This understanding of liberty does not take into account the many social and economic forces that deny women the ability to make true reproductive choices. Reproductive freedom, then, covers just enough to protect the choices of the most privileged women in our society and offers little for poor women, especially poor women of color. Reproduction is not just a matter of individual choice. Reproductive health policy affects the status of entire groups. Reproductive decisions are made within a social context, including inequalities of wealth and power.
Reproductive freedom is a matter of social justice .
Now let me get personal. It is not only conservative anti-choice lawmakers and activists who have promoted a narrow view of reproductive liberty that leaves out women like Lori Griffin, Yvonne Thomas, and C.K. Our preeminent reproductive rights organizations bear equal responsibility. In promoting access to abortion and birth control, they have almost completely ignored a social justice vision of reproductive freedom. And they have ignored it despite the efforts of women of color who have tried for decades to explain a broader meaning of reproductive health and decision making and to incorporate their experiences into the struggle for reproductive liberty. The gap between these different understandings of reproductive freedom is a painful and costly one.