On Forbidden Wombs and Transnational Reproductive Justice

Jallicia Jolly

Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, Volume 15, Number 1, 2016,

pp. 166-188 (Article)

Published by Duke University Press

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/651253

[ Access provided at 3 Aug 2021 23:43 GMT from University of California, Merced ]
 Jallicia Jolly

On Forbidden Wombs and

Transnational Reproductive Justice1

Abstract
This essay proposes transnational reproductive justice as a useful approach to the liberation
of multiply marginalized women. I center the systematic terror and denigration of women of
color by various institutions, practices, and policies in order to demonstrate why we need a
reproductive justice approach to address dynamic state-sanctioned violence. After explaining
the content and significance of a reproductive justice framework, I explain the possibilities a
transnational perspective on reproductive justice offers to address interrelated global forces of
domination.

Introduction: What Is Reproductive Justice?

In recognizing the interrelated forces of domination faced by women of

color, reproductive justice moves beyond matters of individual choice and
privacy central to white feminist agendas and the pro-choice movement
to address the race- and class-based reproductive politics that impede
the ability of multiply marginalized women to govern themselves (Asian
Communities for Reproductive Justice 2005; Ross 2006a, 2006b). It
recognizes the need to appropriately address the configurations of state
power that link our contemporary penal state to our judicial, welfare,
and health-care systems in ways that subject poor and queer women of
color to inhumane and lethal laws, policies, and practice (Roberts 1997;

Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 15, no. 1 (2016): 166–188.

Copyright © 2016 Smith College. doi: 10.2979/meridians.15.1.09

166
Dalley 2002; Chieko 2006). Such an agenda acknowledges that abuses of
power affect intimate aspects of all women’s lives, especially those who
are socially, politically, and economically marginalized and whose bodies
remain crucial sites for political battles over health, welfare, and law and
order. This approach shows us that, like access to contraceptives and
critical health services, police brutality and the rights to life, to give life, to
not give life, and to parent are human rights issues that must intersect with
our agendas for racial justice and gender equality.
In the wake of unconscionable tragedies caused by racialized, gendered,
state-sanctioned violence, we must strategize productively and organize
effectively. A reproductive justice approach addresses the constellation of
dominating forces that have deprived women of color of the economic,
social, and political resources to live, birth, parent, and sustain their
families. More than ever before, our lives, families, communities, and
futures depend on our ability to address entrenched inequities that impede
our ability not only to survive, but to thrive.

Why Reproductive Justice?

Heightened rates of racialized, gendered, and classed violence and its

embodiment in the psychological, physical, and social worlds of multiply
marginalized women of color demands that we seek interventions
that are multidimensional. As noted by Patricia Hill Collins (1986),
intersectionality is a “holistic approach that treats the interaction among
multiple systems as the object of study” (20). Reproductive justice
centers this approach to address the impact of interlocking systems of
dominations on the quality of life of women of color, which offers a
comprehensive way to address the multifaceted forces that constrain
women’s reproductive futures and their capacity to live healthy lives (Ross
2006b). Its emphasis on intersectionality offers an expansive framework
for both interrogating and intervening in the ways that marginalization
and relational privilege shape the intellectual, emotional, and material
lives of individuals and/or communities. This crucial deviation from
the “add and stir” diversity approach that combines identity categories
without critically considering their concrete impacts helps us strategically

Jallicia Jolly  •  On Forbidden Wombs 167

 unpack the ways that identity markers such as race, gender, class,
sexuality, and (dis)ability coalesce in our daily lives, structuring the
possibilities for life and death as they shape who the deserving and
non-deserving members of society are. Thus, a reproductive justice
agenda understands that the right to a healthy life and the conditions
necessary for living and parenting requires that we also address the
varied components that shape our well-being, such as the right to quality
education, housing, health services, clean drinking water, and safe and
toxin-free environments.

Reproductive Justice in the Context of U.S.

