Reproductive Justice -- the right to have children, not to have children, and to parent children in healthy and safe environments -- is a movement and perspective that arose in the 1990s as a broader alternative to reproductive rights advocacy focused on limited debates around abortion and pro-life-pro-choice issues. Articulated and led by women of color with a more encompassing social vision, reproductive justice usually incorporates both a framework of human rights and an awareness of the intersectionality of women’s identities and struggles against sexism, racism, homophobia, and economic marginalization.
This exhibit provides a visual narrative of the emergence and antecedents of reproductive justice. Given that women's lives have never been reducible to one dimension of their reproductive health, this exhibit traces a longer history of reproductive justice, illustrating many experiences, debates, and policies related to pregnancy, birth, contraception, and raising children. Birthing Reproductive Justice also explores the question of who has produced and controlled knowledge about women's reproductive health and decisions.
