Undivided Rights captures the evolving and largely unknown
activist history of women of color organizing for reproductive
justiceon their own behalf.
Undivided
Rights presents a textured understanding of the reproductive
rights movement by placing the experiences, priorities, and activism
of women of color in the foreground. Using historical research,
original organizational case studies, and personal interviews, the
authors illuminate how women of color have led the fight to control
their own bodies and reproductive destinies. Undivided Rights
shows how women of color-starting within their own Latina, African
American, Native American, and Asian American communitieshave
resisted coercion of their reproductive abilities. Projected against
the backdrop of the mainstream pro-choice movement and radical right
agendas, these dynamic case studies feature the groundbreaking work
being done by health and reproductive rights organizations led by
women-of-color.
The
book details how and why these women have defined and implemented
expansive reproductive health agendas that reject legalistic remedies
and seek instead to address the wider needs of their communities. It
stresses the urgency for innovative strategies that push beyond the
traditional base and goals of the mainstream pro-choice
movementstrategies that are broadly inclusive while being specific,
strategies that speak to all women by speaking to each woman. While
the authors raise tough questions about inclusion, identity politics,
and the future of women’s organizing, they also offer a way out of
the limiting focus on "choice."
Undivided
Rights articulates a holistic vision for reproductive freedom. It
refuses to allow our human rights to be divvied up and parceled out
into isolated boxes that people are then forced to pick and choose
among.