Reproductive justice was created in 1994 by a group of Black women who met in Chicago before the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. They combined the ideas of reproductive rights and social justice. They argued that the choice-centered abortion rights movement did not reflect the full needs of women of color.
The framework rests on three principles: the right not to have a child, the right to have a child and the right to parent children in safe and sustainable communities. SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, founded in 1997, has helped spread the framework. Its former national coordinator, Loretta Ross, is one of its best-known voices.
The framework responds to a history in which women of color were denied the right to have children as well as the right not to. North Carolina's eugenics board authorized the sterilization of about 7,600 people from 1929 to 1974. In 1973, two Black sisters in Alabama, ages 12 and 14, were sterilized in a federally funded clinic. Since Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ended the federal right to abortion in 2022, reproductive justice advocates have focused on abortion access alongside maternal health, contraception and support for parents.