Reproductive Justice & SAYHU
In Texas, as in so many other Southern states, access to reproductive health care is under attack. Clinics are closing, people are having to drive farther, wait longer, pay more and do it all with increasing fear and anxiety when they arrive at one of our state’s few remaining clinics, to get a safe and legal medical procedure.
Reproductive Justice (RJ) is social justice activism that focuses on the idea that all people, including transgender and gender non-confirming (TGNC) folks should have the social, political, and economic power and resources to make healthy decisions about their bodies, sexuality, and families. All these factors affect the right to have children, to not have children, and to parent the children we have.
The RJ framework is the solution to the problem of isolating abortion from other social justice issues―a common problem created by not having an intersectional approach. Because reproductive oppression affects our lives in multiple ways, a multi-pronged approach is necessary. There are three main frameworks for fighting reproductive oppression that activists commonly reference:
Reproductive Health, which deals with access to health care services
Reproductive Rights, which addresses legal rights
Reproductive Justice, which focuses on movement building