State-Sanctioned Violence

Understanding the significance of reproductive justice today requires

an exploration of the United States government’s restrictions of the
rights of women of color to determine their own reproductive futures.
The growing eugenics movement in the early twentieth century helped
popularize the idea that socially undesirable characteristics were
hereditary and could be eliminated by destroying the reproductive
capacity of those with “undesirable traits” (Solinger 2005). The
widespread acceptance of the eugenic theory that deviant behavior was
biologically determined coupled with social anxieties regarding the
reproduction of the poor, immigrants, and people of color coincided
with the dominant racist ideologies of the time (Gordon 2002). These
ideas also supported the widespread claim that social problems are
caused by reproduction and can be cured by population control, thereby
providing the context in which marginalized populations such as women
of color and queer women were deemed unfit to parent (Levi et al. 2010).
The legacies of eugenics lingers in the involuntary mass sterilization of
working-class women of Mexican origin in California through family
planning initiatives of the War on Poverty and of Indigenous women
as part of a “genocidal strategy of decimation,” as well as in punitive
judicial responses that rendered Black mothers “unfit to parent” (Stern
2005a, 2005b; Flavin 2009).

168 MERIDIANS  15:1
 In centering the rights of women to control their own fertility and
access the resources to create the circumstances for healthy living
conditions, reproductive justice addresses the tensions that have
historically evolved amidst calls against sterilization and for access to
birth control. Recognizing the need for more expansive reproductive
health agendas, Frances Beal, coordinator of the Black Women’s
Liberation Committee of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) stated in 1970:

We are not saying that black women should not practice birth control.
Black women have the right and the responsibility to determine when it
is [in] the interest of the struggle to have children or not to have them,
and this right must not be relinquished to anyone. It is also her right
and responsibility to determine when it is in her own best interests to
have children, how many she will have and how far apart. The lack of
the availability of safe birth control methods, the forced sterilization
practices, and the inability to obtain legal abortions are all symptoms
of a decadent society that jeopardizes the health of black women (and
thereby the entire black race) in its attempt to control the very life
processes of human beings. (quoted in Silliman et al. 2004)

Beale’s appeal to more comprehensive approaches to reproductive health

is applicable to marginalized women of color whose intersecting identity
categories make them vulnerable to a host of coercive laws and policies.
Reproductive justice reconciles the conflicts in claims for access to birth
control with involuntary sterilization by relying on the legacies and
techniques used by women of color to strategically negotiate spaces infused
with competing interests, desires, and needs.
The evolving faces of state-sanctioned abuse invite further discussions
about strategies to address the fatal impacts of state violence on the lives of
women of color. The recent murders of Black women and their continuous
subjection to calculated, violent assaults on their humanity have shed light
on a critical truth: Black women’s bodies are used as a terrain to work
out contested notions about sexuality, motherhood, and womanhood
(Hammonds 1997; Agard 2014). Beyond just showing that the systems
of law enforcement, health care, and welfare as currently practiced are

