Birth Justice
Pregnancy experiences and outcomes can be dramatically different for different people, especially for members of vulnerable communities like women of color, immigrants, LGBTQ people, disabled women, and those with low incomes, among others. There is a pressing need to find solutions to improving care quality and access for racially marginalized communities. Birth justice is a movement led by Black women and women of color that seeks to recognize those inequalities and to empower people in these communities in the pregnancy and birthing process. The birth justice movement works to safeguard the rights of birthing people to make decisions around their pregnancies, including seeking abortions, and to have children in safe and supportive environments.
Birth Justice is a component of reproductive justice, which is the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent existing children in safe and sustainable communities. For more resources on birth justice and related work, visit UCSF's California Pre-term Birth Initiative and the Voices for Birth Justice campaign.
