luehrmann, Sonja. (2019). “‘Everything New That Life Gives Birth To’: Family Values and Kinship Practices in Russian Orthodox Antiabortion Activism.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 44(3), 771-795.
Barcelos, Chris, & Aline Gubrium. (2018). “Bodies That Tell: Embodying Teen Pregnancy Through Digital Storytelling.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 43(4), 905-927.
Sheldon, Sally. (2018). “Empowerment and Privacy? Home Use of Abortion Pills in the Republic of Ireland.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 43(4), 823-849.
McReynolds-Pérez, Julia. (2017). “No Doctors Required: Lay Activist Expertise and Pharmaceutical Abortion in Argentina.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 42(2), 349-375.
Zavella, Patricia. (2017). “Intersectional Praxis in the Movement for Reproductive Justice: The Respect ABQ Women Campaign.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 42(2), 509-533.
O’Donnell, Kelly Suzanne. (2017). “Reproducing Jane: Abortion Stories and Women’s Political Histories.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 43(1), 77-96.
Fischer, Clara. (2016). “Gender, Nation, and the Politics of Shame: Magdalen Laundries and the Institutionalization of Feminine Transgression in Modern Ireland.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 41(4), 821-843.
Denbow, Jennifer M. (2016). “Abortion as Genocide: Race, Agency, and Nation in Prenatal Nondiscrimination Bans.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 41(3), 603-626.
Waggoner, Miranda R. (2015). “Cultivating the Maternal Future: Public Health and the Prepregnant Self.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 40(4), 939-962.
Donath, Orna. (2015). “Regretting Motherhood: A Sociopolitical Analysis.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 40(2), 343-367.
Daniel, Clare. (2014). “‘Taming the Media Monster’: Teen Pregnancy and the Neoliberal Safety (Inter) Net.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 39(4), 973-998.
Johnson, Rachel E. (2014). “Haunted by the Somatic Norm: South African Parliamentary Debates on Abortion in 1975 and 1996.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 39(2), 485-508.
Rivkin-Fish, Michele. (2013). “Conceptualizing Feminist Strategies for Russian Reproductive Politics: Abortion, Surrogate Motherhood, and Family Support after Socialism.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 38(3), 569-593.
Kelly, Kimberly. (2012). “In the Name of the Mother: Renegotiating Conservative Women’s Authority in the Crisis Pregnancy Center Movement.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 38(1), 203-230.
Gilmartin, Mary, & Allen White. (2011). “Interrogating Medical Tourism: Ireland, Abortion, and Mobility Rights.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 36(2), 275-280.
Roberts, Dorothy E. (2009). “Race, Gender, and Genetic Technologies: A New Reproductive Dystopia?” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 34(4), 783-804.
Holc, Janine P. (2004). “The Purest Democrat: Fetal Citizenship and Subjectivity in the Construction of Democracy in Poland.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 29(3), 755-782.
Ruhl, Lealle. (2002). “Dilemmas of the Will: Uncertainty, Reproduction, and the Rhetoric of Control.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 27(3), 641-663.
Meyers, Diana Tietjens. (2001). “The Rush to Motherhood: Pronatalist Discourse and Women’s Autonomy.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 26(3), 735-773.
Oaks, Laury. (2000). “Smoke-filled Wombs and Fragile Fetuses: The Social Politics of Fetal Representation.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 26(1), 63-108.
Polatnick, M. Rivka. (1996). “Diversity in Women’s Liberation Ideology: How a Black and a White Group of the 1960s Viewed Motherhood.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 21(3), 679-706.
Greenhalgh, Susan & Jiali Li. (1995). “Engendering Reproductive Policy and Practice in Peasant China: For a Feminist Demography of Reproduction.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 20(3), 601-641.
Fuszara, Małgorzata. (1991). “Legal Regulation of Abortion in Poland.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 17(1), 117-128.
Sandelowski, Margarete J. (1990). “Failures of Volition: Female Agency and Infertility in Historical Perspective.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 15(3), 475-499.
Rowland, Robyn. (1987). “Technology and Motherhood: Reproductive Choice Reconsidered.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 12(3), 512-528.
Lake, Randall A. (1986). “The Metaethical Framework of Anti-abortion Rhetoric.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 11(3), 478-499.
Diamond, Irene, & Lee Quinby. (1984). “American Feminism in the Age of the Body.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 10(1), 119-125.
Bock, Gisela. (1983). “Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization, and the State.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 8(3).
Jensen, Joan M. (1981). “The Evolution of Margaret Sanger’s ‘Family Limitation’ Pamphlet, 1914-1921.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 6(3), 548-567.
Petchesky, Rosalind Pollack. (1980). “Reproductive Freedom: Beyond ‘A Woman’s Right to Choose’.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 5(4), 661-685.
Hayler, Barbara. (1979). “Abortion.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 5(2): 307-323.
Tangri, Sandra Schwartz. (1976). “A Feminist Perspective on Some Ethical Issues in Population Programs.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1(4), 895-904.
Williamson, Nancy E. (1976). “Sex Preferences, Sex Control, and the Status of Women.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1(4), 847-862.