Jallicia Jolly  •  On Forbidden Wombs 169

 broken, these acts of terror reveal the dynamic dehumanization reserved
for women of color. It is a violence that runs deep, starting from the
womb. It jeopardizes their right to live, give birth, parent, and sustain life.
It springs from a history of violent neglect that has helped continue their
abuse in jail cells, courtrooms, and hospitals. At their core, the callous
assaults on the lives of women of color detail the importance of embracing
a reproductive justice framework in our fight against attacks on our
humanity (Lindsey 2015).
A reproductive justice framework further highlights the daily violations
of the rights of women of color to safe conditions critical to living healthy
lives. In November of 2014, Ann Arbor police executed Aura Rosser after
they were called to address a domestic dispute between Rosser and her
boyfriend. On July 13, 2015, Sandra Bland was viciously assaulted by a
Waller County sheriff in Texas for failing to signal before changing lanes.
She was later found dead in her jail cell. The expression of their humanity,
as well as their rage, remained a site of deadly contention. Together, these
egregious attacks reveal a harsh reality: the exposed Black female body
yields the immorality of Black womanhood and the criminality of Black
motherhood in U.S. society. The dominance of stereotypical images of
Black female sexuality as “untamed” and “dangerous” continue to shape
Black womanhood as an incurable immorality and Black reproduction as
degeneracy, creating the context for fatal exertions of authority (Roberts
1997).
The beliefs that Black women are the source of social ills are
inextricably linked to ideas of women of color and queer women as
groups afflicted with pathological tendencies (Gordon 2002; Jordan-
Zachery 2009). These ideas don’t just help create fertile ground for the
aggressive enforcement of coercive laws and policies. The reliance of U.S.
social policies on cultural images and symbols of non-white womanhood
and non-heteronormative sexualities as dishonorable and immoral also
help dictate responses to social and economic inequity in ways that invoke
class and racial biases in value-laden discourses (Jordan-Zachery 2009).
Such depictions frame women of color as unentitled and unpitiable
and, thus, undeserving of the freedom to move and thrive without being
subjected to coercive force.

170 MERIDIANS  15:1
 The ongoing terror reigned against women of color is evident not only
in cases of forced sterilization and police brutality, but also in recent
attempts to reduce access to quality and affordable health care (Kerby 2012;
Hiltzik 2015). The increasing attempts of the federal government to reduce
funding of public health centers coupled with inadequate health care in
under-resourced communities create more barriers for many marginalized
women, whose inability to pay for health-care services remains a major
stumbling block to safe and healthy reproduction.
Conservative legislators have continued to impose restrictions on
access to life-saving treatment and services for members of federally
funded programs like Medicaid. These barriers include provisions that
exclude low-income Black and Latina women who do not meet categorical
eligibility criteria such as disability and having dependents. This presents
a “catch-22” for many women who do not qualify for Medicaid until
they are sick and disabled, although early access to preventative care
and treatment could potentially stave off disability and prevent illness
(Andrews 2013; Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation 2013). Alongside the
vulnerability of women of color to coercive federal health policies, they
also suffer at the hands of judicial attempts at welfare reform (Alexander
2011; Roberts 2009). For instance, decisions that restrict Black women’s
ability to procreate, parent, and legally care for their children reveal
invasive rationales that underpin judicial discretion in setting probation
conditions (Ross 2004; Levi et al. 2010). Court-ordered birth control and
no-procreation orders represent bold assaults along economic lines and
erroneously link social ills with the fertility of Black women (Corneal 2003;
Levi et al. 2010).
The current functioning of the child welfare and criminal justice systems
work to systematically deny Black women the right to parent. In New Jersey,
Black mothers are more likely than white and Latino parents to lose custody
of their children as a result of drug use or having a half-empty pantry—
stipulations that legally cannot justify the placement of children into foster
care. Although Black children make up only 14% of the child population in
the state, they make up 41% of those entering foster care (Gonzalez 2015).
The vulnerability of Black mothers to state supervision in parental decisions
is strengthened by the “fifteen out of twenty-two-month” unfitness ground of

