BY ARIEL MARTINO

In print | Published September 18, 2008

The Reproductive Justice Panel this past Tuesday drew eighty-five Swatties to a discussion by three panelists on the sexism, racism and classism that pervade reproductive rights organizations to this day.

The panel featured three speakers: Mia Mingus, one of the co-executive directors of SPARK Reproductive Justice Now in Atlanta, Georgia; Kierra Johnson, the executive director of Choice USA; and Aimee Thorne-Thomsen, the executive director of the Pro-Choice Public Education Project.

The discussion centered on the work that the panelists have done in the field of reproductive justice and ways that students can get involved. All three of the panelists emphasized the breadth of the movement and the integral role young people play in it. “Reproductive justice is big. It’s not a message, or a sound byte or something you put on a poster. It’s about people having power, all the power they need to lead healthy lives,” Thorne-Thomsen said.

The reproductive rights movement has taken a stance on reproductive issues, ensuring that women have the ability to make informed, healthy choices about their bodies.

However, this stance is somewhat exclusionary in that it does not address the socioeconomic issues that prevent minorities, queer people, and people below the poverty line from making choices in the same way. The reproductive justice movement combines issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality to promote equal access to reproductive rights. “Reproductive justice is a push back to the reproductive health movement. It’s looking at these issues through a racial lens and a class lens and how that impacts our strategies,” Johnson said.

More than just making sure that reproductive rights choices exist, the movement focuses on making sure that the choice is realistic for everyone, Mingus said. She raised an example of a woman unable to take time off from work to visit a free clinic. “The choice is there, but is it just?” Mingus said.
After the panel, Sable Mensah ’11, the moderator of the event and a board member of the Swarthmore Womyn of Color Collective, was quick to remind guests, “this is just step one for understanding the movement.”

Claire Galpern ’10, a member of White Women Confronting Racism, was one of the driving forces behind finding the women on the panel. She had gained some experience in the movement over the summer in Pittsburgh. “I leaned that the reproductive justice movement looked at reproductive rights in different ways than traditional reproductive rights movements,” Galpern said. She also discovered that several reproductive justice leaders would be meeting at a conference near Swarthmore and had begun to assemble a panel of “committed, passionate, and dynamic women.”

In the future, the sponsoring and co-sponsoring organizations hope to further the discussion about reproductive justice on campus.

Cecilia Marquez ’11 mentioned plans for a panel on “Queering Reproductive Justice” and the possibility of a panel about the intersections between Environmental Justice and Reproductive Justice. “We want to move past dated views of social justice and talk more critically now about how past movements have not succeeded and what our new movements can do to be as inclusive and intersectional as possible,” Marquez said.

The organizers were encouraged by the high turnout at the panel.

“Lots of excitement and energy came out of the panel. People should definitely get in touch with us if they want to learn more,” Galpern said. “I think that the high attendance was students saying these are the types of events we want on this campus and these are the kinds of conversations we are looking for,” Marquez said in an e-mail after the event.

The event was sponsored by the Swarthmore Womyn of Color Collective, a new organization on campus, and co-sponsored by White Women Confronting Racism, ENLACE, Feminist Majority, Deshi, Class Activists, VOX, and Swarthmore Asian Organization with help from the Forum for Free Speech, the President’s Office, the Intercultural Center, the Black Cultural Center, Black Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Sociology/Anthropology Department.

« RETURN TO NEWS

« PREV ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE »