Home Conversations on Reproductive Justice

Conversations on Reproductive Justice

Wednesday, April 9, 2014
4:00 – 6:30 PM
370 Dwinelle Hall
Reception to follow

Agenda

4:00 PM – Reproductive Justice in Action

- Women of Color
  & Youth Empowerment through RJ
  - Pat Zavella, PhD,
    UC Santa Cruz
- Religious
  Technologies for RJ
  - Rev. Darcy Baxter,
    Starr-King UU Church Hayward
- RJ and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
  - Hyperopia zine collective – Abbey Marr, Eliana Rubin
    & Leah Weinstein

5:00 PM – Reproductive Justice’s Past, Present, and Future

A conversation featuring:
Sujatha Jesudason, PhD, founding director of CoreAlign and researcher at ANSIRH
&
Loretta Ross, co-founder of SisterSong and noted women’s rights author and activist
guided by
Samara Azam, executive director of ACCESS Women’s Health Justice

6:30 PM – Reception in Dwinelle Commons

Motivation

CRRJ is one of the nation’s first multidisciplinary research centers dedicated to issues of reproduction and designed to support policy solutions by bridging the academic-advocate divide. Since our founding in 2012, we have produced a slate of innovative programming and scholarship. We are merging study and practice as we explore questions of how race, class, gender, and ability influence reproductive possibilities and how reproductive justice organizing intersects with other social movements.

The phrase “reproductive justice” was coined in 1994 by a group of Black women attending a pro-choice conference to describe the necessity of merging reproductive rights activism with broader social justice struggles. RJ was developed by activists engaged in movements for racial liberation, women’s health, environmental justice, and international human rights, among others. Further, critical race and critical gender scholarship has influenced the movement and fostered further intellectual interest in this intersectional paradigm.

Since September 2012, CRRJ has hosted a Reproductive Justice Working Group, facilitated formerly by Dr. Zakiya Luna and currently by Rev. Darcy Baxter. The RJWG’s primary goal is to co-create an environment where participants can deepen their understanding of reproductive justice and develop practical ideas for integrating it into their research and practice. The RJWG, now in its fourth term and cosponsored by CRG, has included students, postdocs/visiting scholars, and faculty, clergy, healthcare providers, and other community members. Some participants had only heard of reproductive justice when seeing the announcements about the group, whereas others had been involved in reproductive rights, health, and/or justice activism for years. Meetings include discussion of readings about RJ and feedback on works-in-progress; and conversation about RJ in our work and personal lives. It has been an exciting space to explore how RJ intersects in our lives, scholarship and the intersection. Each term the readings and outcomes of the RJWG shift, but the conversations are always stimulating!

What is reproductive justice? What have been the challenges of the RJ movement? What are the implications of RJ’s movement into the academy ? What are the limits of RJ? Where is the RJ movement going in the next 20 years? On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the coining of the phrase “reproductive justice.”

We hope the Conversations provide an opportunity for campus and community members to learn about the exciting ways RJ enters our lives, explore some of the most pressing dilemmas, and meet others interested in advancing reproductive justice.

Cosponsored by the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, Department of Ethnic Studies, American Cultures Center, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice and Mary Wohlford Foundation