Jallicia Jolly  •  On Forbidden Wombs 171

 the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, which authorizes the termination
of parental rights. The conscious decision of social workers, lawyers, and
judges to remove Black children from Black mothers imposes an “ideal
parent” standard, which systematically demonizes Black motherhood as it
criminalizes maternal incarceration (Corneal 2003; Roberts 2009).
The Adoption and Safe Families Act precludes the possibility of children
retaining a legal relationship with their mothers while also limiting
understandings and expressions of parenting. The varied manifestations
of structural inequality and systematic violence have required that Black
families create networks and kinships that provide a host of parental
responsibilities—emotional support, psychosocial care, and other
intangible qualities—that can be fulfilled while parents are physically
separated from their children.
Punitive legislative measures by federal and state governments to
restrict women’s reproductive and parenting capacities create distinctive
vulnerabilities for all women, especially low-income women of color,
many of whom lack the economic resources, social recognition, and
political capital needed to resist such pervasive reproductive regulations.
The murderous enactment of these laws and policies sends a clear
message: poor women of color are disposable and fundamentally
ungrievable. The violent inconsideration of their lives demands that
activists embrace a reproductive justice framework. As noted by
reproductive justice activist Loretta Ross, reproductive justice is “the
complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, and economic well-
being of women and girls, based on the full achievement and protection
of women’s human rights” (Ross 2006b, 14). It emphasizes the need for
women of color to access the resources and services needed to control
their reproductive capacity amidst the brute force of law enforcers,
the state-sanctioned criminalization of their pregnancies, the forced
removal of their children, the destruction of the welfare system, and the
insensitivity of the foster care system.
A reproductive justice approach acknowledges that in the current
state of recognition and belonging, multiply marginalized women are
systematically denied certain social and human rights associated with
reproduction. It addresses the systemic variations in the ways that the rights
of citizenship—the right to bear children, access to education, quality

172 MERIDIANS  15:1
health care, and equal protection under the law—are filtered, conferred,
and withheld from women according to their race, class, sexuality, and
nationality.

Reproductive Justice in a Transnational Context

The emphasis of reproductive justice on the right of multiply marginalized

women to determine their reproductive futures engages with the
possibilities of solidarity across borders of race, class, sexuality, culture,
and nationality. This approach requires a consideration of women’s agency
within a broader system of relational power and privilege that shapes
transnational commodified markets in bodies, babies, and reproductive
labor (Alexander and Mohanty 2010; Fixmer-Oraiz 2013). Eliminating
interlocking systems of domination not only invites an interrogation
of social and economic injustice, but also requires that we address the
connections between racialized misogyny and increasing anti-Black state-
sanctioned violence globally.
Centering transnational reproductive justice requires a thorough
understanding of the unique ways that “misogynoir” constrains
marginalized women’s ability to negotiate the risks, barriers, and
opportunities associated with their reproductive capacity. Misogynoir,
a term coined by Moya Bailey to refer to the intersectionality of racism,
misogyny, and anti-Blackness, further reveals the trauma of mothering
while Black and living in an anti-Black, anti-queer, heteropatriarchal world
(Bailey 2013). Agendas, collectives, syllabi, and various forms of political
mobilization that interrogate the systematic denigration and dehumanizing
objectification of Black women shed light on the reoccurring psychological,
emotional, and physical trauma that Black women face as they strategically
address the chronic dehumanization of Black female life globally. They
reveal a striking reality: Black motherhood is the direct antithesis to
the ideals of the twenty-first century militarized, carceral world. Its
proliferation of Black life in uteri and beyond places it in a dangerously
ambiguous relation to white power structures, particularly their historical
investment in the dynamic dispossession of Black people through
calculated exploitation, structural violence, and lethal abuse.

Jallicia Jolly  •  On Forbidden Wombs 173

 Few works and political agendas have explored the transnational
dimensions of reproductive justice and its significance in addressing the
processes and practices that both authorize and mask various inequities
that constrain the reproductive futures of multiply marginalized
women of color. A transnational approach to reproductive justice
offers an analytical lens that centers relational power and vulnerability
as it invests in the possibility of a shared consciousness in our efforts
to address the terror and suffering faced by multiply marginalized
women. In prioritizing transnational and transdisciplinary approaches
to addressing the disenfranchisement of women of color, it also offers
frameworks to craft and expand interventions aimed at maintaining the
conditions necessary for safe and healthy lives and living conditions
globally. This includes various initiatives such as policy, advocacy,
research, and education strategies that support living wages, affordable
and supported housing, high quality public health and medical care,
accessible sexual and reproductive health services, and clean living
environments.
In connecting the framework of reproductive justice to pressing
concerns and needs, collectives have implemented strategies that target
environmental toxins, sexual autonomy, parenting, and access to health
care among immigrant groups. For instance, Alaska Community Action
on Toxics addresses policies that link environmental contaminants and
the major reproductive justice concerns of Indigenous villages, such as
premature births, stillbirths, and birth defects. (Alaska Community Action
on Toxics 2016) This culturally-based policy advocacy is mirrored in the
efforts of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, which uses policy,
community education, and communication strategies to educate and
mobilize Latina women at local and state levels on issues related to the
reproductive and sexual health of low-income, undocumented, adolescent,
lesbian, bisexual, queer, and transgender women. (California Latinas for
Reproductive Justice 2016)
In Latin America and the Caribbean, community groups such as
Women’s Link Worldwide and Eve for Life have mobilized resources to
allow marginalized women to make informed reproductive decisions.
Women’s Link Worldwide has provided emergency contraceptives to poor
and rural women living in Columbia who are disproportionately affected

