What Is a Reproductive Justice Organization? Abortion Aid Organizations Incorporating Reproductive Justice Models

Abstract

The broad reproductive justice (RJ) framework that incorporates intersectional, human rights models is utilized by many reproductive health activists and scholars engaged in a wide variety of pursuits and interests, yet there are some critiques that some of these activists and scholars, including those in the abortion landscape, “Whitewash” the RJ framework and thus are not deeply engaging with RJ’s intersectional ideas. Utilizing data from qualitative interviews, I explore how people working at abortion funds and related abortion aid organizations define and attempt to incorporate an RJ framework into their work in post-Dobbs circumstances. Findings reveal that abortion aid activists are deliberately and thoughtfully grappling with the definition of RJ, deciding whether it’s obtainable, and if so, to what extent. Whereas there was no consensus among participants as to whether abortion aid organizations are “truly” RJ, all individuals agreed that they were RJ aligned. These individuals looked to issues of race, class, sexuality, and gender in bodily autonomy, providing a variety of services to marginalized populations, internal staffing structures, and relationships with other RJ organizations as measures of their engagement with RJ values.