After eight years of relentless attacks on reproductive rights, it is impossible to overstate the relief with which advocates welcomed the election of Barack Obama. His administration acted decisively to reverse some of the most damaging reproductive policies of the Bush era.

Equally promising is the access this administration has provided, not just to traditional players, but to previously marginalized voices from the reproductive justice movement. Inviting representatives from the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Black Women for Reproductive Justice, Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective and the National Network of Abortion Funds to meet with the transition team and later, administration officials, was significant practically and symbolically in terms of legitimizing this movement.

These meetings placed a spotlight on the reproductive health and rights needs of diverse, but too often ignored, constituencies – poor and low income women, immigrants, women in prison, women with HIV and AIDS. Although such needs are central to the ways in which women of color think about reproductive rights, they have not traditionally been part of the mainstream pro-choice agenda. Further, reproductive justice advocates recognize that the right to have children and families has continuously been under attack, and place it, along with abortion rights, at the center of the agenda.

The emergence of a dynamic and growing reproductive justice movement is the most significant development in reproductive politics since the 1970s. The reproductive justice agenda is the first to prioritize the experiences and needs of the most vulnerable. For example, the justice approach to abortion advocacy focuses on access, not just the legal right. Rescinding the Hyde Amendment, the legislation prohibiting federal Medicaid funding for abortion – a back-burner issue for the pro-choice movement – is in the foreground for reproductive justice advocates.

Activism-Analysis Connections
Although the reproductive justice analysis has only been developed in the last decade, women of color have historically made the connections, taking as their starting point resistance to oppressive policies and conditions which have shaped their individual lives and communities. Disproportionate rates of poverty and unemployment, a lack of access to health care services and information, and high incidences of violence create poor health outcomes and constrict reproductive options. The activism of women of color addresses such realities, by redefining reproductive rights and emphasizing the need to achieve the broad set of conditions necessary for reproductive and sexual freedom.

The reproductive justice analysis provides an expansive understanding of reproductive freedom in which race, class, gender and cultural aspects of women’s/people’s lives are inextricably tied. This intersectional and holistic political approach locates reproductive rights and health as part of the struggle for human rights and social justice. Reproductive justice is not a list; it is a lens through which we can look at all issues related to our reproductive lives. Consequently, it is an expanding political agenda that allows reproductive rights activists to continually connect with new allies and incorporates new issues. The approach contrasts sharply with traditional choice politics.

From Choice to Justice
Since the late 1970s, the dominant frame for reproductive rights has been individual choice, and defending the legal right to abortion the sole priority. The language and ideology of choice and privacy replaced women’s rights and even abortion rights. This approach was adopted in hopes that it would have wider appeal and expand the base of support for legal abortion, encompassing even those who were conservative on issues of social and economic welfare. You could be pro-choice and against government funding; you could be pro-choice and against abortion; you could be pro-choice and against welfare; you could be pro-choice and for population control. While in the short run this approach may have drawn allies from the Right, it has left a legacy of political division.

Women of color and their radical white allies have been in the forefront of the critique, arguing that the choice agenda reflects neither the diversity of women’s reproductive experiences nor the range of issues that comprise reproductive freedom. They knew that “choice” does not speak to women who must struggle to meet their basic survival needs, for whom, all too often, both motherhood and abortion are out of reach. Casting abortion as a matter of choice only reinforces the disparity between the predominantly white and middle class women who were seen as the champions of abortion rights and the low income women and women of color who bear the brunt of restrictions. By perpetuating racial and class divisions in the movement, the choice framework weakened the ability to resist threats and secure rights never achieved.

A singular focus on abortion is not adequate even as a way of protecting abortion rights. The opposition has built a movement inspired by a holistic, conservative vision of gender roles, family and sexuality. Countering the forces on the Right requires us to build a similarly broad-based movement. While “choice” is not adequately compelling to mobilize such a movement, reproductive justice is. We face formidable challenges, however, and not just from conservatives.

Current Political Obstacles
Galvanized by the elections, attacks on abortion have escalated. In Congress opponents of abortion are determined to prohibit abortion coverage in health care reform and are mobilizing their forces. The anti-abortion movement continues to push for restrictive laws at the state level to limit abortion access.

And despite the important gains noted at the beginning of this article, we are not as far along as advocates had hoped after electing a pro-choice president and gaining a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. By not asking Congress to rescind the prohibition on public funding of abortion, and appearing to accept the status quo, Obama perpetuates health care disparities by failing to pursue access and justice for women who are low-income and poor, and all women who depend on the federal government for their healthcare.

There has also been a recurrence of deadly political violence. This spring, Dr. George Tiller became the eighth person involved in abortion care to be murdered by an opponent of abortion. We are outraged and frightened not just by these acts, but also by the continuing use of extremist language by those who claim to be “pro-life.” And we are saddened that even among some supporters of legal abortion, Dr. Tiller’s assassination has spurred discussion on the strategic costs of protecting later term abortion.

When Dr. Tiller was shot and killed, some of our staff drafted a statement to ask our local community to reflect on the place of abortion in our society; our own understandings, feelings and values; and how as a community we could hope to move together beyond fear even as our individual judgments remain (and will remain) so polarized and divisive.

More than 36 years after Roe, abortion rights remain an unfulfilled promise for thousands of women; and despite the fact that one in three women have abortions, women seeking services are still burdened by secrecy and shame. This is the other side’s triumph: the legacy of the clinic bombings, terror and rhetoric. But it is also a consequence of advocacy on our side that has not affirmed abortion and women. Recent efforts by Obama and other Democratic leaders to defuse the abortion debate by focusing on abortion reduction and prevention instead of increasing access further compounds the problem. The anti-abortion movement is standing its ground as it aggressively pursues its agenda. In the past, our side has not done the same. Instead, it has defined political goals by what was winnable in the short run, rather than by a long term vision. The reproductive justice movement makes a profound political shift both in terms of power, but also in terms of vision and strategies.

Thinking of abortion as separate from all the other reproductive health needs of women and their families makes it and the women who seek abortions, and the doctors who provide them, vulnerable, too easily singled out for threats, intimidation and violence – “demonized,” like Dr. Tiller, as something outside our community. In our small town, everyone knows who and where the OBGYN and pediatrician practices are, the locations for free condoms and needle exchanges. But why don’t we know who provides abortion services?

Building the reproductive justice movement is our best hope for restoring what has been lost, meeting new attacks, and gaining the full array of reproductive freedoms we never had. It is the most dynamic and inclusive vision for moving us forward. Because it is connected to other health, human rights and social justice movements, this broad and inclusive vision of reproductive freedom provides an opportunity to bring new allies to the abortion rights struggle. We therefore hope that reproductive justice will become the central frame for reproductive rights organizing in the U.S., because it is the right thing to do and the only way to win.