174 MERIDIANS  15:1
by the growing outbreak of the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease
associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. (Barragan 2016) Eve for
Life has revolutionized HIV care through their directed and prolonged
provision of quality psychosocial care to HIV-positive young mothers
in Jamaica. Embodying a guided mentorship and education approach
that centers holistic HIV/AIDS care, Eve for Life trains young mothers
in gender-based violence and intimate partner violence awareness,
sexual and reproductive health rights and education, STI and HIV/AIDS
prevention, group facilitation, and peer communication to allow them
to develop the skills to educate themselves and their peers. (Eve for Life
2016)
At their core, these initiatives illuminate the local, national, and
transnational forces that work to impede the ability of women of color
to determine their reproductive futures. Yet they also illuminate the
possibilities inherent in expansive agendas that address the unique needs,
desires, and interests of multiply marginalized women of color. In our
move toward our collective liberation, transnational reproductive justice
allows us to envision more strategic, meaningful, and sustainable strategies
critical to the survival of women of color.

Notes
1. The exclusions of trans people and men are limitations of this article. While I
primarily emphasize the experiences of women throughout the piece, I consider
reproductive justice an expansive framework fighting for the rights of all people
(of all genders) to live, birth or not birth, parent, and sustain their families.
Though it is heavily grounded in the needs/rights of women of color, it is not
limited to women of color. As the needs and rights of trans women, trans men,
and non-binary people remain critical to our efforts to address overlapping
and unique assaults on the quality of Black lives, I encourage future works to
productively engage with these areas.

About the Author

Jallicia Jolly is a Ph.D. student in the American Culture department at the
University of Michigan. A trained Black feminist/womanist ethnographer,
Jolly studies the psychosocial, social, and political lives of HIV-positive
African American and Jamaican women. Her research interests also include
motherhood, illness, and sexuality; health care and reproductive justice;
state-sanctioned violence; and embodied trauma. As a 2014 U.S. Fulbright

Jallicia Jolly  •  On Forbidden Wombs 175

 Student recipient, Jolly has researched how the interplay of class, gender,
color, and sexuality shapes the coping strategies of HIV-positive young
mothers living in Kingston. As she pursues her twin passions for classroom
instruction and research, Jolly remains committed to connecting theory
and practice in engaging, culturally-relevant, and context-specific ways—
an objective that forms the core of Resist.Restore., a transnational “public-
health-arts” initiative that she co-leads. Resist.Restore. uses scholarship,
arts, and community engagement to address state-sanctioned violence
and trauma among people of African descent living in under-resourced
communities in Jamaica, Haiti, and the United States.

