Dorothy Roberts on reproductive justice: ‘Abortion isn’t the only focus’

‘While the mainstream reproductive rights movement focused on abortion, we expanded the definition of reproductive freedom to include not only abortion but also freedom from state interference.’ Photograph: Courtesy Dorothy Roberts

For many women of color, the right to control one’s reproductive destiny has always been about much more than the right to abortion.

With the recent loss of the constitutional right to abortion in the US, some reproductive rights advocates are calling for a renewed focus on reproductive justice, a concept developed in the early 1990s by women of color. Reproductive justice stresses not just the right to abortion, but also economic, racial and environmental justice, along with other facets of social equality, as critical to true reproductive freedom.