Reproductive Justice

The right to have children or not, and the right to live in a healthy environment are central to “reproductive justice.”

Yet many women struggle to access quality comprehensive reproductive health services, birth control and abortion due to the barriers of gender, race, class, sexuality, age, ability, and the environments we live in. The movement for reproductive justice is led by strong groups of women working for full sovereignty over their lives and bodies. Listen and share below. Support these programs.

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Reproductive Justice Shows

7 Shows to Listen to this Women’s History Month

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Reproductive Justice: The Ongoing Struggle for Bodily Autonomy (Encore)

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The Feminist Birth of the Home Pregnancy Test

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Criminalized Survival

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Revolutionary Mothering (Encore)

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Well Nourished: How Mutual Aid is Transforming Food Security for Single Moms in Ohio (Encore)

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Self-Managed Abortion: Medicine of the Future?

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Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice (ENCORE)

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Well Nourished: How Mutual Aid is Transforming Food Security for Single Moms in Ohio

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Post-Roe Abortion Access from The Response Part 2

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Post-Roe Abortion Access from The Response Part 1

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Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice

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Revolutionary Mothering and Reproductive Justice

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She's Beautiful When She's Angry

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It’s Magic: Birth Justice and Black Maternal Health (Encore)

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It’s Magic: Birth Justice and Black Maternal Health

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Don't Let Them See You Bleed: PERIOD

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Abortion Beyond Clinics: Call Jane

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Choice, Church and State: Poland, Ireland, the USA : Women Rising 37

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Abortion Beyond Clinics Pt. 1: Call Jane

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Reproductive Justice from El Salvador to the U.S.

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At the Intersection of Faith and Reproductive Justice

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Beyond Choice: Organizing for Reproductive Justice

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Demographic Danger: A Look at Maternity Wards and Segregation in Israel

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Rad Dads!!!

Fathers…and mothers…on fatherhood and how it’s changing. Traditional ideas about what a dad is supposed to be are slowly disappearing, but what will take their place?[...]

Abortion Access and Eroded Rights

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China’s Reproductive Regime: Mei Fong & Barbara Demick on China’s one child policy

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Abortion Access Under Attack

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Abortion Access and Eroded Rights

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For Undocumented Women Seeking Reproductive Healthcare, Policing and Politics Create a Maze of Barriers

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Not Throw Away Women: Black and Indigenous Women Disrupt Violence

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Living Downstream-creating a world free of cancer causing toxics

Renowned biologist Sandra Steingraber has made fighting environmentally induced cancers her life’s work. We hear excerpts of the documentary film, Living Downstream, which chronicles her efforts to create a world free of cancer causing toxics.[...]

My Body My Message: women's bodies as tools of self-empowerment

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Making Contact's Violence Against Women of Color Live Chat

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Loretta Ross on Trust Black Women and the fight for Reproductive Justice

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What can Nick Cannon and Nicki Minaj teach us about abortion?

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Investigating #Reprorights in Mexico

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Motherhood by Choice not Chance

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My Body My Message: women's bodies as tools of self-empowerment

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Healthy Messages: Reproductive Health and Pop Culture

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Songs in the Key of Choice: Pop Music and Reproductive Justice

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Rad Dads!!!

Fathers…and mothers…on fatherhood and how it’s changing. Traditional ideas about what a dad is supposed to be are slowly disappearing, but what will take their place?[...]

Our Bodies, Our Stories: Reproductive Health Behind Bars

Pregnant women in America’s prisons are being shackled to their beds; others are being sterilized. Correctional institutions claim the policies are for safety’s sake, but thousands of incarcerated people are fighting for control of their own reproductive health. [...]

Motherhood by Choice not Chance

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Conquest: Sexual Violence and Native American Genocide

Native American women experience the highest rates of violence of any other group in the United States. One in three native women have been victims of sexual assault and the murder rate of indigenous women is consistently higher than the[...]

Plan B and Beyond: Local Struggles for Reproductive Freedom

It’s not just about Roe v Wade and the Supreme Court. Local institutions can create restrictions that prevent women from exercising reproductive health choices, even with the law on their side. From Albuquerque to Portland to New York City,[...]

Living Downstream

Renowned biologist Sandra Steingraber has made fighting environmentally induced cancers her life’s work. We hear excerpts of the documentary film, Living Downstream, which chronicles her efforts to create a world free of cancer causing toxics.[...]

Our Bodies, Our Stories: Reproductive Health Behind Bars

Pregnant women in America’s prisons are being shackled to their beds; others are being sterilized. Correctional institutions claim the policies are for safety’s sake, but thousands of incarcerated people are fighting for control of their own reproductive health. [...]

Human Rights: Not Just for Humans (& Corporations) Anymore?

Corporations have the same rights as people. But do our communities and natural ecosystems have any rights? How about our bodies, cells and genetic material? Thomas Linzey and Katherine Davies argue that in order to defend our bodies and our[...]

Population Control or Population Justice?