176 MERIDIANS  15:1
Lesson Plan:
Connecting Struggles:
Working Toward a Transnational
Reproductive Justice System

Overview

This course explores the origins of reproductive justice and its application
in transnational contexts. It invites participants to consider how the lives
of women of color are situated in embattled economic, legal, and social
constellations that shape their ability to control their reproductive futures.
Using interdisciplinary gendered perspectives to explore the dimensions
of reproductive justice locally and globally, this course will examines
the relevance of this framework to pressing issues facing women of
color. Discussions will include these key issues: sexual and reproductive
health and rights, state-sanctioned violence, access to quality health
care, environmental justice and safe and healthy living conditions, sexual
autonomy and choice, and sterilization and abortion.
People interested in learning more about issues pertaining to gender,
sexuality, and health and in understanding how to develop and implement
a reproductive justice framework in organizing, advocacy, and educational
contexts will benefit from this class. While the course is intended for
individuals with some high school education, others are welcomed to
engage in this learning community. Participants are expected to submit
weekly response papers, which are designed to demonstrate engagement
with the reading material and in-class discussions. They are not summaries
of the readings or of participants’ experiences in the course. Rather, they
are two to three pages (double spaced) generated from thoughtful reflection
on the issues discussed in class, and engagement with the different

Jallicia Jolly  •  On Forbidden Wombs 177

 dimensions of reproductive justice. As such, they should utilize at least two
specific references from the readings (quotes and/or page references) and
constructively respond to the specific questions raised.

Lesson Procedures

Lesson One: Reproductive Politics: Unpacking the History

Objectives: This lesson examines the contexts that led to the reproductive
justice movement—a collective that embraces a social justice and human
rights framework to address restrictions on women’s reproductive futures.
By studying the efforts of the pro-choice movement and population
control advocates, coupled with the landscape of sexual and reproductive
health rights, participants will gain an understanding of the key historical
moments and actors that led to the movement’s development.

Required Readings

• Safe, Legal and Unavailable? Abortion Politics in the United States (Rose 2007)
• “The Politics of Reproduction” (Gingsburg and Rapp 1991)
• “A New Vision for Advancing Our Movement for Reproductive Health,
Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Justice” (Asian Communities for
Reproductive Justice 2005)
• “The Color of Choice: White Supremacy and Reproductive Justice”
(Ross 2006a)
• “Health of Black or African American non-Hispanic Population”
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2016a)

Discussion

1. General assessment:

a. How were you first exposed to reproductive justice?

b. What ideas, beliefs, and/or experiences shaped your initial
understandings of reproductive justice?
c. What do you hope to get out of this course experience?

2. What is reproductive justice? How does it connect to the larger project

and vision of women’s liberation? What about reproductive justice are
you interested in learning about?

178 MERIDIANS  15:1
3. How do the readings’ discussion of choice, autonomy, and inequality
contribute to your understanding of reproductive justice?

Activity

1. Movie: Vessel
a. Aim: Explore how reproductive health advocates have addressed
issues regarding choice, access, and autonomy.
b. Directions: Watch selected clips from Vessel, a documentary about
Women on Waves (WoW), a pro-choice nonprofit organization
created in 1999 by Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts. WoW provides
reproductive health services, particularly nonsurgical abortion
services, to women in countries with restrictive reproductive laws.

2. Large-group discussion:
a. What are your initial reactions and/or lingering questions?
b. How does Vessel inform our understandings of reproductive justice in
domestic and international contexts?
c. What possibilities, challenges, and opportunities does WoW
offer for reproductive health and social change initiatives? Is this
effective? Why or why not?
Assignment
1. Response paper #1.

Lessons Two and Three: Origins of Reproductive Justice:

Understanding the Dimensions (Part 1 and Part 2)
Objectives: These two lessons explore the dimensions of reproductive
politics in the United States and globally. Part 1 (Lesson 2) focuses on
reproductive justice in a domestic context and the tensions in debates
regarding choice, autonomy, and the right to life. Part 2 (Lesson 3) focuses
on international events surrounding the movement such as the global
feminist movement, the 1994 International Conference on Population
and Development, and the larger global struggle for human rights. In
examining the context of the shift from right-to-privacy claims to legal
abortion arguments to appeals for self-determination and control over
women’s bodies, students will learn how multiply marginalized women
used intersectionality to form cross-cultural, cross-national alliances to
address their unique needs.

