Three U.S. Supreme Court decisions—Griswold v. CT in 1965 ensuring married people the right to use contraception, Eisenstadt v. Baird in 1972 ensuring single people the right to use contraception, and Roe v. Wade in 1973 ensuring women the right to terminate a pregnancy before viability—were boons to women’s reproductive rights. Reproductive rights, however, include not only the right to abortion and contraception, but also the right to make fully informed, autonomous decisions about pregnancy, childbirth and lactation.
Members of the Case Western Reserve University community are invited to a talk titled “Birth, Breastfeeding, and Ballots: Expanding The History and Concept of Reproductive Rights” Tuesday, Oct. 11, from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m. in the Tinkham Veale University Center, Ballroom A.
Part of the “The Essentials of Reproductive Justice: Access, Autonomy, Action” series, this talk will discuss the recent history of birth and breastfeeding practices and explain how focusing the meaning of “reproductive rights” on contraception and abortion endangered a woman’s right to abortion and, ironically, limited women’s reproductive choices in other areas.
Even as the concept of “choice” became synonymous with a woman’s right to decide to become pregnant or not and terminate a pregnancy, women’s voices and choices in the birth and breastfeeding arenas have been constricted to the detriment of women’s and children’s health.
This event has been specifically created for the CWRU campus community to offer a basic understanding of what reproductive justice is and all the ways in which reproductive rights and reproductive health can be affected by social injustices.