Shrinking the world’s population is one way to curb global warming, according to some environmentalists. To make that happen, women need more control of their own fertility. But those perspectives are controversial. Can a movement for ‘population justice’ save our[...]

The Light Inside: Giving Birth Behind Bars

A look at pregnancy, and motherhood, inside US jails and prisons. What does the huge number of incarcerated women in prison foretell for the next generation of America’s kids?[...]

Who Controls Black Women's Bodies? (Encore)

Reproductive health services for women are under attack, leaving poor women and women of color lacking access. But a broad coalition of women is striking back, changing the conversation on abortion and race.[...]

Melissa Harris-Perry: Confronting Stereotypes of the Black Woman

On this edition, author and political science professor Melissa Harris-Perry speaks about the stereotypes black women face, its impacts on their identity and how it has limited the ways in which society views them as true “citizens.”[...]

The Toxic Truth About Nail Salons (Encore)

We take a look at the health impacts of chemical exposure, the shoddy regulation of cosmetics, and the movement towards greener nail salons.[...]

Who Controls Black Women's Bodies?

Reproductive health services for women are under attack, leaving poor women and women of color lacking access. But a broad coalition of women is striking back, changing the conversation on abortion and race. WARNING: This program contains graphic language.[...]

A Woman's Rise to Power: Struggle and Success

In 2011, why are there fewer than 20 female heads of state around the world? A former President, a Supreme Court justice and other women leaders reflect on the battles they’ve won on the way to the top of their[...]

Nail Salon Businesses Go Green in Bay Area

Nail salon workers and advocates are pushing hard to change public policy around exposure to toxic chemicals. But there’s also a movement coming from businesses themselves to make the salons greener and safer for workers and consumers. Correspondent Momo[...]

Nail Salon Workers Speak Up About Chemical Exposure

Making Contact Producer Pauline Bartolone explores the health impact of chemical exposure on nail salon workers, and what groups are doing to protect them. [...]

The Toxic Truth About Nail Salons

We take a look at the health impacts of chemical exposure, the shoddy regulation of cosmetics, and the movement towards greener nail salons.[...]

Sex, Lies, and the Classroom

Decades after Roe v. Wade, many young people still lack the resources to make informed choices about sex. On this edition, a discussion about comprehensive sex Ed in schools, federal funding, and parental involvement.[...]

'Hyde-ing' the Right to Choose

Stupak, the Hyde Amendment, and religion. We take a look at some of the threats to abortion access, more than thirty-five years after Roe V. Wade legalized a woman’s right to have an abortion.[...]

Guard Us All? Immigrant Women and the HPV Vaccine

A controversial vaccine is at the intersection of immigrant rights and reproductive justice organizing. The HPV vaccine is mandatory for permanent resident status, and advocates say it follows a history of controlling the bodies of women of color.[...]

Parental Notification: Protecting Our Youth?

We hear from a group in California that says a proposition requiring parental notification before abortion threatens the health, safety and rights of young women, especially communities of color and immigrant communities. We also visit Texas where both parental notification[...]

For Us, By Us. Health Care after Katrina

Hurricane Katrina was one of the most destructive disasters in U.S. history for human lives and destroyed property. And while a full three years have passed since the storm, New Orleans and the surrounding region are still in a state[...]

When Your Back's Against the Wall, You Gotta Dance: On the Frontlines of Reproductive Justice

Women, particularly poor and homeless women, young women and women of color, across the nation are struggling with access to quality comprehensive reproductive health services.[...]

Still Talking About Sex

On this edition, we’ll hear from the former attorney general, Joycelyn Elders, who to this day remains a fierce advocate for health related policies.[...]

On New Ground: Liberating Gender & Sexuality

How do we challenge and overcome gender and sexual oppression? Three speakers at the Atlanta U.S. Social Forum have some answers.[...]

Reproductive Justice: Voices from SisterSong

Women in the reproductive justice movement seek the basic human right to control their bodies. This includes a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy, and the rights to have a child, and to parent that child. On this edition from[...]

Last Stand for Choice in Mississippi

In Jackson, Mississippi the battle over abortion was kicked into high gear when an eight day anti-abortion demonstration ensued in the state's capital this past summer. On this edition, we take a closer look at the women fighting to save[...]

Enduring Choice

On this edition we hear about the common thread that connects women from all walks of life. From prison cells, to the barrios in Fresno, California, women of color are organizing around the broad theme of reproductive justice.[...]

The Intimate Ecology of Motherhood

On this Women's Desk edition of Making Contact, we'll hear Steingraber's speech at the Women's Environmental Health and Justice Bay Area Summit in San Francisco in October of 2003.[...]

Reproductive Slights: The Erosion of Abortion Access

On this program from the Women's Desk, we look at how low-income women and young women are losing their access to abortion.[...]

Regulating Motherhood: Race, Class and Policy

On this program from the Women's Desk of the National Radio Project, we discuss how drug laws, welfare reform, and the foster care system affect women and families who are low-income.[...]