Reproductive Justice - California National Organization for Women

Reproductive Justice

Reproductive Justice exists when all people have the social, political and economic power and resources to make healthy decisions about our gender, bodies, sexuality and families for ourselves and our communities.
Reproductive Justice aims to transform power inequities and create long-term systemic change, and therefore relies on the leadership of communities most impacted by reproductive oppression.

The reproductive justice framework recognizes that all individuals are part of families and communities and that our strategies must lift up entire communities in order to support individuals. At its most basic, reproductive justice is a woman’s right to control her own body. This right involves so much more than the freedom to have (or not to have) children. Reproductive Justice includes access to equitable reproductive health services, including access to pap tests and pre-natal care, access to comprehensive, accurate and unbiased and culturally competent reproductive health information, including information about contraception, family planning and sexually transmitted diseases, and the freedom to exercise these rights regardless of who you are or how much money you have.

California has the strongest reproductive rights laws in the nation – even broader and more protective than those provided under the United States Constitution. But even here in California, access is severely restricted due to hospital and clinic closures, as well as, takeovers by Catholic Hospital West, among other private hospital corporations that refuse to provide full reproductive health care based on religious objections. That's why the fight continues for reproductive justice.