Jallicia Jolly  •  On Forbidden Wombs 179

 Required Readings (Part 1)

• “Black Women and the Pill” (Roberts 2000)

• Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice (Silliman
et al. 2004)
• “Understanding Reproductive Justice: Transforming the Pro-Choice
Movement” (Ross 2006b)
• “Sterilized in the Name of Public Health: Race, Immigration, and
Reproductive Control in Modern California” (Stern 2005b)

Discussion

1. Identify the commonalities and differences in the approaches employed

by women of color reproductive justice activists and members of the
pro-choice movement. Consider the role of choice, autonomy, and
freedom in these debates regarding reproductive health.
2. What major concerns, needs, and desires undergirded the shift from
right-to-privacy claims to legal abortion arguments to appeals for self-
determination and reproductive freedom?
3. How have women of color activists approached the tensions in the fight
for the right to contraceptives and sterilization? Connect these tensions
and their associated efforts to larger themes regarding personhood,
(im)morality, and agency.

Activity

1. Reproductive politics role play:

a. Aim: Consider the varied dimensions and perspectives of the

debates concerning reproductive politics.
b. Directions: Assign participants roles as “pro-choice advocates”
or “reproductive justice activists.” Participants must “act out”
their designated roles. Improvisation must consider the ideas and
insights form the concepts and theories discussed in the readings
and in the class.

2. Large-group discussion:

a. How did the role you played inform your perspectives on inequality,
reproductive health, and reproductive justice generally?
b. What insights did you not consider?

180 MERIDIANS  15:1
 c. Given your engagements with other perspectives, what would you
have done differently?

Assignment

1. Response paper #2.

Required Readings (Part 2)

• “Beyond ICPD+10: Where Should Our Movement Be Going?” (Corrêa,

Germain, and Petchesky 2005)
• “Construction, Control and Family Planning in Tanzania: Some Bodies
the Same and Some Bodies Different” (Richey 2004)
• “Black Mothers’ Experiences of Violence in Rio de Janeiro” (Rocha
2012)
• “Speaking of Solidarity: Transnational Gestational Surrogacy and the
Rhetorics of Reproductive (In)Justice” (Fixmer-Oraiz 2013)

Discussion
1. Describe the international landscape of reproductive politics at the turn
of the century. How did key moments and actors inform the efforts of
women of color in the United States?
2. How do transnational perspectives inform your understandings of
reproductive justice?
3. How does the intersectionality of identity categories such as race,
gender, class, and nationality shape the politics of reproduction in
different geographic contexts?

Activity
1. Concept map:
a. Aim: Clearly delineate conceptual understandings as they relate to
class readings.
b. Directions: Students are to produce a diagram that details the
origins of reproductive justice in an international context, making
explicit the connections they see between reproductive justice and
other concepts, facts, or ideas they have learned thus far in the
class.
2. Large-group discussion:
a. What remains unclear?

Jallicia Jolly  •  On Forbidden Wombs 181

 b. What connections do you see between reproductive justice and other
events occurring simultaneously (international health conferences,
family planning policy decisions, social and political instability in
specific regions, etc.)?

Assignment
1. Response paper #3.

Lesson 4: Reproductive Justice in Context: Structural and

State-Sanctioned Violence
Objectives: This lesson focuses on identifying how to apply a reproductive
justice framework to contexts of structural inequities and state-sanctioned
violence. It relies on anthropologist Paul Farmer’s understandings of
structural violence as the “systematic assertion of violence that is often
associated with adverse outcomes such as death, injury, illness, subjugation
stigma, and psychological terror” to inform our discussion about how a
reproductive justice approach fits into activists’ agendas and efforts against
issues such as health disparities, police brutality, low quality and poor access
to health care, and environmental racism (Farmer 2004, 308). Students will
be able to describe how notions of privilege, access, and violence coalesce in
the living conditions of multiply marginalized women in different contexts.

