Reproductive Rights as Human Rights - by Zakiya Luna (Paperback)

About the Book

""Reproductive Rights as Human Rights" explores women of color and the fight for reproductive justice"--

Book Synopsis

Reveals both the promise and the pitfalls associated with a human rights approach to the women of color-focused reproductive rights activism of SisterSong

How did reproductive justice--defined as the right to have children, to not have children, and to parent--become recognized as a human rights issue? In Reproductive Rights as Human Rights, Zakiya Luna highlights the often-forgotten activism of women of color who are largely responsible for creating what we now know as the modern-day reproductive justice movement.

Focusing on SisterSong, an intersectional reproductive justice organization, Luna shows how, and why, women of color mobilized around reproductive rights in the domestic arena. She examines their key role in re-framing reproductive rights as human rights, raising this set of issues as a priority in the United States, a country hostile to the concept of human rights at home.

An indispensable read, Reproductive Rights as Human Rights provides a much-needed intersectional perspective on the modern-day reproductive justice movement.

Review Quotes

"Reproductive Rights as Human Rights juxtaposes the palliative rhetoric of US and UN human rights promises with the voices of those involved in reproductive justice advocacy, emphasizing the urgent need for policymaking to speak with, to, and for those on the margins."-- "Lateral"

"In an empirically rich text with implications across sociology, feminist studies, anthropology, public policy, and ethnic studies, Reproductive Rights as Human Rights joins a powerful body of scholarship that draws on the unique standpoints of feminists of color for making sense of reproductive politics and strategies for engaging intersecting grievances, motivations, and claims-making."-- "Social Forces"

"Reproductive Rights as Human Rights is a necessary contribution to the scholarship on the reproductive justice movement and the reader will come to understand the movement through Luna's work."-- "Mobilization"

"Through careful analysis and deep, multi-method research, Luna brings to light the story of the struggle of Black women seeking to redefine the reproductive justice movement. In doing so, the book examines some of the most urgent questions of today: how do people come together to redefine their own liberation not only through rights granted by the state, but also in the ways they relate to each other? Further, how does their work push the boundaries of social change, helping us to reimagine a different world? In an uncertain world with yawning gaps between the world we want and the world we have, this book provides fresh insight that scholars and organizers alike desperately need."--Hahrie Han, author of How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century

"Zakiya Luna makes an essential contribution to the growing understanding of the crucial contributions women of color have made to historical and contemporary intersectional movements that embrace both anti-racism and feminism. She also tells a critical story of how the social movement organization SisterSong adapted international human rights discourse in the US domestic context to forge a struggle for reproductive justice."--Jennifer Nelson, author of More Than Medicine: A History of the Women's Health Movement

About the Author

Zakiya Luna is Associate Professor of Sociology and Feminist Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice.