My Church Expanded Its View of Reproductive Justice. Politicians Should Too

In September, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris kicked off her 50-stop “reproductive bus tour” campaign, which began in Florida but will visit various battleground states over the next few weeks leading up to the election. Christians on both sides of the reproductive freedom debate often have strong opinions about abortion, but they rarely consider other issues related to reproductive justice.

For several years, I pastored a small church in the Northwest Bronx. In the summer of 2022, the church leadership decided to dedicate one Sunday a month to do a service project where we engaged in direct political action. It was the summer when Roe v. Wade was overturned, and we focused our attention on reproductive justice. Instead of simply looking at reproductive justice as a pregnant person’s right to receive an abortion, we started thinking of it in broader terms: a better family welfare system in the U.S., honoring the bodily autonomy of birthing people, and taking steps toward improving the material conditions of Black and brown children in the Bronx through mutual aid, collective care, political education, and political solidarity.

I think my congregation and I learned valuable lessons about why it is important for progressive Christians to consider other issues related to reproductive justice and how those issues impact marginalized communities.

One organization that helped broaden our understanding of what reproductive justice means is SisterSong. SisterSong was founded in 1997 by a coalition of Black, brown, and Indigenous women who were dedicated to advocating for reproductive justice in marginalized communities. SisterSong defines reproductive justice as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” This led our community to think about young Black and brown families within our own congregation and our responsibility to collectively care for each other in the absence of robust reproductive justice policies.

Another source that has helped to broaden my understanding of reproductive justice is Dorothy Roberts. Roberts is a legal scholar and sociologist who wrote the 1997 book Killing the Black Body. In that book, Roberts explains that “Reproductive liberty must encompass more than the protection of an individual woman’s choice to end her pregnancy. It must encompass the full range of procreative activities, including the ability to bear a child, and it must acknowledge that we make reproductive decisions within a social context, including inequalities of wealth and power. Reproductive freedom is a matter of social justice, not individual choice.” Our church was already beginning to think about the inequalities of wealth and power within our congregation, as some families had navigated months of uncertainty around job security, food access, childcare, and quality of life in a borough that was severely impacted by COVID-19.

The Sunday following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, my congregation and I studied the history of reproductive justice as defined by SisterSong and Roberts, which led us to the belief that we had a responsibility to not only advocate for pregnant people’s access to abortion, but for other services as well. Previously in 2020, we had joined local efforts to work with community-led organizations focused on ensuring that children have access to “safe and sustainable communities.” Fast-forward to 2022, and keeping SisterSong’s definition of reproductive justice in mind, we saw a new urgency for working with these local efforts.

We partnered with Sistas & Brothas United, the youth arm of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC), which organizes to encourage legislators to consider how marginalized kids in public schools are at a higher risk of being funneled into the prison industrial complex. NWBCCC also advocates for an increase in school social workers and reproductive justice practitioners instead of school police. We had organized with community advocates within NWBCCC to bring single-payer health care to New York state through the New York Health Act, which has still not been passed. The act would alleviate the need for private insurance or high out of pocket costs for pregnant people — a major reason we organized around it.

The criminal legal system, child welfare, and the U.S. health care system all intersect with the issue of reproductive justice for marginalized communities. Roberts’ 2001 Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare is a critique of the state-run programs that disrupt, restructure, and police Black families by separating thousands of Black children from their parents. Roberts also recounts the history of birth control policy and its connection to the racist ideology of the eugenics movement in the 1920s, citing how people were sterilized against their will — a practice that continued well into the 21st century. As a Black queer minister with my own disabilities, it was important that my church’s reproductive justice curriculum consider the ramifications of state policies and how assumptions made by white medical professionals negatively impact those in my community.

If the church wants to be serious about reproductive justice, it will require us to address the historical racism within these systems while also offering positive alternatives.

I think many progressive Christians who care about these topics tend to simply take a candidate’s pro-choice stance as a sign they are committed to reproductive justice. But what I would like to challenge these Christians to do is to push their preferred candidates to adopt a more holistic approach to reproductive justice, one more in line with SisterSong’s definition.

Outside of pushing candidates to adopt broader policies concerning reproductive justice, churches should begin to consider contributing to local mutual aid efforts focused on providing safe and sustainable communities for Black and brown children. Churches should also work with abolitionists, youth organizers, and restorative justice practitioners to learn about local organizing efforts to divert Black and brown children away from the criminal legal system. And then, in cases where pregnant people accrue medical debt, churches should work to pay off this debt and advocate for universal health care, popularly known as “Medicare for All.”

Churches must join the struggle to broaden our definition of reproductive justice because addressing issues such as racism, poverty, and health care directly relate to God’s vision for God’s kin-dom on Earth. Christians should push their candidates to outline a more specific reproductive justice plan that not only makes abortion accessible, but also provides more services for pregnant people, young families, and children.