Roe Was Never Enough

While reproduction is a private act, the policies around it have public consequences. Often, the elites who make policies have engaged in reproductive control of people deemed unfit to have families (usually poor and/or people of color). Reproductive justice as a concept and movement turns our attention to the contradictions embedded in the policy landscape and advocates for broad-based bodily autonomy that supports people across the span of their reproductive lives in avoiding pregnancy, in conceiving a child, and in bearing and parenting children.

Reproductive justice is not a variation of “choice” rhetoric that narrows reproductive experiences to abortion but is based on a foundational lesson learned by many communities of color over time: if you do not have control over your body, you do not have control over your life. Historically, ignoring vulnerable people’s reproductive experiences eventually opened the door to many more people’s reproduction being restricted, as we are seeing today. We can do better than Roe because we all deserve more than Roe ever promised: better contraception options for women and men, affordable fertility treatments, decent maternal health care for women of color, paid parental and family leave, and subsidized child care.

The former chair of Access Reproductive Justice, Zakia Luna points to ways that communities are imagining and winning victories beyond Roe, to the benefit of everyone.