Reproductive Justice: Policy, Politics, and Intersectionality

Reproductive justice stands at the crucial intersection of gender, politics, and intersectionality, underscoring issues such as bodily autonomy, socioeconomic support for pregnant people and parents, fertility intentions, and the role of sociocultural identity in accessing the medical care that provides products and services in supporting people in their reproductive decisions. We invite scholars working on various aspects of reproductive justice, including contraception, abortion, sexuality education, assisted reproductive technologies, parental leave and benefits, pregnancy care and childbirth, and other topics related to family choice and reproductive justice, to join this section. We deliberately title this section "reproductive justice" to invite intersectional studies that go beyond "reproductive rights" for the wealthy and privileged. Coined by Black feminist community organizer and professor Loretta Ross, a reproductive justice framework espouses a commitment to true "choice" in family structure, free from capitalist coercion and state-sanctioned violence. Reproductive-justice-informed research that highlights issues of "stratified reproduction," pointing to "the power relations by which some categories of people are empowered to nurture and reproduce, while others are disempowered" (Ginsburg/Rapp 1995, in Almeling 2015) is encouraged. Different streams of influence may lead to overt or latent issues of stratified reproduction: institutionally, via legal frameworks and the regulation and provision of services, socially regarding knowledge and norms, and also via individual decisions and behaviors. We highly encourage submissions exploring the influence of diverse marginalized identities such as race, class, nationality, sexuality, and disability on reproductive pathways, in addition to gender. With this, we aim to offer a stage to the multiple and complex ways in which reproduction is regulated, governed, and stratified within a variety of political, social, and individual contexts. We welcome a plurality of methodological and theoretical perspectives. Potential areas of exploration include but are not limited to: • Policy and Politics: How do political mobilization and policy implementation influence citizens’ reproductive trajectories and family choices? How do citizens make sense of these larger political and policy processes? • Theory and Practice: How do theory and praxis meet to ensure just, democratic, and humane treatment for people who are choosing to or choosing not to procreate? • Comparative Analysis: How can we compare different types of reproductive policies or similar policies in different political contexts, and what can cross-national or over-time comparisons add to our knowledge of reproductive policies? • Attitude Formation and Representation: How are attitudes on reproductive policies formed, and (how) do these attitudes translate into policy and representation? • New Methodological Approaches: How to improve the way we measure metrics related to reproductive policies (such as attitudes, laws, access to care in practice, etc.) to enhance reliability and better capture their multidimensional nature? • Impact of Policy Discourse and Narratives: How are reproductive and family policies discussed and debated in different contexts, and how does this framing affect policy outcomes? • Actors and Institutions: What roles do certain institutions and actors play in the discourse, policy process, implementation, and evaluation of reproductive and family policies? • State Agenda: (How) Are states pushing any particular agenda to incentivize their citizens (or certain groups of their citizens) to have children or not have children? How effective are states at trying to influence the demographic makeup of their population? • Academia-Activism Synergy: How can academics and activists learn from each other and work together on the ever-more-polarizing topics of reproductive justice?