Required Readings

• “An Anthropology of Structural Violence” (Farmer 2004)

• “The Murder of Black Youth Is a Reproductive Justice Issue” (McClain
2014)
• “Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Diagnoses of HIV/AIDS—33 States,
2001–2005” (Durant et al. 2007)
• “HIV Among Women” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2016b)
• “Indigenous Peoples of North America: Environmental Exposures and
Reproductive Justice” (Hoover et al. 2012)
• “If You Really Care about Environmental Justice, You Should Care about
Reproductive Justice!” (National Women’s Law Center 2014)

Discussion
1. How do structural violence and state-sanctioned violence intersect?
In what ways are these understandings useful for a transnational
reproductive justice framework?

182 MERIDIANS  15:1
2. How does reproductive justice intersect with police brutality? Health
disparities? Environmental racism? Access to quality care?
3. How do these readings inform your understandings of privilege and
access, as well as your approaches to different forms of violence?

Activity

1. Community partner group visit:

a. Aim: Strengthen understandings of reproductive justice and

its implementation in community contexts by visiting a local
reproductive justice group. Participants will get the opportunity to
discuss how partner groups have used reproductive justice practices
and tools to address unique needs related to their target population.
The visits, which will take up half of the class time, will provide a
unique opportunity to see what reproductive justice looks like “on
the ground” given background knowledge from class readings.
b. Directions: Attend a community engagement learning experience.

2. Large-group discussion on reproductive justice praxis:

a. What reproductive justice practices and ideas in the local partner

group’s approaches stand out to you? Describe the population
targeted, as well as the needs addressed and how they are addressed.
b. How does this engagement shape your understandings of
reproductive justice?
c. What are some lingering questions and initial reactions to the
experience?

Assignment

1. Response paper #4.

Lesson 5: Transnational Reproductive Justice: Praxis and

Possibilities
Objectives: In this lesson participants will discuss what reproductive
justice looks like in a transnational context. In considering how knowledge
travels across national/cultural borders and how women’s health and
reproduction are deeply connected to international politics and events
abroad, this lesson explores the move toward a transnational reproductive
justice framework. Focusing on initiatives that have productively engaged

Jallicia Jolly  •  On Forbidden Wombs 183

 reproductive frameworks and practices transnationally, students will
consider the challenges, successes, and possibilities of these initiatives and
their relevance to the needs, interests, and concerns of women of color in
different regions of the world.

Required Readings
• “Reproductive Justice in Action” (Jordan-Young, Trainor, and Jakobsen
2006)
• “Reproductive Justice: A Global Concern” (Chrisler 2012)
• “Moving toward Sexual and Reproductive Justice: A Transnational and
Multigenerational Feminist Remix” (Garita 2014)
Discussion
1. How does reproductive justice differ from transnational reproductive
justice? Consider how a transnational approach to reproductive justice
challenges, expands, or complicates previous understandings of
reproductive justice.
2. Are the initiatives and ideas discussed in the readings effective in
moving toward a transnational reproductive justice agenda? Consider
their challenges and successes.
3. What opportunities and possibilities does a transnational reproductive
justice framework offer for the liberation of multiply marginalized
people, particularly women of color and queer women, in various
geographic locations?
Activity
1. Application card:
a. Aim: Demonstrate how well learnings about reproductive justice can
be transferred in exploring how to apply transnational reproductive
justice.
b. Directions: Write down one real-word application for transnational
reproductive justice. Consider the context, logistics, resources
(financial, human, technical, etc.). What challenges and successes,
as well as opportunities and possibilities, do you foresee in this
idea’s application? Share with a neighbor, then the whole class in
large-group discussion.

184 MERIDIANS  15:1
2. Large-group discussion(class wrap-up):

a. Look back at your early assumptions and beliefs. What has changed
and/or stayed the same?
b. What new perspectives have you gained? How far have you come?
c. What lingering questions do you have? What do you wish you could
have explored more of?
Assignment

1. Response paper #5.

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