Reproductive Justice Resources
With Roe v. Wade in danger of being overturned or eroded into meaninglessness — the US Supreme Court has allowed Texas to enact a six-week abortion ban and will soon hear Jackson Women's Health Organization v. Dobbs, a case with the potential to undo decades of precedent — Women's Marches around the US are set for October 2.
The free resources collected here reflect a range of views — historical perspectives on the Court's abortion decisions, first-hand accounts of the on-the-ground conditions under which abortion care has been provided, arguments for reproductive justice frameworks over a sole focus on abortion, tactical discussions of social-movement building and legal approaches, and thoughts on the future of fights for reproductive rights.
These resources feature commentary and analysis from Byllye Avery, Michelle Kinsey Bruns, Martha F. Davis, Jill Filipovic, Michele Goodwin, Julie F. Kay, Kathryn Kolbert, Lisa Maldonado, Robin Marty, Dani McClain, Eesha Pandit, Rosalind P. Petchesky, Katha Pollitt, Susan Reverby, Loretta Ross, and Rickie Solinger.
State efforts to force women into continuing pregnancies by banning abortion, undermining access to reproductive health information, or imposing unconstitutional constraints on providers directly implicate more than financial concerns; they involve whether pregnant women have a right to life and information.
We will not have true reproductive freedom until everyone is able to live safely—free from all forms of violence and oppression. We know that going back to a ‘normal’ that has failed, exploited, and neglected so many ... is not an option.
Women’s groups have got to start getting together, ... start doing your organizing.... Every city, every town has got to have it. Every place. You just have to do it.
All individuals have inalienable rights to body sovereignty and the necessary social supports to realize these human rights.
Recent Signs Articles (subscription required)
- Carolette Norwood, Carolette, “Misrepresenting Reproductive Justice: A Black Feminist Critique of ‘Protecting Black Life’,” Signs 46, no. 3 (Spring 2021).
- Fischer, Clara. (2020). “Feminists Redraw Public and Private Spheres: Abortion, Vulnerability, and the Affective Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, Signs 45, no. 4 (Summer 2020).
- Carly Thomsen and Grace T. Morrison,“Abortion as Gender Transgression: Reproductive Justice, Queer Theory, and Anti–Crisis Pregnancy Center Activism," Signs 45, no. 3 (Spring 2020).
- Carol Mason, “Opposing Abortion to Protect Women: Transnational Strategy since the 1990s,” Signs 44, no. 3 (Spring 2019).
- Sally Sheldon, “Empowerment and Privacy? Home Use of Abortion Pills in the Republic of Ireland,” Signs 43, no. 4 (Summer 2018).
- Jennifer M. Denbow, “Abortion as Genocide: Race, Agency, and Nation in Prenatal Nondiscrimination Bans,” Signs 41, no. 3 (Spring 2016).
- Julia McReynolds-Pérez, “No Doctors Required: Lay Activist Expertise and Pharmaceutical Abortion in Argentina,” Signs 42, no. 2 (Winter 2017).
- Patricia Zavella, “Intersectional Praxis in the Movement for Reproductive Justice: The Respect ABQ Women Campaign.” Signs 42, no. 2 (Winter 2017).
- Kelly Suzanne O’Donnell, “Reproducing Jane: Abortion Stories and Women’s Political Histories,” Signs 43, no. 1 (Autumn 2017).
- Jennifer M. Denbow, “Abortion as Genocide: Race, Agency, and Nation in Prenatal Nondiscrimination Bans,” Signs 41, no. 3 (Spring 2016).