Undercurrent-Issue-Fall-Winter-2014-3

Through a framework of reproductive justice, the differences between women can beacknowledged and celebrated, while the systems of oppression that affect their lives and health can berecognized and fought. This can then be used to better inform policy and planning based on women’sneeds and experiences. Development work informed by reproductive justice would include working withwomen in the community; development would become a process they are a part of, rather thansomething that happens to them. This framework has applications across the field of development, andis crucial to recognizing injustices and inequalities in development practice.Reproductive justice forces us to re-examine concepts of choice and access, and recognize thediverse factors that create barriers to accessing reproductive healthcare, or benefitting fromdevelopment initiatives. It brings structural forms of oppression, like racism and sexism, to theforeground of gendered approaches to development, not just within countries of the Global South, but inrelations between countries of the Global North and South. Much international development work hashistorically been predicated on notions of the poor as “voiceless” or “oppressed.” Perhaps, through alens of reproductive justice, we can better understand our own complicity in these narratives and inpropagating these stereotypes. We can then work to dismantle them, and pave the way for betterdevelopment work. By using theory to guide our development practice, we can incorporate frameworkslike intersectionality and reproductive justice into our everyday work, and do justice to the women wework with by refusing to see them as voiceless or oppressed, and instead as partners in development.43